​Production



Saban was originally to produce only 40 episodes in the series, ending with the two-parter Doomsday. Another character was to make an appearance, named Bubba. As the episode was originally written, he piloted Cyclopsis, and was based off of Kai in Zyuranger. After Cyclopsis' defeat at the hands of the Rangers, Bandora would be sealed away in an urn (mimicking the ending of Zyuranger), and the teenagers would give up their powers then go to senior prom, which indicated that the team would've all been 17-18, as opposed to 14-15.

However, due to the unforeseen popularity of the series, Saban, the company that produced Power Rangers, was faced with the possibility of exhausting all of its Zyuranger footage with no more to fall back upon in order to continue producing the show. The company decided not to age the Rangers that much and contacted Toei (the company which produced/produces the Sentai series in Japan) as well as Rainbow Productions (the company that designed and produced the monster suits), requesting another half-season's worth of Zyuranger footage...specifically for Power Rangers. The two Japanese companies agreed, creating around 25 brand-new monsters and filming both human- and zord-sized battle footage for each, as well as incorporating elements from MMPR into the footage (a relationship between the Green and Pink Rangers, and the Blue Ranger as the brains of the group being the most obvious examples). This footage of monsters are collectively known in the Power Rangers fan community as "Zyu2".

Around this time, Saban was also negotiating a deal with Toei to acquire footage from Gosei Sentai Dairanger, the sentai series which followed Zyuranger. Saban used more than half of the Zyu2 footage in the remainder of Season One of Power Rangers, but when they decided to replace the Dinozords with the mecha from Dairanger in Season Two (termed Thunderzords in Power Rangers), the Zord footage of the remaining Zyu2 monsters became obsolete. To compensate for this, Saban attempted to splice the Zyu2 and Dairanger footage to ensure that the Zyu2 monsters were fighting the Thunder Megazord instead of the Dino Megazord. The new scenes would show only the monster attacking, followed by a shot of just the Thunderzords taking the damage. It did not always work, for occasionally the monster could actually be seen making physical contact with the old Megazord.

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Plot



Lord Zedd, emperor of all that he sees, arrives at the Moon Palace of Rita Repulsa, where he takes her place and throws her into a space dumpster again. He then begins to attack the Power Rangers with Pirantishead, a stronger monster than the Rangers are used to fighting. Pirantishead freezes four of the Dinozords and takes control of the Tyrannosaurus Dinozord and the Dragonzord. The Rangers need to upgrade their Dinozords into stronger Thunderzords, which can become the Thunder Megazord. They defeat Pirantishead and give Lord Zedd his first defeat



Soon after that, Lord Zedd realizes he needs to destroy the Green Ranger. He does so with a special Green Gem, using it to take away the Green Ranger's powers permanently since he had limited powers after Rita had taken away most of them in Season 1. The Green Gem also powered up the Dark Rangers, but when Tommy smashed it, the Dark Rangers' powers were transferred back to the regular Rangers. Lord Zedd thought he'd already won, but Zordon made a White Ranger to aid the Rangers in battle. The White Ranger turns out to be Tommy. Then the Rangers make some new friends, Rocky, Aisha and Adam. They discover the Rangers' identity, and become allies of them.



When Jason, Zack and Trini are selected to go to the Peace Conference in Switzerland, they need to find three replacements for them as Rangers. They need to find The Sword of Light to make the power transfer, the sword located on a deserted planet. Lord Zedd wants the sword too and introduces Serpentera, his personal Zord. The Sword is retrieved and taken back to Earth. Serpentera runs out of power and is put away for now. The retiring Rangers choose three new Rangers, and come up with Rocky as the Red Ranger, Aisha as the Yellow Ranger and Adam as the Black Ranger.



Rita Repulsa had returned to Earth when the Rangers were fighting Nimrod and Tommy made his debut as the White Ranger, and fell into the hands of Bulk and Skull, but the Rangers put her back into space. She then again returns to the Moon and, with the help of Finster, uses special moon mud to retrieve a younger face. She then puts a love potion into Zedd's Rejuvenation Chamber and he falls in love with her. They get married and fight the Rangers together, now stronger than ever.