YMMV / Power Rangers Zeo

• Alternate Character Interpretation: In "The Joke's on Blue", were Humphrey and Bogart a pair of malicious pranksters setting up practical jokes for their own amusement, as well as trying to one-up Bulk and Skull, or were they merely using harmless pranks to try and promote the Angel Grove Novelty Shop, if only through their own unorthodox humorous means?
• Anvilicious: "A Season to Remember." Rather telling when the villain's main weapon is called the "Bias Blaster." ("It will make people only see things their way!") To a lesser extent, many of Mondo's schemes could be seen as this, as after their first two monsters they went from an impressive threat that nearly killed the Rangers (one monster threw them towards the sun and King Mondo thought he'd won), to filling Rita and Zedd's shoes as the Evil Is Petty creators of their Monster of the Aesop. (That was partially Ohranger's fault- they had to change their plots to that type of stuff after first an earthquake, then a terrorist attack rendered their original plot "too soon".)
• Awesome Music: The Zeo theme song is a beefed-up version of the original "Go, Go Power Rangers!" theme song and it is friggin' awesome.
  • "Zeeeoooo goooo, zeeeoooo..." It even kicks off with awesome.
  • The Gold Ranger's theme song, Go, Gold Ranger.
• Badass Decay: In MMPR, Rocky was portrayed as a serious, competent martial artist and Ranger, and was something of an Academic Athlete. In Zeo, his comedic traits are extremely flanderized, he loses several IQ points and infamously gets his ass handed to him by King Mondo when he tries to take him on alone. Rocky's demotion reaches its nadir in Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie where he botches a martial arts move and injures himself while training for a tournament, making him the first Ranger in history to retire due to an injury and one that didn't even occur in battle to boot. However, it's a popular opinion that Rocky became a more interesting character in Zeo after being a Flat Character in Mighty Morphin, so Tropes Are Tools.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: In "A Season To Remember" it's not revealed until the end that the person telling the story to his son is An old Tommy Oliver. As he doesn't disguise his voice very well, most people will likely figure this out pretty early on.
• Die for Our Ship: After The Letter, Kat in the majority of fanfics.
  • Typically portraying her as a yandere who wrote the letter herself. This interpretation is jossed by Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Pink, which shows Kimberly herself writing the letter^note and it's heavily implied that it's simply because of how much she and Tommy have grown apart, but as said series is in an alternate continuity, Kat will likely never live this down.
  • Interestingly, if you watch the series Kat's feelings are one-sided and she understands that Tommy is still pining, so despite her own wants she tries time and again to find Tommy a new love interest who ISN'T her. Eventually he realizes on his own what he's got in Kat. Word of God even says this is intentional to keep Kat from looking like some heartless boy stealer.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Both Gold Rangers. Trey for being a Mysterious Protector with a really solid vocal performance courtesy of Brad Hawkins, and Jason for being the fan-favorite original Red Ranger with an awesome new power set.
• Fanon Discontinuity: A Christmas themed Flash Forward episode "A Season to Remember" ended with the reveal that Tommy and Kat are married, while their oldest grandson is implied to be a Red Ranger. This episode never rated very strongly, though this tends to be largely due to the Anvilicious main story seeing Mondo trying to drive a wedge between the Rangers due to their cultural differences. However, it's unsurprising that certain corners of the fandom (Tommy/Kimberly shippers mainly) objected to the Tommy/Kat revelation. Again, multiple Words Of God repeatedly supported the pairing. However, some point to "Forever Red" and Power Rangers: Dino Thunder as showing Tommy was shown without Kat. (Catherine Sutherland was to appear in both at different stages and demonstrate that Kat's relationship with Tommy was still on-going, but rewrites removed Kat's scene in the former and Sutherland's then-pregnancy made the latter impossible.)
  • The Power Rangers Ninja Steel episode "Dimensions in Danger", strongly puts this back on the table. Tommy is shown as having a son and while the mother is never explicitly named, he and Kat are shown holding hands when returning to their home dimension at the end. The 30th anniversary special, Once and Always, finally explicitly confirms that Tommy and Kat are married.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Billy's send-off, once you find out the harassment David Yost had to put up with behind the scenes of the show. The whole "aged Billy" concept where he's played by an older actor was because Yost had enough, walked off the set, and never came back.
  • "Revelations of Gold" is even worse, once you find out the behind the scenes reason for Billy not becoming the Gold Ranger was that the producers felt that a gay man couldn't be a Power Ranger.
  • 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 would see Rocky's time as a Ranger come to an end due to an injury (the only Ranger in history to have this happen to them) 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.
  • The flash-forward scene of "A Season to Remember", which depicts Tommy and Katherine as an elderly couple becomes this due to Tommy's actor Jason David Frank's tragic death in 2022 at age 49.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: "For Crying Out Loud" has Tommy taking care of a baby for a school project and shows that he is incredibly out of his depth. Power Rangers Ninja Steel reveals Tommy now has a child of his own and is a great dad.
  • David Yost has lamented that him being gay effectively disqualified him from being the Gold Ranger. 24 years later, Power Rangers Dino Fury would officially introduce the first LGBTQ ranger - and in Power Rangers Cosmic Fury she and Billy get to meet.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • "Song Sung Yellow" had the Rangers defeating Cogs by pieing them. Toontown Online (and its' subsequent fan revivals) have you defeating robotic enemies named Cogs with pies, amongst other objects.
  • In "Mean Screen", the first thing Adam does upon logging onto the internet is check out a band's website. After his time on Power Rangers, Johnny Yong Bosch started a band called Eyeshine.
  • At one point, King Mondo tells Alex's Borstein's Queen Machina that the sound of laughing children really grinds his gears. It's quite similar to complaints that another character of hers, Lois Griffin, would hear on Family Guy a decade later.
  • Rocky goes from Red Ranger to Blue Ranger in this season. His Ohranger counterpart's actor would go on to play a Red Ranger in the Shinkenger movie.
  • At one point in 2018, a Kamen Rider name was confirmed. What is that rider's name, you ask? Zi-O. ^note  It might not be pronounced the same way, but the name is close enough to draw parrallels. The title, however, sounds more similar to the name of the Kamen Rider film that was released prior to Zeo in 1993 - Kamen Rider ZO.
  • The episode title "Mr Billy's Wild Ride" is a Shout-Out to Mr Toad's Wild Ride of Disneyland Park. Six years later, Disney acquired the Power Rangers brand and held it for seven years.
  • In "Good As Gold", Rita jokingly states that the Gold Ranger suit will look good on her. The 2017 film reinterprets Rita as a former Ranger.
  • During the mystery of who was the Gold Ranger, Skull was one of the suspects for the role. Years later Power Rangers RPM gives us a Skull like Ranger in Ziggy.
• Ho Yay: Tommy and Jason.
• Memetic Badass: The Zeo Rangers are often regarded by fans to be the most powerful out of all the Ranger powers, due to Zordon stating that the Zeo powers grow more powerful overtime. They are also the only Saban era group of Rangers to never have any of their Megazords destroyed.
• Memetic Mutation: BACK TO ACTION!
  • "The power is gone... (TV shuts down)". ^explanationThe first promo of the series shows the scene of the command center being destroyed followed by the MMPR logo exploding and a TV shutting down effect while the narrator says "The power is gone". Right after that, a sneak preview for Zeo is announced but it is a common joke in the PR fandom to share the clip on social media with the last part edited out.
• Narm: The Rangers' reactions to Jason's return become this when you remember that Katherine and Tanya never met him, while Rocky and Adam shared almost no screentime with him. The latter somewhat makes sense due to Jason being Rocky's predecessor, and it's possible that the former two were told about him off screen, but that doesn't make it any less jarring.
• Never Live It Down: For some, it's the choice of using a shape motif for the visor and Super Zeo Zord designs, especially Tanya's. Of course, we have Super Sentai to thank/blame for this, due to the designs being taken directly from Ohranger.
• Nightmare Fuel: The Tenga vs. Cog battle at the start of "Good as Gold". Turns out that when you pit two mook groups against each other, you're allowed to be a lot more violent than normal. They literally tear each other to pieces.
  • Depending on your fears the scene where Tommy and Kat are trapped in a terrarium with a tarantula. And there are close-ups with the spider.
  • The teaser promo for the Zeo Serial that ran before MMPR reruns in the lead-up to the premiere (which, unlike the rest of the serial, was even kept on some Jetix reruns of the show). It's a condensed version of the Command Center's destruction at the end of MMAR, which then goes to the usual on-screen MMPR logo as it shakes and turns to static, before cutting to stock explosion footage, which then disappears like a TV turning off; the music ends on a discordant note and the usual recap announcer intoning The power is gone. (Fortunately, from there it instead begins to build anticpation, but it could still freak you out if you didn't expect it.)
• No Problem with Licensed Games: Even if it is just Pinball, Full Tilt Battle Pinball on the Playstation was a decent game that was fun in short bursts. It even got released in Japan as "Power Rangers Pinball"
• Paranoia Fuel: While watch a preview of Tanya's first music video in "Song Sung Yellow", the Rangers notice Cogs in the background, spying on them. It's Tommy line that clinches it.
  Tommy: "If we didn't see them this time, there's no telling how many times they've been around."
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Rocky, after going from Jason's replacement to Iron Woobie/Plucky Comic Relief.
  • Kat, after going from Kimberly's replacement to a decently-developed Ace.
• Retroactive Recognition: Lesley Tesh Pedersen played the minor character Emily before making it big as a voice actress for ADV Films.
• So Okay, It's Average: What fans that don't like it see it as. Said fans usually see this as a perfectly competent season that doesn't make any major mis-steps, but suffers from an overpowered Ranger team that never really seems in any serious danger (outside of occasions where one of the Rangers is holding the Idiot Ball, or the latter episodes where Jason's powers as the Gold Ranger are becoming increasingly unstable), a forgettable set of villains, and Billy exiting the series on something of a sour note thanks to behind-the-scenes issues.
• Tearjerker:
  • Regardless of one's opinion on the moment itself, Tommy's reaction to being Dear John'd by Kimberly is pretty sad, as he walks along a beach flashing back to their times together.
  • Billy's departure also counts.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Rita and Zedd being ousted as villains could have been used to have them form an Enemy Mine situation with the Rangers throughout the season. But aside from one or two times where they help the Rangers, this never happens. One instance even had Cestro encounter the amnesiac Rito and Goldar with Bulk and Skull, but he shows no reaction to it whatsoever and does not tell the Rangers.
  • Ninjor disappears with a brief Hand Wave. Given that Saban had the costume to film their own footage, there was no reason he couldn't have been kept on board as a mentor or recurring character. Or if they felt like it, they could’ve made Auric to be an upgraded version of Ninjor instead of making the former his own character.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Tommy's family history. The only members of Tommy's family we ever meet are Sam and David Trueheart as well as his ancestor (who is also likely David's and maybe Sam's) The White Stranger from MMPR's season 2 Wild West Rangers episodes). His parents are mentioned in the Wild West Rangers episode of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers (Tommy's dad) and Found and Lost (both parents). They are never mentioned after that, even in situations where they should be (or at least mentioned again during the graduation ceremony in Power Rangers Turbo)and when Tommy is unconscious during Power Rangers: Dino Thunder. They are the only parents of MMPR season 1 Rangers who we never meet either partially (Billy's dad in MMPR) or even in full (everyone else) without any explanation as to why either. We're also never told as to why Tommy and David are Separated at Birth either.
• Unexpected Character: Jason, the original leader of the Rangers was the last person anyone expected to serve as Trey's stand-in.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: There's a subplot that revolves around a blind woman. She drops her books and the rangers try to help, only for her to get pissed and storm off. When Rocky goes to see her, she takes off again. One of the rangers tell him it was because he "felt sorry for her", but it doesn't come off that way. Rather, it comes off as her being ungrateful.
  • It's especially true since the Rangers have long been shown to be the sorts of people who would help ANYONE who dropped their books.
• Villain Decay: While Zedd's marriage to Rita is argued if it is truly an example (Post "decay" Zedd having done more damage to the Rangers), Zedd and Rita being forced to travel around in a camper is a pretty solid example. Thankfully it doesn't last and by the end of the season they're no longer afraid of the Machine Empire at all and Rita manages to create a monster that beat even the Ranger's Ultrazord!
  • Played straight with the Machine Empire. They are initially built up as a threat even greater than Rita and Zedd when they chase them off, but despite showing they have an army and also statements of conquering whole galaxies, we never see them do much besides Monster of the Week plans, which they had less success with than Zedd and Rita. Rita even lampshades this in the finale when she says they're not afraid of them anymore since by then they've become a joke. This change happens even earlier in the series than it usually does; following their first two monsters (including one that nearly killed the Rangers), they went from a deadly force that was intent on Earth's conquest to filling Rita and Zedd's shoes as Evil Is Petty creators of the Monster of the Aesop, focusing more on disrupting the everyday lives of the rangers than destroying them (then again, that was more Ohranger's doing- they had to change their Darker and Edgier plot after a few episodes due to a case of "too soon").
  • There actually is kind of an in-universe explanation on why they turned into the new Rita and Zedd, we see their army invade in early episodes and their early plans are about world domination and the Rangers are merely a distraction. "For Cryin' Out Loud" is the tipping point. The Zeo Rangers take out a platoon of the Machine Empire's mighty Quadrifighters with their Zeo Laser Pistols, effectively reducing their universally feared air force from space to a mere nuisance. It was after this episode that King Mondo decided It's Personal with the Power Rangers for humiliating him and his intergalactic air force so thoroughly. Up through this episode, he was more jolly and dismissive of the Power Rangers, seeing them as an interesting diversion. So, really it was Mondo's pride being wounded that led to them losing focus on their planetary conquest goal (with occasional returns to it) and becoming obsessed with the Rangers. Rita and Zedd even said they view the Machine Empire as rivals now, not as The Dreaded, and likely chuckled with amusement when the Zeo Laser Pistols cut down the Quadrifighters.
• Woolseyism: In Ohranger, King Ranger is officially considered a Black Ranger (his Ranger Key triggers lights in Gokaiger's toys dedicated to Black Rangers) and his main suit IS black. However, considering the sheer amount of gold on his suit and his gear, so much so that his weapon and Zord are more gold than they are black, it made complete sense to just rename him as the Gold Ranger, which sounds cooler anyway and continued the trend of the Sixth Ranger color being something unique up to that point (they continued with alternative colors like Phantom Ranger, Silver Ranger, and Titanium Ranger; it wasn't until Ninja Storm when they had a Green Sixth Ranger that a color was reused).

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