Harsher In Hindsight / Power Rangers

• Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers:
  • Billy getting the most love interests out of the entire cast might seem Hilarious in Hindsight when you learn that actor David Yost is gay... until you also learn that some of the staff gay-bashing him behind the scenes (and nobody actually doing anything about it) was the reason he left the series. Not to mention that him having that many girlfriends may have been a desperate attempt by the producers to have him NOT seem gay (even though he didn't).
  • Lord Zedd once sarcastically asked, "What is it this time, Finster? A monster that blows itself up?" At the time, simply a humorous jab at the show's Once per Episode fantasy conventions. But said statement becomes far grimmer now that people are more aware that "a monster that blows itself up" has a very real context, with suicide bombers becoming far more prevalent during The War on Terror. Furthermore, two plot points in later series make it harder to laugh at this quip:
    • The penultimate episode of Power Rangers Turbo has the team forced to sacrifice both the Turbo Megazord and T.J.'s Lightning Cruiser in suicide attacks to stop Goldgoyle. With said sacrifices being futile in the long run since Divatox destroys the Power Chamber along with the team's Turbo powers in the very next episode.
    • Power Rangers Lost Galaxy takes the concept and plays it for serious drama when Trakeena turns her entire army of Stingwingers into suicide bombers in the finale.
  • There was an episode in which a time capsule is involved. The rangers then talk to each other about how they hope the future will be like. No hatred, no crime, no wars. You know, the usual peaceful future we all dream of.
  • Likewise, at the beginning of the time capsule episode, Billy is the one who personally hopes there won't be any prejudice in the future. This is painful to hear with the knowledge that David Yost would later quit the series because of the prejudice he was receiving from the crew in real life.
  • "Too much Pink Energy could be dangerous" went through this twice. First, Power Rangers Lost Galaxy killed off its Pink Ranger. Also, Power Rangers: Dino Thunder shows that having two rangers with the exact same color and power set using the Morphing Grid at the same time is a very bad idea.
  • Every cute scene with Tommy and Kim is this due to what happens to their relationship in Zeo. Ditto with all those moments of brainwashed Kat talking about getting rid of Kimberly and taking Tommy for herself.
  • There was a YTMND featuring Rita Repulsa as Hurricane Rita, one of the three most destructive storms in the 2005 Atlantic Hurricane Season.
  • Tommy is Spared By Adaptation compared to Burai, his sentais counterpart, and he became later a white, a red and finally a black ranger. Then, that fact became harsher with the death of Jason David Frank and the fact Burai's actor outlived him.
  • Going back to Yost, there's the below-mentioned PSA, ^note where three children pretend to be Rangers, & gang up on a fourth child who they think took their ball where you shouldn't attack somebody because you think they're wrong.
  • In "Rita's Seed of Evil", Rita's plans to destroy Earth (with an Imagine Spot), and Serpentera has the power to destroy planets which Zedd tried to use on Earth before it's low on power. The finale of Dino Supercharge has the Rangers accidentally destroy Earth when they created a black hole; fortunately they Set Right What Once Went Wrong.
  • "On Fins and Needles", where Rita casts a spell that turns Jason and Tommy against each other, is a tad uncomfortable knowing that there was Real Life bad blood between Austin St. John and Jason David Frank for a while.
  • In "Rita’s Pita", Tommy teaches his student, Danny, the importance of respecting one’s body. Later, in one of the D.A.R.E. PSA’s from Power Rangers Turbo, Danny is shown to be into underage smoking.
  • "Green With Evil: Part I" has a Brainwashed and Crazy Tommy infiltrating the Command Center and severing Zordon's connection to our dimension. Power Rangers in Space has Zordon being killed by a Ranger — albeit reluctantly and with Zordon's consent — to destroy the villains. Also, the Boom Studios comics has an evil version of Tommy killing the Zordon of his universe.
  • The close friendship between Tommy and Jason shown throughout the series becomes this given that their actors reportedly did not get along well on the set.
• That bit near the end of Power Rangers Lost Galaxy where Trakeena, having recently gone off the deep end due to an accidental mash-up with Deviot, turns her Mooks into suicide bombers and sends them out to do as much senseless damage as possible. It was a morally tasteless moment then, with one of her closest generals expressing horror at her tactics. But now...
• Power Rangers Zeo:
  • In "Mondo's Last Stand", Rocky starts feeling insecure and left out when the Rangers choose to spend more time with Jason than with him but at the end of the episode is assured of his place as a Ranger. Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie would see Rocky's time as a Ranger come to an end due to a back injury (the only Ranger in history to have this happen to him) and he is replaced in a martial arts tournament he was preparing for by Jason.
  • Three relating to "King For A Day":
    • The Rangers restore Tommy's memories of them by de-morphing and showing him the faces of his friends. In Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie, Tommy tries to restore a Brainwashed and Crazy Kimberly by removing his helmet only for her to laugh in his face and say she has no friends.
    • Part 1 of "King For A Day" has Tommy being subjected to a holographic scenario where he is attacked by the Mighty Morphin White Ranger, his previous Ranger form. In Power Rangers: Dino Thunder, Tommy ends up in a coma and faces the White Ranger yet again in a Battle in the Center of the Mind.
    • Related to the above, Tommy being attacked by the White Ranger looks even more terrifying when the comic storyline Shattered Grid has an evil version of Tommy killing his alternate selves across the multiverse. Drakkon's suit design is even a cross between the Mighty Morphin Green Ranger and Mighty Morphin White Ranger suits.
• Choudenshi Bioman was the first Super Sentai installment to feature a female Yellow Ranger (the original Yellow Four). However, the actress playing her (Yuki Yajima) had to leave the series, so her character was killed off early in the series in what was also one of the few instances in the franchise where a core member of the team was killed off. While only one hero in Power Rangers was killed off within the actual show, Thuy Trang (the actress who played the first Power Rangers Yellow Ranger in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers) ended up dying in a car accident in real life. And that's before we make it a yellow trio by mentioning the real-life typecasting-induced suicide of Baku Hatakeyama, the actor who played the first Sentai Yellow Ranger in Himitsu Sentai Gorenger.
  • And when Hatakeyama took a break from the show, his character was replaced with a Suspiciously Similar Substitute, who was also killed off so Hatakeyama's character could return.
• Power Rangers Samurai featured Ricardo Medina Jr. as the villain Deker; a swordsman with a lust for battle after a curse was placed on him. This is much harder to watch after Medina has been charged with killing his roommate and pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter. This also extends to Power Rangers Wild Force, which featured Medina as Red Ranger Cole, and the Rangers on that team used swords as their main weapons.
• On a related note, the character of Mentor Ji often being depicted as being hard on the Samurai Rangers has taken on new meaning after his actor Rene Naufahu was charged with indecent assault and sentenced to house arrest.
• Power Rangers Ninja Storm: In "Eye of the Storm", Shane (Pua Magasiva) is subjected to a fear-induced hallucination of his older brother Porter (played by Pua Magasiva's real-life brother Robbie Magasiva) scolding him for being a disappointment to their family. This scene can be harder to watch with the knowledge that Pua Magasiva was frequently abusive to his wife before his suicide and had even attacked her in a drunken rage on the night of his death. Magasiva's wife also mentioned his diary was "full of haunting images, tortured thoughts and self-loathing" which puts the turmoil Shane is in during the episode in a whole new light.

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