‘DIFFERENT DRUM’ (MMPR)

Please feel free to comment on my review.

This ‘Power Rangers’ episode is another filler, but it does have a decent story to it and an interesting guest character. It’s also one of the rare ‘Power Rangers’ episodes where Zordon and Alpha don’t appear. In this episode, Rita Repulsa hopes to defeat the Power Rangers with music. Typical, isn’t it?

Most of the episode’s first half is dedicated to Kimberley teaching a dance class at the Angel Grove Youth Center. Billy is one of her students, though he manages to trip over, and he ends up rolling about on Ernie’s cart in the middle of the class. I’m not sure how that’s even possible in the episode.

There’s a student in Kimberley’s dance class named Melissa. She happens to be deaf, and it was interesting to see her use sign language to communicate with others in a ‘Power Rangers’ episode. Melissa isn’t affected by the Gnarly Gnome’s music box, and she seeks help to rescue her friends. 🙂

I’ve no idea who’s playing Melissa, since she’s portrayed by an unidentified actress. The IMDb page for this episode doesn’t even credit her, which is a shame, since the actress playing her is very good. It’s also interesting that Kimberley is able to understand sign language when she’s talking to Melissa.

The monster in this episode is the Gnarly Gnome, who uses a music box to capture a group of students so that he can trap the Power Rangers. However, Gnarly does get lazy when he, Squatt and Baboo lie about on the job, and he also gets easily defeated by the Power Rangers in the first battle.

The Megazord is used to fight against the Gnarly Gnome. It doesn’t stay in tank mode for long before going into Megazord mode. The Gnarly Gnome tries to use his music box to hallucinate the Power Rangers in the Megazord. Thankfully, the Megazord and its Power Sword defeats the Gnarly Gnome.

‘Different Drum’ is a pretty average ‘Power Rangers’ episode. I like the inclusion of Melissa as a deaf character when she summons help from the Power Rangers to save her friends. Also, some of the comedic moments with Bulk trying to prove that he can be a good dancer as Zack are pretty funny. 🙂

I’m amazed that Bulk even managed to do the moves Zack did, including the handstand move on the Juice Bar where he falls into some food behind the counter.  It’s nice that Melissa invited Billy to dance, especially when he didn’t seem good at it. By the episode’s end, Billy is quite a natural dancer.

‘Different Drum’ (MMPR) rating – 7/10