1.3 Teamwork

Season 1 Episode 3
"Teamwork"
Writer: Cheryl Saban
Director: Robert Hughes

Episode Summary:
BFF Trini and Kimberly open this episode pleading with their fellow students to help them close an industrial dump-site in Angel Grove.  We meet Angel Grove High Principal Mr Kaplan who voices his support for the girls' endeavor.  Bulk and Skull tease Kim and Trini by throwing trash on the floor in front of them.  They throw a barrel at the girls which Kim flips over and Skull says something witty about her finally flipping over him.  Zack, Jason, and Billy all come up with lame excuses as to why they can't help their female counterparts do something that saves the world in a different way (sexism, much?) and leave the girls to take their petition to the dump-site alone.  Rita Repulsa is inspired to attack Kim and Trini before the boys can help and thereby weaken and ultimately destroy the Power Rangers. 

The girls have an awkwardly choreographed fight scene with the putties, Zack teaches Alpha 5 his brand of hip-hop martial arts (Hip-Hop Kido), the boys morph to battle Rita's Minotaur monster.  The girls beat the putties and morph to join the boys.  They form Megazord who (to me) looked like he was kicking the Minotaur's ass but apparently was not inspiring Zordon to give the Rangers their Power Weapons.  They combine their weapons and kill the Minotaur.  Back at school, the Rangers use teamwork to clean up the mess Bulk made earlier and confuse Principal Kaplan because, as children's shows have taught us, all adults are stupid.  Alpha 5 shorts the computers in the Command Center trying to practice Zack's patented Hip-Hop Kido, but obviously robots have no rhythm and the episode is given a humorous conclusion.

Facts:
-First Line - "Stop the pollution of our neighborhood" - Trini
-First on-screen Ranger - Kim
-Last Line - "Forget about the hip-hop, man, keep being a robot and keep that control console working." - Zack
-Zordon introduces the Power Weapons in this order
Power Lance (Billy), Power Bo (Kimberly), Power Sword (Jason), Power Axe (Zack), and Power Daggers (Trini)
-This is our first introduction to Principal Kaplan
-Walter Jones (Zack) is missing a finger
-A Ranger says "it's morphin time" for the first time

Observations: 
We see Saban's genius splicing the Japanese Sentai fight-scene footage with his American teenager footage in full-force in this episode.  Example, we see the morphed Yellow and Pink Rangers in the foreground with the giant Minotaur fighting the boys in the background . . . and they have an unexplained small child with them in the shot.   Additionally, this is the first time Zordon explicitly designates a leader - Jason.  His Power Sword holds the power to all the weapons, which kind of isn't too smart in case something happens to his sword.  I hope something doesn't happen that would isolate Jason from the team and jeopardize this.

Additionally, Zack's Hip-Hop Kido doesn't look anything like martial arts, but rather break-dancing.  But now I just sound petty.  The thing that stood out most to me in this episode is that Rita's plan is to isolate rangers from each other in order to weaken the team (hence the episode name) - which on paper sounds really smart.  So smart we'll see her do this about 120 other times before the series end.

Early Hypothesis:
Rita has difficulty accepting responsibility for her own actions.  She seems to blame either Goldar or Finster for her problems when both are merely trying to make her happy.  If she can do it so much better, why doesn't SHE go to earth and become giant and try to beat Megazord.  Frankly, I'd like to give Goldar a medal as the only bad guy who consistently battles and NEVER DIES. 

Also, I'd like to propose to the Baltimore Orioles - please sign Rita Repulsa, her throwing arm (and aim) is out of this world (literally).