Project Phase Two - Results

Project Phase Two - Results

So we’ve completed what should have been the end of the Power Rangers series altogether only to find that their appeal and their power was too much for Fox to say “no” to them.  20 more episodes were ordered for the season but wouldn’t air for a few more months so that they could be, you know, filmed.  So let’s make some inferences after the first half of season one.

Character Development

Observations.

We suggested before that while the action is cheap to produce, the reason kids keep coming back for more is the teens in their Saved by the Bell/California Dreams scenarios of regular high schoolers who fight crime.  In order to see who has mass appeal, we looked at who opens and closes the show – who gives us our first line to draw us in and who leaves us with our last line to make us want to come back for more?  As has been true all along, Kim is the Queen of opening shows with 14 openers – roughly 35% of the time, Kimberly said the first piece of dialogue. Also keeping in line with our first phase, Zack picked up his pace in closing the shows (11 out of 40) with Kim smoked at only 7 openings.  What we’re seeing here is that Zack gives us catharsis and closure and entertains us with a quick ending one-liner.  Kimberly is complex and makes us want to stay tuned for the next 30 minutes.

At the beginning of the series, we saw quite a bit of rotation with focus characters though many more episodes were about Kimberly than about anyone else.  What I think this really shows is a balance between keeping both girls and guys interested – girls might be more interested in the teen scenes whereas boys might enjoy the action more (in theory).  We see a little over ¼ of all episodes revolving around either Kimberly or Trini or both whereas less than ½ are focused on strictly the boys.  How can this be?  The boys make up 2/3 of the team yet less than ½ of the episodes.  The answer I came up with is that Saban is trying to toe the line between girls vs guys episodes and the fact of the matter is the girls are greatly outnumbered so there’s going to be more episodes about just Trini or just Kimberly as opposed to any one singular guy.

Conclusions.

Jason doesn’t necessarily get too many focus episodes (2 out of 40 about him alone) –but as a teen he definitely rounds out more as a supporting character.  He developed some comedic chops as well as the noble leader . . . without being boring *cough cough* every Red Ranger ever.  Billy is becoming more of a team member rather than just their resident geek, his contributions to the team are real and he’s definitely less of a joke as we moved along in the season.  Zack picked up a few more episodes dedicated to him and developed a lot more outside of the Rangers via his “relationship” with Angela.  Trini and Kimberly have the highest concentration of episodes about them – and good lord are they ever the concerned teens.  Future of America the two of them what with caring about pollution, volunteering to be big sisters to the less fortunate, befriending every minority known to man, these two are really ahead of their time.  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 – and I still maintain that’s true.  Then there’s Tommy.  More and more episodes are about Tommy.  He gets two whole mini-series about just him and his character takes off like wildfire. 

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 – 80% of the time it is Jason who says it.  The only time Jason doesn’t say it is if someone morphs after the group and Jason isn’t present.  It can be assumed that whoever says “it’s Morphin time” in Jason’s absence is next in line of command of that particular group.

Next, let's look at who kills the monster.  I was surprised to find that only Kimberly and Trini had killed monsters on their own (of the Rangers) – we have a lot of group weapons and a whole lot of Ultrazord action.  And that one time with Jason’s cousin, Jeremy.  But interesting that on three occasions one of the girls is the only one responsible for a monster death.  This is a dynamic I really find interesting because more often than not, they kill monsters in their Zords or with their group weapons, very rarely on their own.  I was even more surprised to find that not even Dragonzord had defeated anyone on his own – take THAT Tommy.

Last, there's the Power Order.  The Power Order is the order in which you see the Rangers appear after morphing whether it be through flipping in the air or a pose (left to right).  By tracking which position they stood in (farthest left = position 1, etc) I looked at, on average, where did each Ranger appear in the lineup and does that even matter?  Jason appears most often as the first flipping Ranger or the middle standing Ranger - so it looks like the middle Ranger in a lineup is the most visible/powerful/important.  Again, on average, our Rangers can be found here:

Kimberly and Trini set a precedence for female rangers to follow – you can be girly, you can be into shopping, you can be into saving the environment – you can do anything you like and it has no bearing on whether or not you can fight and/or kill a monster all by yourself.  Empowering, no?  Please, take note Samurai and Megaforce.

Conclusions.

Originally, I said “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.”  I maintain this to be true – he really does lead a team.  He doesn’t venture off on his own too much and does take command over the others – but he truly does make decisions that (most of the time) make sense.  He is a team player and a leader. 

Morphing Order Flow-Chart

While the Rangers are still kind of caricatures of real people, there is a bit of development in them.  They’re stereotypes yes, but they are strong people and you get why Zordon chose them.  Kimberly and Trini are strong women when it comes to the battlefield, Billy does machines, Zack holds his own and is a solid all-around person – and Jason and Tommy are obviously expert martial artists.  You’re not left wondering “wtf” about anyone being on the team anymore.  Everyone has a place and a reason for being there – which is perhaps the greatest message you can send to kids.  Everyone has a purpose.

And then there’s Tommy.  He became wildly popular – arguably the most popular Ranger of all time ever.  Is it because he was an amazing martial artist? Eh, Jason was pretty decent, too.  His acting chops aren’t any better/worse than anyone else’s, but there is something about him.  They make him the romantic interest for Kimberly and give him this dark brooding thing with him being all evil and proving himself to be good.  Not to mention he has a damn shield.  His character was just made to be cool.  Which is kind of unfair to the other five but eh what can you do.  The sixth ranger took off wildly in Sentai and it would become a staple in the US series as well.

Tommy forever changed the dynamic of the Rangers and nothing will ever be the same again.