The original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers series introduced the franchise to the world, and there were five Rangers at the center of the series when it first debuted. Three of those original Power Rangers would leave the series in 1994, and one more Ranger would leave the series in 1995. Unlike the previous departures, the very last episode of this Ranger’s tenure on TV turned out to be an episode that didn’t even feature a morph, ending this era in a rather unsatisfying way.
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The trio of Jason (Austin St. John), Zack (Walter Emanuel Jones), and Trini (Thuy Trang) had their last moments as part of the Mighty Morphin series in the episode The Power Transfer, paving the way for three new Rangers. Then, in 1995, Kimberly Hart (played by Amy Jo Johnson) had her last moment as part of the show, but her last appearance in Mighty Morphin wasn’t actually her final episode, and because of this, she didn’t even appear in costume as the Pink Ranger or get a chance to morph.
The character of Katherine Hillard (played by Catherine Sutherland) starts to have a recurring role in season 3 of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and that ultimately leads to the character becoming the inheritor of the Pink Ranger’s Power Coin after Kimberly decides to follow her gymnastics dreams in Florida. Kimberly chooses Kat to carry on the Pink Ranger’s legacy in Part 3 of A Different Shade of Pink (November 8th, 1995), but this isn’t the last time we see Kimberly in the series as the Pink Ranger.
Kimberly’s last appearance in Mighty Morphin actually takes place during the I’m Dreaming of a White Ranger episode, which aired on TV on November 23rd, 1995. The quirky thing is that this was actually a Christmas Special that was made for video release on VHS, and it was released months earlier in stores on September 12th, 1995. It was later aired on TV after Kimberly’s “real” last appearance, and if you were looking for a satisfying closing episode here, you’d be disappointed.
The entire premise of the Christmas Special is that the Rangers have to save Christmas and a captured Santa Claus from Rito and Lord Zedd without using their powers. While it’s a fun premise for a one-off Christmas Special, as a final episode of Kimberly’s run, it leaves something to be desired.
This also makes no sense in terms of where it fits in the overall timeline. Kimberly had already passed her powers on to Kat in A Different Shade of Pink and had gone to Florida with the full support of Tommy, so it’s a tad odd that she’s now back in Angel Grove, celebrating with the rest of the gang like she never left and trying to hang mistletoe so she can get her Christmas kiss with Tommy. Plus, Kimberly is still the pink Ranger here, and there was a deleted scene that shows Kat in Australia having Christmas with her family, indicating that the passing of the torch hadn’t occurred yet.
To help fix all this, the Kat scene was deleted to cause less confusion, and in the home video releases of the season, this episode was sequenced as episode 16, so it occurs ahead of Kimberly’s departure in A Different Shade of Pink’s episode 25 (as you can see in the numbering in the clips above). That did help things, and it’s always interesting to see how things are edited and rearranged to make it all work.
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Image Courtesy of Marvel Comics
