The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always Special Is a Fun and Sweet Love Letter to Nostalgia - Reactor

At one point in the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always stand-alone 30th anniversary special, Billy, Zack, and Trini’s daughter, Minh, sit at a table in the Angel Grove Youth Center, a gym and juice bar that was a frequent set piece in the early seasons of the ‘90s hit show. The colors and lights are so vibrant—the set so accurate that you can almost smell coconut smoothies—that it’s an instant, visceral flash-back to another time.

“Look at this place,” Billy says wistfully. “I mean, it’s as if nothing’s changed. It’s just a little bit smaller, maybe?”

Zack shrugs and offers, “Maybe we’ve grown?”

Yeah, I’m a softie, but it was one of the (many) moments in the 55-minute special—launched worldwide on Netflix on April 19 in celebration of the smash-hit kids show—that flying-kicked me in the feelings. The lines also perfectly capture the experience of watching something that, in a way, feels like catching up with old friends in a place you once loved.

Whether you used to jump off the school bus every day, sprint to the couch, and switch the TV to Fox Kids in anticipation of the latest episode (guilty), or have never seen a minute, everyone knows the general gist of the Power Rangers. Evil space sorceress Rita Repulsa is bent on conquering Earth. Mysterious mentor Zordon and his quirky robot Alpha 5 recruit five “teenagers with attitude” to fight her goofy monsters (a giant tube of lipstick! a giant armored turkey!). Enter quippy dialogue and lessons about teamwork and conquering your fears. Add a hefty dose of color-coded suits, flashy weapons, and fight sequences with giant dinosaur robots called “zords” that basically turned the episodes into long toy commercials, and you’ve got Power Rangers in a nutshell.

And, as a kid who was seven when Power Rangers first aired, it was—as OG Pink Ranger Kimberly would say—totally awesome.

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The Archive Undying

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After the first six seasons of a continuous, overarching storyline, the still-running series switched characters and themes every season or two, becoming more or less self-contained stories per team, like its source material, the long-running Japanese Super Sentai franchise. There have been reunion episodes and appearances by former rangers before, sure. But the Netflix special doesn’t assume viewers have an encyclopedic knowledge of a franchise that spans nearly a thousand episodes, three movies, and multiple comics and video games. Instead, Once & Always feels like it’s aimed at millennials who, like me, watched the first handful or less of seasons, before venturing to other worlds and stories.

Maybe the biggest strength of Once & Always is that it doesn’t try to be something other than a standout Power Rangers episode. The special is slightly more mature in tone, yes, as it sees characters dealing with the death of the original Yellow Ranger, Trini Kwan (once played by Thuy Trang, who passed away in a car accident in 2001) and the legacy she leaves behind for her teenaged daughter Minh (series newcomer Charlie Kersh). After the first trailer dropped, diehard devotees were quick to point out that Rita used the word “kill”—a big no-no for a kids’ show that frequently had her declaring, “I’ll destroy you!” instead. But that’s about as dark as the story treads. And hey, have you seen the world outside? Does every superhero movie need to go dark and gritty? Maybe some levity is cool once in a while.

It’s not really spoiler-y to say that you can pull the special’s plot beats from just about any season-one episode. Genius Blue Ranger Billy (now a mature Tony Stark-like founder of Cranston Technologies, played once again by David Yost) invents a spectacular machine which backfires. Rita (voiced by Barbara Goodson) gets a robotic makeover and is back for revenge, still in her impeccable cone bra and waving her wand. In the aftermath of a tragedy, Black Ranger Zack (Walter Jones) takes on the role of selfless father figure. Billy and Zack are soon joined by former Red Ranger Rocky (Steve Cardenas), and Pink Ranger Kat (Catherine Sutherland), with appearances by former teammates Adam (Johnny Yong Bosch) and Aisha (Karan Ashley). The rangers embark on a journey to save the world and find their own inner strength on the way, and—as it happens in just about every classic episode—everything is neatly tied up by the end.

For all the familiarity, a few smart changes feel fresh, thanks to that sweet, sweet Netflix budget. The suits and helmets boast some new details that pop in HD (love the tweaks to the black ranger helmet, the thicker feel of the suits, and the subtle scale-like textures on the gloves and boots) and the special-effects are lightyears better. The Command Center sports a scifi makeover. The weathered textures on the zords—with the summoning and transformation sequences beautiful and painstaking recreations of the original footage—makes them look like the battle-hardened machines they’re supposed to be. But all in, don’t expect a different spin that’s akin to the (entirely entertaining) 2017 movie. Praise be to Zordon.  

Netflix was smart to call this short jump back into the Megazord cockpit an “anniversary special.” It’s a hint that you should just enjoy this as a big-hearted sendup that doesn’t try to—and how can it?—answer a million continuity questions. And do yourself the immense gift of not looking up nitpicks online, which started after the first trailers dropped. Who really cares that the outfits for the Putties aren’t exactly the same, or that Alpha looks a little different? The franchise doesn’t owe fans anything, just like the actors who, for valid reasons of their own, chose not to participate in the special. And undoubtedly the absent Tommy will get a spiritual sendoff in the upcoming Power Rangers-inspired Legend of the White Dragon original film when it’s released later this year, starring the late Jason David Frank, the OG Green Ranger.

There’s some responsibility, too, on the part of the audience ahead of viewing. Certainly, before reviewing. Like, just how seriously are you going to take this? You could sit down and snoop for plot holes, sure. Why does intergalactic war criminal Rita stop attacking long enough for the rangers to have a heart-to-heart? Just how are the original dino zords still around? Why is no one talking about the ethics of powerful beings recruiting child soldiers? But, ai-yi-yi, cynical adults. Chill out. Grab some snacks (I for one suggest the period-accurate pairing of Dunkaroos and Capri Sun). You’re watching a show aimed at kids and pre-teens. Too much criticism is one big Power Blaster shot at a piece of media that asks of you, truly, “just have fun.”

That’s not to say that the story lacks substance. The events and characters—anchored by solid performances from the cast—do impart a lot of heart. The story revolves around familiar superhero tropes of responsibility, guilt, and sacrifice. We’re so used to the grounded-in-reality Marvel movies, and Batman’s gravelly voice, and Superman snapping necks, that this time-warp special feels like a breather that’s unafraid to slip into occasional sentimentality and goofiness.

And yes, there’s cheese, with a few funny Gen-Z lingo shout-outs and some playful jabs at sillier aspects of the show. But embrace the cheese! It’s unfair to ding a show for being cheesy when kids’ shows are, at their cores, cheese plates. Go watch Succession for gravitas and Shakespearean machinations (seriously, go watch Succession). Besides, re-watch the early X-Men movies with a sleeve of saltines handy to pair with that cheese-fest, too. The special, like the show’s best moments, showcases a sweet kind of generosity on the part of its actors who deliver lines like “I don’t care how dangerous too much pink energy is” with total sincerity. Plus, we get to see superheroes over the age of forty, including a butt-kicking mom. Let’s have more superhero moms.

Besides, there’s really something moving about the present time that the special lets you imagine, how the six core rangers from the first season—even after their paths diverged many years ago—somehow find themselves back together again and defending Angel Grove. Or maybe they never really left. And that’s not to diminish the impact of characters who joined in other seasons, who are a part of the family, too. As the series often reminds viewers: “Once a ranger, always a ranger.” And that motto has seemingly always included the audience of the still-passionate fan base, too.

I remember vividly in 1993 how the show was everywhere. Anchors talked about Power Rangers mania on the nightly news. My local newspaper ran a story that suggested the show would inspire violence in kids. Mostly, it inspired in me an obsessive thirst for toys. Bless those patient Toys-R-Us employees I used to call weekly, looking for an always sold-out Dragon Dagger toy my parents couldn’t afford, anyway. (I picked up one on the cheap off eBay a few years back and now it’s sitting in a closet in my house. No regrets!)

I owe a lot to Power Rangers. It got me into superheroes and scifi, and karate for a few brief years. My small dojo was basically the one place where my quietness was seen as discipline, and I wasn’t just “that weird kid who never talks.” I grew up in a predominantly white town, and the show introduced me to heroes I loved from historically marginalized perspectives—with characters of color in charge, with the girls just as strong and cool as the boys—long before the current big studios wised up and did the same.

I used to write stories about the show on my family’s first computer. While these were so, so cringe-worthy (and thankfully long gone), I can trace my current passion as author of novels and short stories to that storytelling spark the show helped me discover. And of course, a young gay kid like me—who was just starting to realize he was different from other boys—felt drawn to the idea of a secret identity. It led me to hang onto Power Rangers for a few years after my classmates stopped watching. Because maybe I wasn’t a freak. I had a secret, just like the rangers. Something that made me different, that was also a source of strength. Even if it took me years to realize that last part. (And hey, maybe one day I could pilot a giant dinosaur robot, too?)

So back to the action with Billy, Zack, and Minh in the Youth Center. The world of this one Once & Always special is smaller, sure, shrunk down to a handful of settings compared to the planet-hopping of other franchises. And all of us have grown these past thirty years. But for just an hour, let the guitar riff from that earworm of a theme song wash over you, and let yourself relive that childhood joy that the show serves up on a multi-colored platter. You’re home from school and you don’t even have any homework yet. When battles get tough, your friends roll in, and maybe you all get a few shiny new weapons. And the good guys always win in the end.

Nathan Tavares is a writer and editor from Boston. His debut novel A Fractured Infinity came out in December 2022, and his second novel Welcome to Forever comes out on November 7, 2023 from Titan Books.