I loved Beetleborgs as a kid but it has not aged well at all. Maybe it was never good in the first place...

I don't think it's really case of it not aging well, more that it doesn't know what the hell it wants to be half the time.

The initial concept is great, but then having all these haunted house monsters take the central focus more than the oh-so-sweet B-Fighters footage just ruins it. If it wanted to just be about the haunted house gang, I'm sure it'd probably be a fine show. A fine show NONE of us would want to watch, but you get my point :lol

I will defend the Shadowborg 6-parter to death though.

The concept of Beetleborgs is fine, but yeah, the inserts just make no sense to me. I suppose I could watch it with the insert shots on mute? :D

No, Beetleborgs was just never good to begin with. I hated that show. It got slightly better at the very end when Nukus came in and helped the villains get wiped out, but after the first few episodes of Metallix, the show went right back into mediocrity.

Anyway, I think my second MMPR disc is defective of S1V1. First, there seemed to be some weird glitching during the fight scene with the Putties in the Terror Toad episode as the video kept repeating scenes and moving in what seemed like still shots at times. Secondly, for some reason after the third episode on the disc it took me automatically to the episode select menu and it will not go back to just playing the episodes one right after another.

So I checked out the opening episode of Mighty Morphin again and tried to take a step back from it and be critical of it on an entertainment level, rather than my usual take a chainsaw to it approach.

And honestly...it is actually really fun, I mean it's still shit and mind numbingly stupid but if you let it be it's very entertaining.

The core five are really really likeable characters - well minus Kimberly who is like, so shallow, and oh my God! Their acting really isn't that bad when you compare it to some of the other people Saban go on to employ, the unmorphed fight scenes are very well done and the ridiculously poorly filmed Zyuranger footage (seriously did Japan film this on betamax or what? It looks like shit) and God Awful dubbing means it's absolutely hilarious in a so bad it's good fashion.

I'm not sure why the Zyu footage looks faded on in MMPR because it doesn't look that way at all on the Zyu DVDs.

Anyway, I just finished the first volume and man, it brings a lot of nostalgia back. I agree with what you said for the most part Locke, but I also hate how there was no narrative to follow in the early seasons. It was pretty much made to just keep going on and on without any semblance of a story or objective. That does not automatically make it bad, but it just makes it inferior to later seasons, especially since there really is no character growth because of this.

I have to laugh at scenes that were poorly placed in there like Pink Ranger holding a Japanese kid when they look at the giant Minotaur monster and Franky being in the background when Finster is putting together the Super Putties the episode AFTER Franky was destroyed.

Lastly, I just realized why the GR shield looks so crappy in the US footage. Back when Tony Oliver was at NDK in 2011 he said that when he was initially going through the ZyuRanger footage he came across episode 17, which was planned to be the 12th episode of MMPR and it featured Dragon Ranger. He said his eyes flipped when he saw that there was another ranger in the show and he had to call Saban immediately to have an emergency meeting over the Green Ranger, and they had to have the ranger casted and ready to film in 2 weeks time from when he saw that episode. I believe he said that is also why you see a few episodes from the later portions of ZyuRanger in that time frame. As such, they had 2 weeks to make a GR costume, which probably explains the crappy cloth shield.

With that said, on to disc 1 of Volume 2.

Oh wow, really? Never knew that...

Yeah, it was quite hilarious the things he talked about. That, him being the Wizard of Deception in the WRvsGR episode and the Australian crew looking at him oddly since he was also the producer. The story about how PR became a union show in Australia during the filming of the movie, along with some other hilarious stories to boot. Tony was awesome to meet.

With that said, how fitting. I started the day out with Green With Evil and ended the day on The Green Candle.

This has always been my barrier, there are some seasons of Power Rangers that are actually good. They tell a coherent story and have something to say, and have deep characters to tell it with who grow over the course of the season.

So really Might Morphin doesn't even hold a candle, so really, accepting the show is shit and just enjoying how bad it is, is as far as I can process, the only way to appreciate the season.

You guys are totally over-analyzing this. MMPR exists to simply entertain, to be consumed in bite-sized, 22 minute chunks with the occasional multi-part episode (more as the series progresses). It's goofy and silly but you watch it with a smile on your face and as a kid it spurs your imagination. Same with VR Troopers and Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad.

I much, much prefer this method of pure entertainment than a season like RPM, which is trying entirely too hard to be serious, and ends up coming off as grit-teethed, poseur, live-action fanfic. Especially considering that the source material for RPM would lend it self well to a lighter show.

There is a happy medium to be had -- I'd say that In Space, Lost Galaxy, Lightspeed Rescue, and Time Force form a 4 year block of very strong televsion which mixes bite-sized "pure entertainment" with longer form stories and characterization. I am not a huge fan of Time Force but there is no denying that the show is rock solid from a storytelling standpoint.