The below looks at two aspects of "best" Ranger - the character development of the unmorphed Rangers and the ass-kicking parameters of the morphed Rangers.
Character Development
Observations.
The first element we’re going to look at is dialogue – which character is most important in terms of giving an opening or providing closure to an episode (see charts below).
This character is the first voice we hear to pull us into the scene and the last memory we have to entice us to tune in next time.
Like any good movie, tv show, play, etc – the opening and closing are important.
This parameter might not show us the most powerful character on the show – but it certainly indicates who MMPR trusts to get the action started and bring us to a conclusion.
There is clearly an early correlation between Kimberly both opening and closing the episodes. Over 40% of the time, she does both. Interestingly enough, Zack has yet to have the first line (even in
his own birthday episode) and Billy has yet to close an episode (even in his nerdy science fair episode).
One would think there would be a correlation between being the episode focus character and having the opening/closing line. While Kimberly IS important (to me) – she’s clearly not always the focus of the episode (unless you’re me). As we can see in the Episode Focus Character chart below – Trini carries the most episodes (with Kimberly a close second) and the boys picking up one show each.
Conclusions.
Let’s keep in mind, this show is written primarily for a young audience. Let’s look at gender stereotypes, young boys are typically into action. Are they going to care about character development or storyline? No, they’re waiting for Megazord to come out and beat the monster-of-the-week so they can bust their toys out and interact. But your audience also consists of young girls, and unless they’re tomboys into the action figures as well, how are you going to draw them in so you can have a kick-ass market-share? STORYLINE AND CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT.
It’s for this reason we see the most character-centric episodes based on Trini and Kimberly (or their friendship with each other). Girls don’t want to see the Yellow Ranger (who in Sentai-world is a guy named Boi in case you can’t tell in that spandex) and Pink Ranger fight – they want to see Kimberly and Trini act. For this reason, I assume Kimberly and Trini to be the people most likely hired for acting ability as opposed to action ability – and also probably why they open and close episodes more often (collectively) than their male counterparts.
ACTION!
Looking at a dynamic I call the “Power Order” – translated as the order in which we see the Rangers morphed. In cases where all five morph together, this is either the order in which they flip across the screen but most often the order in which they strike their first pose (left to right).
Every Ranger has a clear statistical distinction for which position they appear most often . . . except Kimberly. Zack most often appears in the second from the left, Jason the middle, Billy the second from the right, and Trini the far right. Kimberly by default would receive the far left since nobody else has a majority there, but she is seen in each position evenly (that’s what she said).
The first hit of the show is often determined by the focus character since they’re usually in a scene by themselves and Rita has the zany scheme of attacking Rangers individually to weaken the team instead of all at once (for further reference on this phenomena, please see every episode of
MMPR ever).
Kimberly and Trini often hit at the same time – but because of this they take an early lead in the first hit of the show with the boys all tied with each other.
The monster killing parameter might become more intersting later when we use more creative ways to kill monsters other than Megazord or Power Weapons.
Out of ten episodes, however, Trini is the only Ranger who’s killed a monster on her own (Bones in “High Five”).
Who says “It’s Morphin Time” will also become a more interesting data point later as the show develops and becomes less formulaic.
So far we have Zordon and Jason – and that’s it.
It makes for a Pac-man looking pie-chart.
Conclusions.
Jason is clearly the leader or most dominant Ranger once morphed. He’s the central figure on the screen during the Power Order – which means he’s the Ranger you’re most likely to pay attention to, and he’s also the one to bark out “it’s Morphin time”. Seriously, Jason barks, I swear.
Kimberly’s lack of dedication to a spot in the Power Order suggests to me a relationship to the Sentai footage. She’s the only girl on the Zyuranger team and is therefore the most versatile in terms of positioning (that’s what she said).
Afte these early results – it’ll be interesting how the next few episodes go before Tommy’s arrival. But as for the first ten episodes, the data supports my assertion that Trini is the all-around most used character. She kills monsters, she opens and closes shows, she’s the center of an episode – and if Jason would let her I’m sure she’d say “it’s Morphin time” every now and again.
It’s hard for me to say that Trini is by far the superior character given a life of Kimberly-dedication – so please know that my conclusions above are unbiased and based on the data. Otherwise I would just end the experiment and declare TKO for Kimberly as the best Ranger of all time ever.
