Project Phase One - Results

After last week's sneak-peek at the first ten episodes, I'm happy to present my first round of results.  So let's look at the data and make some inferences about the power hierarchy in the Power Rangers original lineup.

Character Development

Observations.

As we looked at before, the first and last lines of the show are important to draw the viewer in to this world of spandex-clad heroes and leave us feeling compelled to come back and watch the next episode as well.  In line with the results after episode 10, it appears that Kimberly kept up the trend of opening episodes whereas Zack took over the lead for closing episodes.  Given, his lead over Kim for closing episodes is merely 6%.  Nearly half of all episodes open with a Kimberly line (as they should).  One would expect this to correlate with another parameter - first Ranger to appear on-screen in each episode.

However, despite the fact that Kimberly has a knack for opening episodes, she is not as often the first on-screen Ranger.  That honor belongs to underdog, Jason.  To be fair, a majority of Jason's appearances are alongside another Ranger (i.e. we see him sparring with Zack or teaching Trini a new karate move).  This is evident in his correlation with Zack's first on-screen appearances.

While opening and closing shows is important - what's going to keep a viewer coming back for more?  The character carrying the story for each episode.  This is indicative of who the audience finds the most entertaining to watch or the character they're most willing to come back for.  My findings are not at all surprising - Kimberly and Trini are tied with 6 episodes each.  While Trini had the early lead after episode 10, it appears that Kimberly is more than making up for lost time.  To add a personal anecdote, "Foul Play in the Sky" was my first episode in 1993 and look where I am now.  Kimberly clearly drew me in for more.

Conclusions.

While Jason may be the designated leader of them as a fighting squad, there's not much in the way of character development leaving him rather flat.  Billy is at least fleshing out to have individual interests and show some semblance of a personality.  Zack is largely ignored in the beginning episodes - left behind to be a supporting character with only one episode about him wherein he believes himself to be forgotten (my guess is he's seen the rest of the show and realizes it's highly probable that he was in fact forgotten).  Trini and Kimberly have the highest concentration of episodes about them with Billy not too far behind.  My original hypothesis was that perhaps episodes tend to focus on the girls since female viewers are more likely to tune in for story as opposed to action - but I'm wondering now if it's simply that Amy Jo Johnson is the break-out star of the show. 

The question becomes - was MMPR successful because of Kimberly?  Or did Amy Jo become successful because of MMPR?

BACK TO ACTION!

Observations.

The three main components to look at for the morphed Rangers are: who says "it's Morphin time", who is the first to action (first hit), and who kills the monster.  If Jason is the leader, we would assume that he says "it's Morphin time" the most - and the data support this.  With the exception of Zordon calling the Rangers to action in the first two episodes - it's almost all Jason.  However, starting in "Power Ranger Punks" we notice something new and different - someone who is not Jason gets the opportunity to say those words.  Prior to this episode, even if a Ranger morphs on their own, they do not say the words but merely hold out their morpher and assume the morphing pose.  Billy and Kimberly muster up the strength to say the words together for the first time - and then Kimberly seems to forget that she's a girl and starts saying it all over the place (by this I mean twice). 

Looking at who is the first to action - we see that the numbers are pretty evenly split.  There is somewhat of a correlation between being the character focus of the episode and having the first hit - but not enough to suggest a trend.  We can see this in the fact that the girls (combined) get the first hit nearly half the time and are also the episode focus about half the time - but Jason and Zack's first hit percentages throw off any sort of statistical correlation.

Lastly, let's look at who kills the monster.  After episode ten, we noticed that Trini was the only Ranger to kill a monster on her own and it happened all of once.  Continuing the trend from our last observation, Megazord continues to be the most dominant monster-killer (at 44% of all monster killings).  What's interesting to note is that Alpha 5 is responsible for defeating a monster (the Genie) and ties himself with Trini at one monster each leaving most monsters defeated by either Megazord or through the Rangers combined weapons (63% of the time this is the case).  However, we notice another new parameter that was not present in our last observation - Kimberly kills two monster on her own giving her the lead as Ranger who's killed the most monsters on her own.

Conclusions.

My original hypothesis was that Kimberly and Trini may lead in character development and story lines - but when it comes to action, Jason is the man.  He's the martial arts expert (in real life) and it can be assumed that he therefore should kick the most ass on the show.  But the data is suggesting this isn't necessarily the case.  Jason leads and commands - but he's much more of a team player than I would have thought.  The only times monsters are killed by individual Rangers instead of the team are when the girls do it.  Or more specifically, when Kimberly does it.

Morphing Order Flow-Chart

While I attempted to put aside my own bias (that Kimberly is the best Ranger ever FTW) - the data is suggesting that Kimberly is in fact the most important all-around Ranger.  While she doesn't take command the way Jason does, she's a utility player that takes command when Jason's not around.  She drives storylines and shows us something no other Ranger does: popularity.  I think a lot of this comes from the fact that the characters (with the exception of Billy and Kimberly) are rather flat and not given much to do and never stray far from their stereotypes characters.  Zack always dances and says something sassy, Trini always does everything, and Jason always kicks things.  Billy's a nerd - but he can also be a valley girl and a punk.  Kimberly's a girly-girl - but she's also a gymnast, a nerd, and a punk.

I'm interested to see what happens with the other characters, will they be developed further or has Saban relegated them to background characters while he fleshes out the characters the kids have shown an interest in (Kimberly and I suppose Billy).  Next we're moving in to the Green Ranger saga which will completely throw everything for a loop.  Hold on to your morphers, kids, things are about to get morphinominally kookie.