Series / Power Rangers Zeo

All spoilers for Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!

Stronger than before!

"It's Morphin' Time!"^note Followed by "Zeo Ranger (number), (color)!" for the five main Zeo Rangers, and "Gold Ranger Power!" for the Zeo Gold Ranger

—Morphing call, Power Rangers Zeo

"Zeeeeeeeooooo Gooooooooooo Zeeeeeeeoooooo...."

Power Rangers Zeo is the fourth season of Power Rangers and a direct Sequel Series to Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, adapted from Chouriki Sentai Ohranger. After the cliffhanger that ended the Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers arc, Rita and Zedd are busy celebrating their victory, only to flee for their lives due to the invading Machine Empire, who want to gut Earth of its natural resources. Meanwhile, the Rangers have seemingly hit rock-bottom after the destruction of the Command Center and the loss of their powers. But thankfully, they find the incredibly-powerful Zeo Crystal amid the rubble; shortly after, they discover a new hidden base beneath the surface of the original. Zordon reveals that he and Alpha have survived, and to combat the threat of the Machine Empire, tap the Zeo Crystal to provide the team with all-new powers, including for the first time brand-spankin' new uniforms for the entire team.

Zeo is largely where the franchise began to grow up, by introducing a few season-spanning plot threads, becoming slightly less preachy, with charity work and environmentalism becoming less common plot elements and much more character-driven. Billy Cranston, the last original Power Ranger, retired from active duty to act in a tech support and Mission Control role, as well as serving as a mentor to the newer rangers under Zordon. Newer characters such as Katherine Hillard and Tanya Sloan, and even Rocky DeSantos and Adam Park, were allowed to grow beyond their Suspiciously Similar Substitute beginnings. Even Farkus "Bulk" Bulkmeier and Eugene "Skull" Skullovitch managed some Character Development after going through police training and later becoming private detectives. The show also reintroduced Jason Lee Scott, the original Red Ranger, to return and take up the role of their Sixth Ranger.

Zedd and Rita were also not quite out of the picture, as they worked to reclaim their status as the series villains and sometimes their guerrilla strikes against the Machine Empire ended up helping the Rangers. It is one of the more popular seasons, as it had classic characters, an epic scope and decent writing. It also set up the concept of the Ranger changing powers and costumes once a year, and further established more Rangers trading in and out. Some also consider it to be in some ways better than the original seasons in terms of quality, with a greater focus on character development and more dramatic moments. In other words, Zeo had some big shoes to fill, and they were filled well.

Followed chronologically by Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie, which sets up Power Rangers Turbo.

Unfortunately, ratings that had begun to decline in Season 3 of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers dropped even further in Zeo, which likely led to Zeo ending more abruptly than expected. The season ends with the Machine Empire compromised (but not destroyed) and Lord Zedd and co. plotting their return, seemingly setting the stage for their stories to continue—but by the time of the next season's Pilot Movie Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie, the Machine Empire aren't mentioned, Zedd and Rita only have a brief humorous cameo (which makes it clear that they aren't fighting the Rangers anymore), and the Zeo Rangers' powers and paraphernalia are never seen again.

The infamous fan hoax "Scorpion Rain" originated as an attempt to bridge the gap between the Zeo and Turbo eras by wrapping up the story of Zedd and Rita's feud with the Machine Empire: it was Fan Fiction claiming to be a multi-part Missing Episode featuring a battle with the Machine Empire on the Moon, ending with Serpentera being buried. But after the perpetrators of the hoax ended up being hired as actual Power Rangers writers by Saban, they took the opportunity to retroactively make their story canon (albeit in Broad Strokes) in the special Power Rangers Wild Force episode "Forever Red"—establishing that Serpentera really did get buried on the Moon sometime after Zeo, and the Machine Empire really did have something to do with it. Word of God regarding Zedd and Rita is that they took a honeymoon to raise their child Thrax, who appears in Power Rangers Operation Overdrive.

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Recurring Power Rangers tropes include:

• An Aesop: The episode Trust in Me has the lesson that Condescending Compassion can be really offending to people with disabilities and that many of them can lead perfectly normal lives. In the episode, Rocky accidentally treats a blind woman with Condescending Compassion, despite her being competent enough to defeat multiple opponents in a karate demonstration. Understandably, the woman is annoyed and gives Rocky the cold shoulder. After a lecture from Katherine, Rocky realizes his mistake and apologizes to the woman. Rocky was seemingly unaware that he was doing it until it was pointed out to him and learns the error of his ways.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Besides the usual monster attacks, the season finale "Good As Gold" sees the Rangers grow in size in order to combat King Mondo. Sure they could've used their Zords, but Trey said there was no time for that. The real reason, naturally, is Rule of Cool (plus, considering that Mondo was rebuilt after being sliced in half by the Super Zeo Megazord earlier, presumably Trey thought that the Rangers themselves could defeat him again.)
• Autobots, Rock Out!: The main theme.
• Big Bad: King Mondo, with Louie Kaboom (and later Prince Gasket) temporarily taking over in the second half of the season.
• Bilingual Bonus: The Gold Ranger's visor and logo is the kanji for "King", as his Ohranger counterpart was named King Ranger.
• Comic-Book Adaptation: A planned series by Image Comics based on the show was slated, but only one issue managed to be released, which ended on a pretty big cliffhanger. ^note The first (and only) issue reveals that Lord Zedd kept the energies of the Ninja Power Coins after he and Rita destroyed them, but Master Vile gives them to the Machine Empire.
• Compressed Adaptation: Crossed with Adaptation Expansion. Zeo was given 50 episodes to Ohranger's 48, however, 3 of those episodes adapted Ohranger's supplemental material^note 1 episode adapts Ohranger The Movie, while the two-part Alien Rangers team-up is an adaptation of Ohranger vs. Kakuranger.
• Chest Insignia: Personal geometric shapes on the helmet visors, team emblems on the belts and various pieces of equipment (including the hilts of the Super Zeo Megazord's sabers and the center of the Warrior Wheel). These, and their callsigns, all also follow a Numerological Motif, hence the rather odd choice for Tanya's theme:
  • One rounded figure: Zeo Ranger 1, Pink/Kat
  • Two rounded figures: Zeo Ranger 2, Yellow/Tanya
  • A three sided/pointed triangle: Zeo Ranger 3, Blue/Rocky
  • A four sided/pointed rectangle: Zeo Ranger 4, Green/Adam
  • A five pointed star: Zeo Ranger 5, Red/Tommy
• City of Adventure: Angel Grove
• Home Base: The Power Chamber, beneath the site of the old Command Center.
  • Elaborate Underground Base: Besides the Power Chamber, they also had all the Zeo zords (minus Pyramidas) stored in a hangar facility built into a snowy mountain on the outskirts of Angel Grove. They notably shot the Red Battlezord, the Super Zeo Zords and the Warrior Wheel out of a big-ass cannon several times.
• Humongous Mecha
  • Animal Mecha: Just a few: Tommy's Phoenix, Rocky's Sphinx, and Adam's Bull.
  • Combining Mecha: The main team came together in two combinations, the Zeo and Super Zeo Megazords. The former could also combine with the Red Battlezord to make the Mega Battlezord. The Zeo Zords and Battlezord could then join Pyramidas for the Zeo Ultrazord; which also had an alternate formation with the Super Zeo Zords instead of the Zeo Zords.
  • Mecha Expansion Pack: One of the franchise's earlier cases, where the Zeo Megazord could equip different Battle Helmets from the component Zeo Zords.
  • Transforming Mecha: the Warrior Wheel and Pyramidas.
• Law of Chromatic Superiority: Tommy got his own Zord (the Red Battlezord) and was the primary pilot of the Defender Wheel (though Rocky got to use it once).

• Make My Monster Grow:
  • Lifted directly from its source material, this is Klank and Orbus' reason for living.
  • Auric the Conqueror is capable of making himself grow to giant size.
  • In an interesting variation, the Final Battle sees Trey make the Rangers and himself grow to fight King Mondo and his giant Cogs.
• Mini Dress Of Power: No She's a Man in Japan at play here, for the first time both girl Rangers get the skirt.
• Mooks: Cogs
  • Giant Mooks: The series' first example. In "Good As Gold" King Mondo grows and has a group of Cogs grow with him.
  • Lampshaded in Episode when one uses "Mook" as a password
• Recycled In Space: Averted. Production took the ancient world cultures theme from Chouriki Sentai Ohranger and downplayed them so that things were kept as generic as possible - so stuff was recycled, but not IN SPACE!
• Thememobile/Cool Bike: Zeo Jet Cycles
• Transformation Sequence: The Rangers would flip two devices on their wrist morphers and criss-cross them to activate them, calling out “Zeo Ranger (Number, Color)”. The suit would form on them accordingly afterward.
• Villains Act, Heroes React: As is the norm for Power Rangers, we generally get a MOTW appearing with an Evil Plan Once an Episode, with our heroes then arriving on the scene to stop them.
• Word Power:
  • By The Power Of Gray Skull and/or Invocation: "It's Morphin' Time!"
  Kat: "Zeo Ranger 1 - Pink!"
  Tanya: "Zeo Ranger 2 - Yellow!"
  Rocky: "Zeo Ranger 3 - Blue!"
  Adam: "Zeo Ranger 4 - Green!"
  Tommy: "Zeo Ranger 5 - Red!"
  Jason: "Gold Ranger Power!"

This subseries contains examples of:

• The Ace: Kat. She dives, dances, sings, surfs, skis, trains dogs, trains monkeys...it's finally tossed a lampshade when her friends tease her for moping because the purse she made was so ugly. "C'mon, there had to be something you're not good at."
• Adaptation Expansion: Crossed with Compressed Adaptation. Zeo was given 50 episodes to Ohranger's 48, however, 3 of those episodes adapted Ohranger's supplemental material^note 1 episode adapts Ohranger The Movie, while the two-part Alien Rangers team-up is an adaptation of Ohranger vs. Kakuranger.
• Adaptation Species Change: In Ohranger, the robotic villains originated from Pangea Earth. Here, they're aliens, as with the villains from Zyuranger, Dairanger, and Kakuranger.
• Adaptational Heroism: Puppetman from "The Puppet Blaster" was a robotic kids show host reprogrammed by the Machine Empire, and the Rangers even rebuilt him after they defeated him. His Ohranger counterpart Bara-Pinokiller was a Baranoia plant from the start.
• Adaptational Villainy: Defector from "Trust in Me". His Ohranger counterpart Bara Revenger actually was a good guy, and only fought the Ohrangers when Baranoia took control of his body.
• Advertising Campaigns: The most memorable of which (nicknamed the "Zeo serial") featuring "...you gotta see it... it's coming... you gotta see it... unleashing the POW-AAAAAH..." set to a variant of the theme tune; before reruns of MMPR/MMAR eps they'd show a teaser explaining what happened in the MMAR finale, followed by a short teaser bit involving the Machine Empire's plans for Earth (which is notably out of continuity with the actual show); each segment would end with the "It's coming" bit and a snippet of the Zeo logo animation. The full song, nicknamed "Unleashing the Power", circulates around the Internet.
• Advertising-Only Continuity: A commercial gave the villain's name as Queen Machina instead of her husband, King Mondo, and had our heroes operating out of the original Command Center when they were actually operating in the underground Power Chamber.
  • Also, the aforementioned "Zeo serial", which plays out quite differently than the actual premiere does — it seems to imply the Rangers have been completely inactive for several weeks at one point (as if they'd up and abandoned the Command Center ruins without finding the Power Chamber or the Zeo Crystal), the Machine Empire's invasion is a lot more drawn out, with several scientists, government agents, and others slowly becoming aware of it (Bulk and Skull naturally encounter Mondo's forces, and therefore begin to stock emergency supplies at the Youth Center in preparation for the invasion); Zedd and Rita's reaction is also different, with the Machines not attacking them immediately.
• Arc Welding: The Red Battlezord is said to derive technology from the Alien Rangers' Battle Borgs.
• The Artifact:
  • The acronym U.A.O.H. shows up a few times during the season, most notably on the floor of the Zeo Zord hangar. This is an artifact from Ohranger, and it stands for "United Airforce Overtech Hardware", which was the military organization the Sentai team worked for.
  • Partial example: Whenever Rocky or Adam individually morph, especially in the early episodes, their arm gestures are noticeably different from the others. Theirs are actually the transformation gestures from Ohranger. Incidentally, Tommy himself would perform morphing gestures closer to Ohranger's than to Zeo's in Forever Red.
• Ascended Extra: Borax's Super Sentai counterpart, Bara-Ivy, was just a regular Monster of the Week in Ohranger. Here, his race is the mortal enemy of the Gold Ranger.
• Badass Boast: At the end of "King for a Day Part II", Jason delivers one to Gasket:
  "You mess with one Ranger, you better be willing to take on the whole team!"
• Badass Native: Tommy. David too.
• Badass Unintentional: Surprisingly, Bulk and Skull fought off a group of Cogs, while not with the style of the Rangers, but still rather well.
• Bifurcated Weapon: The Super Zeo Megazord has twin swords that can be combined into a large saber for destroying monsters.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Tommy. Again. This is the fourth or fifth time.
• Bowdlerise: Due to the head TV censor in Great Britain having a huge hate boner regarding nunchucks, they cut nearly all of the sentai footage of Tanya using her nunchuck Power Weapons so the show could air in the UK.
• The Bus Came Back: Jason returned to take on the mantle of the Gold Ranger halfway through the season.
  • Zedd, Rita, and Finster returned, as well.
• Cassandra Truth: After Bulk and Skull's adventure in "King For A Day", they tried to convince everyone that they helped save the Rangers and are regarded as legends on an alien world. No one believes them except the Rangers themselves, but Bulk and Skull think they're just giving them pity.
• Characterisation Click Moment: For Rocky and Adam:
  • In Mighty Morphin', Adam was a quiet, shy nice guy as a way distinguishing himself from Zack. Johnny Yong Bosch claimed it was this season where he realised that Adam could be funny, so he became more sardonic.
  • Rocky was initially little more than a replacement meant to fill in for Jason as the Red Ranger and had no outstanding traits at least in comparison to his fellow replacements. This was largely due to Steve Cardenas' lack of acting experience which the man himself admits wasn't very good in his early tenure. Here, due to being able to emote more distinctively, he's shown to have some comedic quirks that were otherwise not visible before and his civilian plots are more interesting to watch.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Squatt and Baboo, after having been main villains since Season 1's "Day of the Dumpster", are last seen when Zedd and Rita evacuate the moon to escape from the Machine Empire. When the couple returns later in the season to plot their return to power, Squatt and Baboo are nowhere to be seen, with not even a throw-away line to explain their absence. Squatt actually does make an appearance two series later in the Grand Finale of Power Rangers in Space, as one can see here. However, it's alongside a whole bunch of other previously seen monsters, so he's easy to miss. No reported sign of Baboo, though.
• Cliffhanger Copout: In "A Zeo Beginning", Alpha's solemn final line at the end of Part I suggests that something happened to Zordon in the Command Center's implosion. This line doesn't make it to the beginning of Part II, where Alpha instead cheerfully reveals that Zordon is just fine.
  • Oddly enough, the VHS release of the episode (which had the two-parter, along with only the Zeo Crystal search in MMAR spliced together in movie format) kept Alpha's somber dialogue even with Zordon's well being immediately shown.
  • Also, the third season of Mighty Morphin' ended with the Zeo Crystal being stolen. In "A Zeo Beginning" the Rangers find the Crystal buried amidst the rubble of the Command Center, speculating that Rito and Goldar dropped it.
• Clueless Mystery: The identity of the Gold Ranger, with all the existing characters turning out to be Red Herrings.
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: In one episode the Rangers went up against several hundred Cogs and just tore through them. A few episodes later, a half-dozen were able to hold them back.
• Continuity Nod:
  • While it's never actually mentioned in dialogue, Adam continues to use an ax as his weapon , albeit a smaller pair of two rather than a single large one.
  • When Billy says the team could have used the Zeo Megazord's Battle Helmets back during the MMPR days, Alpha responds with "Yes, it's a shame you had to get by with only bows and arrows," totally burning Kimberly and her weapon of choice.
  • In "Where in the World is Zeo Ranger 5?" the Rangers are unable to pilot Super Zeo Zord V without Tommy present, and so Alpha creates a device which allows them to do so, referring to a similar device from Season 3 in the process: "Rangers, I've devised a remote unit much like the one from the Ninja Megazord. It should allow you to control Super Zeo Zord V."
  • In "King for a Day", Jason references not being able get the Green Candle and stop it from burning out. "I let Tommy down once before and I'm not gonna let it happen again!"
  • In the finale "Good As Gold", Rita says this to Jason: "Personally, I always thought you looked better in red."
• Creator Cameo: Koichi Sakamoto, the director and fight coordinator for both Super Sentai and Power Rangers, appears in the episode "King For A Day" as Tritor, one of the warriors imprisoned in the Machine Empire's coliseum. He allies with Bulk and Skull in their escape.
• Criminal Amnesiac: Tommy in "King For A Day".
• Cute Machines: A small amount of the series' Monsters of the Week fall under this category.
• A Day in the Limelight: Bulk and Skull in "Bulk Fiction" and "Scent of a Weasel".
• Decomposite Character: The two bodies of Prince Buldont from Ohranger become two separate characters (Prince Sprocket and Prince Gasket).
• Deliberately Monochrome: Used in "It Came From Angel Grove", as a nod to old horror films.
• Demoted to Extra: Billy, solely in that he was no longer a Ranger. But even as not a Ranger, he still had an important, and still rather large, role as their lead consultant, being a Sixth Ranger in all but battlefield presence. And when an actual Sixth Ranger showed up, Billy was put forth as the Red Herring in that role.
  • Rocky also suffered a little from this, which is acknowledged in "Mondo's Last Stand". After already being the second-ever Red Ranger, and the first to not feel like the team's leader, and after being demoted from Red to Blue, he was convinced that the returning Jason (the original Red Ranger) was out to replace him.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: After years of being largely irrelevant, Rita creates a monster out of Kat's purse. It beats the Zords. All of them. Even the Zeo Ultrazord. Twice.
• Dropped Glasses: Happens to Billy with his contacts in "Graduation Blues". It's a good thing he still kept his old glasses.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: For the first few episodes, the Rangers continued to put their hands behind their backs before morphing as they did in MMPR; they eventually began doing various wrist twists instead (accompanied by glowing energy around their hands).
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Despite being machines, Mondo and Machina love Sprocket (and he loves them as well) just as much as any parents love their son. Gasket less so, but that's because he fell in love with Archerina, the daughter of one of Mondo's old rivals.
• Evil Versus Evil: Rita and Zedd spend most of this season in conflict with the Machine Empire.
• Family-Unfriendly Death: A rather nasty, Mecha-Mooks-loophole exploiting death where two groups of enemy mooks have a battle royale. The mooks are Tengas (birdmen) and Cogs (spandex robots) You see Tengas and Cogs slugging it out for a few shots, then it cuts to one Tenga holding down a struggling Cog while another Tenga tore open its stomach and ripped out its electronic guts. This wasn't Chouriki Sentai Ohranger footage that slipped past the censors, either - Tengas were Power Rangers-exclusive mooks, so it was all original footage.
  • Oh, my goodness, Zeo. Louie Kaboom, the temporary leader of the Machine Empire. Under a love spell cast by the new villains he takes on the Rangers in combat and is eventually defeated. However, unlike most of the mindless minions that fell to the Rangers, he remained alive for a few moments, stumbling around in pain while on fire and professing his love for the villain that brainwashed him.
• Face, Nod, Action: By the time Tommy and Kat help Billy save Heather from falling off a cliff, they've already been told the other Rangers need help, so they have to leave immediately. Tommy and Kat get out of visible range, then give a nod to each other before Tommy gives the morphing call.
• Fanservice: Jason in "Scent of the Weasel", both by virtue of looking attractive by modelling and wearing red for the benefit of Power Rangers franchise fans.
• Five-Token Band: Tommy (Native American^note His actor is not Native), Adam (Asian), Rocky (Hispanic), Tanya (African), and Kat (Caucasian, from Australia).
• Five Temperament Ensemble
  • Tommy: Phlegmatic II
  • Tanya: Choleric
  • Kat: Leukine
  • Adam: Melancholic
  • Rocky: Sanguine
• Fix Fic: The romantic relationship between Tommy and Kimberly, a well-loved couple throughout the history of the Power Rangers franchise up to this point, was brought to an end with a "Dear John" Letter sent by Kimberly; there are plenty of fics reuniting them that claimed the letter was a fake (the person responsible usually being Kat), or otherwise that Kim was hiding the real reason for the breakup.
• The Ghost: When Gasket and Archerina show up, a "King Arodon" who's a rival of King Mondo's is mentioned as her father. He's never seen or brought up again.
• Girl of the Week: Rocky had a few.
  • Bulk and Skull had one each, surprisingly enough. Bulk's came in as the daughter of the police captain and Skull's was a supermodel, of all things.
• Glad I Thought of It: Happens in "A Few Bad Seeds", when Adam suggests that Rocky take a sample of his metal-eating plant and bring it to the Power Chamber for Billy to analyze. Adam is not pleased.
  • Sprocket in the first half of the season would always take credit for Klank and Orbus' schemes, with Mondo siding with the latter every time. This lasted until the plan would inevitably blow up in their faces, with Sprocket renouncing the credit and blaming Klank.
• Groin Attack: During its debut fight, the Warrior Wheel gives Stenchy a few punches and kicks to the...gearbox. He's an android, so the joke works.
• "Groundhog Day" Loop: "A Brief Mystery of Time".
• Happy Fun Ball: The Midas Hound in "The Ranger Who Came In From The Gold".
• Here We Go Again!: At the end of "For Cryin' Out Loud", Tommy and Kat are asked to babysit for twins.
• Heroic BSoD: Rocky goes through one in "Mondo's Last Stand" when he thinks he's being replaced by Jason. After they defeat King Mondo, Rocky manages to get over it after Jason reassures him that he isn't trying to take his place.
  Rocky: "DOORS!"
• Heroic Sacrifice: Billy, in his attempt to save Alpha 5 during the destruction of the Command Center, throws himself on an exploding console. While unharmed at the time, it is later revealed that he got dosed with Phlebotinum that makes him incapable of ever becoming a Power Ranger again.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Skull is revealed to be a talented pianist, but doesn't want anyone else, especially Bulk to find out because he thinks he'll lose macho cred. Adam convinces him to give a performance... And Bulk is genuinely amazed. Aww.
  • The former (possibly) gets a little more when he talks with a model he accidentally spilled a rancid smelling perfume all over. The chemistry between them seemed quite good, even though she was never named and onlu appeared once.
• Hilarious Outtakes: Used in the credits.
• Hollywood Tone-Deaf: Averted in "Another Song and Dance" with Tommy, who is just a genuinely bad singer. Even actor Jason David Frank was well aware that he is no singer and had no qualms admitting it and poking fun at himself about it. And in an interview with a fan at Power Morphicon 2010, he revealed that he was hoping to — for fun and to add more comedy — just go all out and have Tommy's singing be over-the-top bad, with the actor purposely singing out of tune (basically, with no effort in even trying to sound okay or tolerable). But, the crew wouldn't let that fly.
• Hostile Terraforming: "Oily to Bed, Oily to Rise" sees the Machine Empire attempt this by converting the world's water supply into toxic oil. While this would make the planet perfect for their kind, it'd make it deadly for all life on Earth.
• Hurricane of Puns: Rocky, when he's turning into a plant in "A Few Bad Seeds", which also involves some fairly suggestive comments towards Kat.
• "I Know You Are in There Somewhere" Fight: Brainwashed Tommy vs. the others in "King For A Day".
  • Cooldown Hug: From Kat.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Kat has been in love with Tommy since her first appearance way back in season three of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, but when Kimberly breaks up with him, she does everything she can to cheer him up including setting him up on a date with another woman.
  Kat: "I'm not sure if that was really nice or really stupid..."
• I Want You to Meet an Old Friend of Mine: Averted. The series featured two VR Troopers - Brad Hawkins and Sarah Brown - but not in the same episode.
• Improv Fu: Occurred with Bulk and Skull when they were accidentally sent to a coliseum in another world and they get saved by another warrior, they have to face down a few guards and ultimately, they were able to take them down with the power of bumbling around.
• Incredible Shrinking Man: Tommy and Kat in "A Small Problem".
• Interim Villain: Prince Gasket
• Interspecies Romance: Billy and Cestria, an Aquitian.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Also a Continuity Nod:
  Klank: "Zedd and Rita have just made a monster from a pink purse, your Highness."
  Sprocket: "A purse monster? That's so last season."
• Leave the Two Lovebirds Alone: Tanya stops the other Rangers from joining Tommy and Kat at their table during their date in "Hawaii Zeo".
• Lethal Joke Character: The aforementioned purse monster, Impursenator. As stated before, she was a monster made out of Kat's fugly purse and managed to almost defeat the Rangers without even really trying. They used almost every possible strategy of Zords, upgrades, combinations, and formations (BOTH SETUPS for the Zeo Ultrazord) and only managed to escape when a) the Machines teleported Impursenator away out of jealousy and b) she merged with the Machines' monster and somehow this made them both sucky.
• Literal Split Personality: Trey; a natural ability for Triforians like him.
• Long-Lost Relative: Tommy's twin brother David Trueheart. "Mondo's Last Stand" reveals that Ernie is one too, for the recently deceased Randolph B. Burble. Once identified, he receives his inheritance - a lifetime supply of the baby food that Burble's foundation produces, which used his image in advertising when he was an infant.
• Magical Native American: David Trueheart, Tommy's brother, who holds half of a magical arrowhead pendant.
• Make Way for the New Villains: The arrival of the Machine Empire sends Rita and Zedd running.
• Married in the Future: The Christmas-themed episode, "A Season to Remember", involved a flash-forward showing Tommy and Kat being married. Some shippers were not accepting of this development and tend to ignore it. In fact, Catherine Sutherland (Kat's actor) has verified that she was in talks to appear in both Wild Force's "Forever Red" and Dino Thunder as Mrs. Oliver (the former was scrapped during rewrites while the latter fell through due to Sutherland's pregnancy at the time).
• Monowheel Mayhem: The Defender Wheel, which is a giant wheel a Ranger can enter before launching from a firing station; hitting a button energizes the wheel and sends it at a target. Usually used by Tommy (and it was delivered to the battlefield by way of Tommy's Zeozord, which would fly in and drop the Defender Wheel out of a hatch), it was used by Rocky once as well.
  • Also the Warrior Wheel, at least in wheel mode.
• Musical Episode: Parodied in "Another Song and Dance".
• The Music Meister: Downplayed in "Another Song and Dance". After The Machine Empress casts a spell on the Red and Yellow Rangers, they are forced to sing everything while everyone else is looking at them strangely.
• Mythology Gag: The episode where Louie Kaboom shows up is called "Bomber in the Summer", a nod to his Ohranger name Bomber the Great.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Queen Machina sounds a lot like Natasha Fatale from Rocky and Bullwinkle.
• Non-Action Guy: Billy becomes one of these.
• Non-Mammalian Mammaries: Queen Machina and Archerina are robots... but because they're female robots, they have these. Archerina more so.
• Not Afraid of You Anymore: In the final episode, Rita tells Mondo she and Zedd don't fear him any longer. And yet, Zedd pretended otherwise to trick the Machine Empire. To be fair, though, they probably still weren't in the best position to directly challenge the Empire beyond what they had, and so, as before, let the Rangers weaken them first (which they most certainly did) then strike.
• Not Now, Kiddo: Episode 6 has Prince Sprocket and Klank do this to Orbus, as they're busy bickering, while Orbus is the only one paying attention to their scheme.
• Official Couple: Tommy/Kim was a carryover from Mighty Morphin until she dropped a Dear John Letter midseason. Tommy/Kat begun shortly afterwards.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • The monster Cruel Chrome mutters "This can't be good" as he sees the Super Zeo Ultrazord looming over him.
  • Actually, most of the monsters feel this way about the Zeo Ultrazord / Super Zeo Ultrazord. They see the Zord loom high overhead, as it's far taller than a standard Megazord, and know it's a bad sign.
• Oh, No... Not Again!: Lord Zedd spends much of his screentime in "The Ranger Who Came in from the Gold" fixing a flat tire on his and Rita's RV; Rita whines when, at the end of the episode, the RV gets another flat tire.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: By the end of the season, both Rita and Mondo display this attitude towards the Rangers.
  Mondo: "The final defeat of those putrid Power Rangers is mine and mine alone!"
  Rita: "That tub of rebuilt parts isn't grabbing my glory!"
  • Notably, Zedd of all people is a subversion. He'd gladly destroy the Rangers himself, but as he asks, "Who cares who destroys those Ranger brats?" That said, he would prefer it not be Mondo or the Machine Empire as then he can't take over Earth.
• Outside-Context Problem: The Machine Empire decides to invade Earth and drive off Rita and Zedd with no in-universe warning (the viewers knew thanks to the non-canon "Zeo serial" that had been playing at the beginning of MMPR reruns in the lead-up to Zeo). Lampshaded, once the Rangers begin to ask a ton of questions about the Machine Empire and cause Alpha to have a nervous breakdown.
• Parental Bonus: The target audience for Power Rangers is 6-11 which means that if their parents were between 20 and 30 they would be born between 1954 and 1970, which means the majority would have been alive for the third moon landing in 1971, meaning they would likely remember the golf ball(s) Alan Shepard left there. Why does this matter you ask? Well, Rito finds one ~3 minutes into "The Joke's on Blue". Also qualifies as a Genius Bonus for the kids who are also knowledgeable about it.
• Pie in the Face: A group of Cogs is defeated this way, and it's hilarious.
• Please, I Will Do Anything!: Amnesia-struck Rito and Goldar beg Bulk and Skull to help them find their families, and resort to this. Bulk and Skull force them to be servants.
• Plot-Relevant Age-Up: Billy in "Rangers of Two Worlds", revealed as a side-effect of his Regenerator restoring his age to normal during MMPR's Alien Rangers arc.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Shortly before blowing Admiral Abominator up with the Zeo Mega Battlezord, Tommy delivers the line "Time for you to weigh anchor, Admiral!"
  • To the Puppet Blaster: "Looks like your show has just been cancelled!"
• Put on a Bus:
  • When the Machine Empire came in at the start of the season, the old villains beat a hasty retreat on Serpentera to Master Vile's (in Zedd's case, this was clearly Put on a Bus to Hell). Half a season later, Zedd, Rita, and Finster came back, but without Squatt and Baboo.
  • Even though the last time Ninjor was seen he was perfectly fine and the Ninja and Shogun Zords were never destroyed, all we get about their fates are "Now that Ninjor's back in the Temple and the Zords are gone..." from Tommy in "A Zeo Beginning".
• Pyramid Power: Pyramidas. Rocky's sphinx Zord, Zeo Zord III, could also give the Zeo Megazord a pyramid-like helmet.
• Quest for Identity: Rito Revolto and Goldar spend the first half of the season with this as a case of Identity Amnesia.
• Readings Are Off the Scale: In "For Crying Out Loud", Boo-Hoo the Clown alters baby Joey's cry, resulting in this.
• Rearrange the Song: Of the original "Go Go Power Rangers".
• Red Herring: Several people are set up as the Gold Ranger, including Billy and Skull.
• Retcon: Sprocket is referred to as Mondo's 'first built son', but it's eventually revealed he has an older brother.
• Reunion Show: "Rangers Of Two Worlds" brings back the Rangers of Aquitar to team up with the Zeo Rangers.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: King Mondo was a villainous example, having fought the Rangers personally on more than one occasion. His eldest son Prince Gasket was even more capable, apparently.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: There's apparently an entire army of evil spirit monsters imprisoned underneath the reservation Tommy's brother lives on. Autochthon is the only one to appear, as Mondo's attempt to release the rest fails.
• She's a Man in Japan: The monster Somnibot's Super Sentai counterpart, Bara-Snooska is referred to as a male.
• Ship Tease: Tommy and Kat (proceeding to Official Couple), Tanya and Adam (tease confirmed by Nakia Burnise, Tanya's actress; and also by Johnny Yong Bosch, who played Adam, at around the 2-minute mark in this video taken, and they talk about it again at around 30:53).
• Smelly Skunk: Stenchy, one of the Monsters of the Week.
• Short Tank: Tanya; she had a boyfriend who was intimidated by her athleticism.
• Spared by the Adaptation: In Chouriki Sentai Ohranger, Buldont and Multiwa (Gasket and Archerina's Super Sentai counterparts) were destroyed after growing into giants for their final battle with the Ohrangers. Despite the same thing happening to Gasket and Archerina, the two managed to survive. However, given the fact that the two ran off and were never seen again, they may as well have perished. (Behind the scenes, it's because the suits fell apart before they could be used to shoot more footage.)
• Special Effects Evolution: Compared to the old Command Center set, the Power Chamber is far bigger and much more impressive looking.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • The Alien Rangers are a species of fish people who merely have similarities to humans. As a result, while nothing bad happens, it's a concern that using the Fountain of Youth on their homeworld that works fine with their species to cure Billy might not be compatible with his biology.
  • Trey is a Human Alien, but his biology is significantly different from a human's (as the whole 'if things go wrong he can split into three different people which naturally comprise his being). Powers created specifically for him and his species don't mesh 100 percent with human biology, as a result, prolonged use of them nearly kills Jason.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: As another Zord-like extra hero capable of changing size and thus fighting alongside either the Rangers or the Zords, Auric shares quite a few similarities with Ninjor.
• Swapped Roles: A rare permanent example, the original Sixth Ranger is the leader, while the original leader is the Sixth Ranger.
• Taken for Granite: Jason becomes a literal Gold Ranger in "The Ranger Who Came In From The Gold".
• Teleport Spam: The Gold Ranger.
• Tempting Fate: When monsters from Rita and the Machine Empire hijack the Zeo and Super Zeo Megazords and defeat Auric the Conqueror, Kat utters the worst phrase imaginable: "Well, at least it can't get any worse..." As if on command, Mondo sends down a squadron of Cogs.
• Unexpected Inheritance: In "Mondo's Last Stand", the executor of the Randolph B. Burble Foundation, makers of Burble Baby Food, shows up searching for Mr. Burble's long-lost nephew, the original Burbling Burble Baby, whom they believe to live in Angel Grove. The "baby" turns out to be so long-lost that he's now an adult: Ernie of Ernie's Juice Bar (the Rangers' usual hangout), who receives his inheritance - a lifetime supply of Burble Baby Food. On finding out, he promptly considers the idea of baby food smoothies.
• Unfinished, Untested, Used Anyway: In "Mean Screen", a computer virus incapacitates Angel Grove. Raymond is still working on an antivirus when things hit critical mass, and he is called upon by a morphed Adam. Thankfully, the antivirus works just fine.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Cogs are afraid of creatures with a lot of hair (as demonstrated in their fear of dogs). So having a lot of body hair would give one a tremendous psychological advantage against Mondo's Cogs. They are also shown not to be waterproofed. That last one seems to be Justified, as the Machine Empire's attempt at Hostile Terraforming implies that their natural habitat lacks water.
• Weaponized Headgear: The Zeo Megazord's Zeo Battle Helmets.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: It was never explained just what Billy was doing all those times he disappeared and the Gold Ranger would show up. In the case of What Might Have Been, the intent was to have him be the creator of the Turbo powers, but David Yost's early departure scuttled those plans.
  • Prince Gasket gets gunned down by Ultrazord and blows up... into regular size, and then gets a Villain: Exit, Stage Left when Mondo returns to resume his Big Bad role. And then Gasket never appears again. (Behind the scenes, it's because his suit was in such bad shape that it fell apart and couldn't be used anymore.)

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