30 Years Ago Today, The Weirdest Power Rangers Series Ended (And It’s Been Basically Buried Since)

30 years ago today, Power Rangers ended its weirdest experiment, and this show in particular has been essentially buried in the decades since. Through the multiple eras of the franchise, Power Rangers fans have been introduced to all kinds of teams, powers, and more. Thanks to the franchise being no stranger to reinvention, Power Rangers fans are used to major shifts in between shows with new casts, stories and more set in place. But the first time a major shift took place still remains a very divisive experiment with fans all this time later.

Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers is still the wildest season of the franchise even after 30 years of different teams. This miniseries introduced a whole new team of Power Rangers, but only gave them ten episodes to flesh things out. When the series came to an end 30 years ago today, on February 17, 1996, the Alien Rangers became a team that has been essentially buried by the rest of the franchise as they have disappeared off the map in many different ways.

Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers Ended 30 Years Ago Today

Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers was one of the wildest experiments that the Power Rangers franchise ever had. As the original incarnation of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was coming to an end, the final few episodes of the third season ended up being fans’ first taste at the kind of full status quo changes we’d get from that point on. The first three seasons of the show had their own shake ups thanks to the Super Sentai materials they adapted, but it was far from the huge shake ups that we’d see later with the start of brand new shows entirely. So this was a way to transition to what we’d see in the future.

Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers kicks off with the final few episodes of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Season 3, and sees the original team accidentally being turned into children. Leaving the Earth undefended, a team of Rangers from the planet Aquitar had come to the planet to help Zordon. It was a cool idea on paper as it revealed that there’s a whole universe of potential Power Rangers out there on other planets, but ended up being clunky in practice as half of their episodes had to be dedicated to the now child versions of the original team.

The miniseries was not only setting the stage for the full reset coming with the premiere of Power Rangers Zeo, but also was a way to ease fans into the idea that the Power Rangers franchise was going to evolve. It was only ten episodes, so it meant that the Alien Rangers themselves didn’t get a lot of time to flesh out their dynamics or even give each member of the team a personality. It was a race against the clock, and this new team of substitutes had to share their screen time with the stories about the original rangers finding their respective Zeo crystals.

Read Next

Power Rangers’ New Disney+ Reboot Has a Bright Future After Super Sentai Cancellation

What Happened to the Alien Rangers?

Because the miniseries adapted materials from Ninja Sentai Kakuranger, their identity as aliens hilariously never really made sense. They were a species of beings than needed water to survive, but were also a team of colorful ninjas using Japanese history inspired zords when they fought. This didn’t really help the series when it came to its identity, and was all resolved in ten episodes anyway. But as the series progressed over the years, this miniseries has essentially been forgotten.

Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers did deal with their ultimate villain, the Hydro Hog, over the course of its episodes. And eventually, they did leave the Earth once the main Power Rangers got their older bodies back. It’s not a show that many look back on when revisiting their favorites, and it’s not hard to see why these days when watching the episodes themselves as it was clear that these were really made to buy time. It was just a way to keep the time slot active for a few months, and it really reflected that with the kid side of things.

There are a lot of questionable choices that came to the hunt for the Zeo Crystals. It made use of each character’s heritage to explore new time periods, and many of this just did not age well at all. This might be why Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers has been buried when it comes to the rest of the offerings, and its team isn’t the most exciting either. It’s a shame because we’d see other aliens taking on evil years later, and the idea could have been much bigger for the franchise on a whole.

What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!