YMMV / Power Rangers in Space

• Adaptation Displacement: Odds are, the crossover episodes with Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation were many peoples' introduction to that series, since the episode saw more life in reruns than any episode of The Next Mutation proper.
• Awesome Music:
  • The main theme. "Set controls to outer space now..."
  • The music immediately after Andros shatters Zordon's energy tube, a choral chant, deserves a mention, because it perfectly encapsulates that the entire conflict is over. This is the end. All evil in the universe (at the time) has been defeated.
• Complete Monster: Darkonda, a sadistic Bounty Hunter responsible for multiple crimes and assassinations across the galaxy, is defined by his unscrupulous ways to benefit himself. Prior to the story, Darkonda kidnapped the young Karone, altering her memories to twist her into becoming the villainous Astronema. Desiring the riches of the planet KO-35, Darkonda created a Barillian Bug infestation that wiped out most of the population. In the series proper, Darkonda, still sticking to his sadistic tendencies, uses the Barillian Bugs to infect the Rangers and twist the survivors of the KO-35 into living pieces of inanimate coral. When Astronema learns the truth of her past from Ecliptor, Darkonda converts him into a cyborg so he has to serve him, later trying to graft cybernetic implants into Astronema. In a mad bid for power, Darkonda attacks Dark Spectre and intends to blow him up to rule over the universe. Sadistic and cowardly, Darkonda stands out as the vilest villain from the "Zordon Era", and amongst the worst of the entire franchise.
• Creepy Awesome: While Astronema didn't start out as this, she definitely became one after Dark Specter brainwashed her. Not only does she deliver her lines in a more cold but still entertaining way, but with the exception of the Psycho Rangers being defeated, she never complained about her plans failing, always finding a plan B. For example, while she didn't get to trap the rangers and citizens of Angel Grove into data cards, she was able to get the Psycho Rangers back in there.
• Creepy Cute: Cyborg Astronema. While she's still rather pretty, her skin is deathly pale, and she has visible cybernetics on her forehead, as well as talking in a Creepy Monotone most of the time (as she has no emotions or humanity anymore due to being a cyborg.)
• Designated Monkey: Ecliptor's death in the finale turned him into this. The fact he died in spite his redeeming traits, and his worst act being done after he was converted into a cyborg, while Lord Zedd, Rita and Divatox were purified and got live (the former two having a much longer rap sheet of on screen villainy than Ecliptor) caused fans to see his death as unfair.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Despite it being not entirely unwarranted, Astronema's evil is sometimes heavily downplayed and she's made out to be a misinformed hero, like a female version of Auric. Sometimes this even done with her post-roboticization form, being twisted into an Anti-Hero with a Hidden Heart of Gold who's secretly working with the Power Rangers in deep undercover. The worst of these flanderize her Lost Galaxy persona and apply it to Astronema!
  • Ecliptor also gets a lot of this. He's often portrayed heroically.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Several.
  • Bulk and Skull, the only original cast members left, had their popularity confirmed with their Moment of Awesome at the end of the season.
  • The Psycho Rangers, for giving Evil Counterparts to the Power Rangers that were finally characters with individual personalities and villains in their own right rather than just a cheap Evil Knock Off. Their sheer badassery also helped. They were popular enough to have a trope named after them. The fact that they were never made into action figures was a sore subject in some parts of the Ranger fandom... until it was announced at San Diego Comic-Con 2017, 18 years later, that action figures of the Psycho Rangers would finally be coming, as part of Bandai America's 6.5-inch Power Rangers Legacy Figures line.
    • Then in 2020 the Female Psycho Rangers were finally released in Hasbro's Lightning Collection after being left out by Bandai. Adding to the celebration it was the lines first and currently only team pack cementing their place in the new line.
  • Adam's appearance to help Carlos turned him into this.
• Evil Is Cool: Astronema and Ecliptor are probably two of the more well-respected villains in the franchise. It likely helps that they are very effective villains with a notable sense of respect and dedication to one another and that they undergo arcs that make them extremely sympathetic to viewers.
  • The Psycho Rangers. Due to being the first Evil Counterparts to the main rangers that didn't last for one or two episodes, as well as having awesome designs, including their monster forms, they managed to become very popular throughout the years, to the point they would later appear in other media such as their on story arc in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers (Boom! Studios) called Power Rangers: The Psycho Path.
• Fanon: The United Alliance of Evil being the name of the collection of Big Bads. It actually comes from a throwaway line in Power Rangers Zeo about King Mondo having broken away from something called the United Alliance of Evil - just who and what that is isn't expounded upon, and the name is never used at any other time. It makes a pretty good name for PRiS' villain group, but Canon it's not.
  • Becomes Ascended Fanon much later, as the 25th anniversary comic actually refers to Karone as the "last surviving member of the United Alliance of Evil".
  • Also in most stories where Karone becomes a ranger as opposed to canon she will usually be the purple ranger based on the color of her honorary ranger outfit.
• Fanon Discontinuity: "Shell Shocked", the crossover with Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation is INFAMOUS among fans, mostly because of the other series - most choose to pretend the episode doesn't exist. The fact that the episode doesn't exactly connect with the third and the fifth^note while it does connect with the last scene in the third, other than that it's mostly stand-alone ("Shell Shocked" is the fourth episode) helps, so most choose to simply skip this episode.
• Franchise Original Sin: This was the first series where the writers started doing straight forward adaptations of Sentai plots. However while Power Rangers in Space was content to simply adapting some filler episodes, otherwise telling a completely original story, succeeding seasons start to lean closer and closer to adapting Sentai plots and characters wholesale. This culminated in almost direct translation seasons like Power Rangers Wild Force and Power Rangers Samurai.
• Growing the Beard:
  • Considered this for the franchise as a whole as this was when the storytelling grew out of the more simplistic characters and morals.
    • The season has a coherent, season-long storytelling that changes the status quo at multiple times (and not just with the introduction of new Zords and powerups). Previously the show would experiment with some mini-arcs but never had the foresight to set things up more than a few episodes down the road.
    • Both heroes and villains started gaining more complex characterization. Villains had the capacity for loyalty, disliking the actions of another villain and have the capacity for redemption (not Brainwashed and Crazy to start with). Heroes had flaws that are more than a Compressed Vice for a single episode that is resolved with An Aesop.
    • Individual episodes would go deeper into adapting certain genres, emulating them more closely instead of JUST the Power Rangers formula with a Shout-Out. "A Line in the Sand" feels more like a slasher film where the Rangers are being stalked in their civilian life by a murderous humvee.
  • For this particular series, the major storylines and dynamics of the season, such as the characterization that makes Ecliptor a fan-favorite, really all hit their stride once Darkonda shows up. There's a lot less filler from that point on.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • "When Push Comes to Shove". The episode featured Cassie and a guy she's on a date with trapped at the top of the tallest building in Angel Grove as a beast is trying to knock it to the ground, trying to send Angel Grove up in smoke. Of course this is Power Rangers so everyone survives, but imagine the writers trying to get this episode off the ground post 9/11.
  • Especially considering that this caused a whole lot of Power Rangers Time Force episodes to be re-edited and/or completely unaired when that series aired at about this time.
  • The villains turned into dust in the season's Grand Finale "Countdown to Destruction" becomes this as nearly twenty years later, half of the universe's population get turned into dust in the end of Avengers: Infinity War.
  • The finale has Zordon reluctantly killed by a Ranger (with his consent) to destroy the villains. The Boom Studios comics has a Zordon from another universe being killed by an evil Ranger who has no good intentions whatsoever. For extra punch the Ranger in question is an evil version of Tommy.
• He's Just Hiding: Various villains not shown being disintegrated by Zordon's Wave (such as Rito, Baboo, Goldar, and Sprocket) have fans who believe them to have survived. 
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Astronema's "I wouldn't want to be a Power Ranger anyway!" Numerous production issues resulted in a post-reformation Karone becoming the Pink Ranger halfway through the next season. Even moreso in Super Megaforce's episode "Legendary Battle", the Extended Edition gives her this line: "I love being a Power Ranger..."
  • Kind of a meta example, but in the full version of the theme song there are the lyrics "Long live the Power Rangers." To elaborate. "In Space" was meant to be (and was in fact written as) the finale of Power Rangers as a franchise. This addition to the lyrics reflected this mindset, but if one looks at it from today and notices the 16+ seasons that followed...
  • When the Psycho Rangers were introduced, Psycho Blue boasts, "We're smarter than you." Psycho Blue was voiced by Wally Wingert, who would voice The Riddler in the Batman: Arkham Series, who's also known to makes similar boasts.
  • Psycho Pink is the first Psycho Ranger killed off. When they return in Power Rangers Lost Galaxy she outlives the rest of them.
  • The infamous crossover with Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation, in light of the fact that Power Rangers Samurai, Power Rangers Megaforce, Power Rangers Dino Charge, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012) both air on Nickelodeon.
    • To say nothing of the crossover in the Boom! Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers comics. Also counts as Heartwarming in Hindsight, however; when the first crossover aired, it came off as the Ninja Turtles franchise trying desperately to regain some credibility by leeching off of Power Rangers' popularity. However, after the Ninja Turtles franchise managed to regain its popularity on its own terms, later crossovers instead saw the two franchises as equals.
  • This season is the first time in both Power Rangers and Super Sentai where the main theme was space. Years later, Super Sentai would get their own season with Uchu Sentai Kyuranger.
• Ho Yay: Andros has this with both Carlos and Zhane. He treats the then-comatose Zhane in a manner suspiciously similar to how Victor Fries did his comatose wife.
• Iron Woobie: Andros; first his sister is abducted, then he and his best friend are the survivors of a supposed genocide, then said best friend takes a hit for him leaving him in cryostasis, leaving him alone on a spaceship for two years with only a sentient AI for company. That's a hell of a thing.
• Jerkass Woobie: Astronema/Karone. After being kidnapped by Darkonda, she was raised by Ecliptor into being evil. However, despite her evil ways, when she finds out that she is actually Andros' sister, she begins to have a breakdown about who she is before confronting Ecliptor about it. Unfortunately, when she tried to become genuinely good, especially after the rangers finally accepted her, a recently brainwashed Ecliptor forced her back into evil via mind control and she became the main villain for the rest of the season.
• Les Yay:
  • Psycho Yellow's One-Winged Angel form is a wasp. Pink's is a giant flower. Sure, you could say it just signifies how Pink, even as her teammate, was just a pawn for Yellow's plans, but it's not hard to get the vibe that they were literal Psycho Lesbians.
  • Ashley and Karone in the few scenes where Karone is Karone. In the final scene of the season, Ashley is the first to touch Karone.
• Magnificent Bitch: Astronema is the self-proclaimed "Princess of Evil" and the second in command of the United Alliance of Evil. Tasked by Dark Specter to destroy the Space Rangers, Astronema would fight many battles with them before finding out her identity as Andros' long lost sister Karone, leading to her defection to the Rangers. Upon being kidnapped by a reprogrammed Ecliptor and installed with neural implants to keep her on the side of evil, Astronema decides to kill both the Space Rangers and Dark Specter in order to usurp the latter's position as Grand Monarch of Evil through the creation of the Psycho Rangers, who beat the Rangers within an inch of their lives in their earlier encounters and drained Dark Specter's life force for power. Despite their eventual defeat, Astronema would continue to inflict significant damage on the Rangers, successfully luring them into a trap that saw the destruction of the Delta Megazord by Ecliptor, and destroying the Mega Voyager using Tankenstein in the subsequent episode.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • If abducting Zordon and draining him of his powers isn't enough for Dark Specter to cross it, then this sure is: Threatening to wipe out all life on Earth with a giant asteroid if the Rangers don't turn Karone back over, and even after she's brainwashed, he lets the asteroid continue on its course, anyway.
  • Aside from being responsible for the Barillian Bug infestation that made KO-35 abandoned, Darkonda kidnapped Karone as a child and when confronted by Andros, he refers to it as one of his greatest accomplishments.
• Narm: Andros crying on Astromena's body at the end of "Countdown To Destruction". The awfully obvious greenscreen doesn't help.
• Narm Charm: Viewers have seen tropes from this series, and cheap tropes from outside the show, played-out in previous Power Ranger series. What sells them is that they are played deadly serious.
  • "The Barillian Sting": Carlos gets stung by the titular Barillian Bug, released by Darkonda. It's a cheap-looking prop, but what induces existential horror is that KO-35 was invaded by these things, stinging everyone they came into contact with. Carlos undergoes a very painful-looking transformation, and even worse, it's stated that without the antidote, the only two left (which are in danger of being captured by Darkonda and destroyed), the transformation is permanent.
  • "Dark Specter's Revenge": Dark Specter chucks an asteroid at Earth in revenge for Astronema being swayed to the side of good. Sound like overkill for a bombastic villain? Exactly. The rangers cannot even blast it apart, or even push it off-course, not until the timely arrival of Zhane and his new Mega Winger. Plus, Astronema is very forcibly captured trying to divert the asteroid. Plus, there are genuine scenes of panic back on Earth as, until the Rangers push the asteroid away, the population can only accept their fate.
  • The Psycho Rangers Arc: A team of evil rangers? Unlike previous times, yes. The genuine rangers get a beatdown for every advancement they make against them.
• Realism-Induced Horror: The video of Karone getting kidnapped seems a bit too much like a real child abduction, particularly since we don't actually see Darkonda the first time, so for all we know it could just be a normal human kidnapping.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Alpha 6. He started out in Turbo as a Totally Radical Replacement Scrappy for Alpha 5, and the show surprisingly redeemed him by making him even more of a Suspiciously Similar Substitute, to the point where he's a straight Expy of 5. Vocal Evolution played a big role, trading in the annoying Noo Yawk accent of Catherine Battistone to cute little brother-ish vocals of Wendee Lee. It also helps that he gets some genuinely epic moments like saving the Rangers with the Astro Megazord more than once.
  • Justin's return episode helped ebb a lot of the anger at his character, as despite everything he represented (an attempt to appeal to the kids), he was still a Ranger, a member of the team and there was some genuine emotion between all of them.
  • All returning Rangers from Turbo are seen as this among fans who didn't like that season. The replacement team, T.J., Carlos, Ashley, and Cassie all became more popular for their roles as Space Rangers and even Justin acquired some fans when he rescued the other rangers from Lionizer.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Aloma Wright, who plays Adele (the owner of the Surf Spot), would later become considerably better-known for her role as Laverne Roberts in Scrubs.
  • In "The Delta Discovery", Elgar hides from Divatox (after calling Astronema the "smartest boss he's ever had") and crouches behind a console, using a different voice to pretend to be the "hang up or try again" message. Elgar's VO Derek Stephen Prince would later use this voice for Veemon.
  • T.J. Rotolo, Dark Specter’s first voice actor, would later go on to be known for voicing Frank West.
• Ron the Death Eater: The Power Rangers sometimes get this. Especially when combined with Astronema DILP. Often their struggle is turned into a Gray-and-Grey Morality.
  • Despite her popularity and being a DILP-magnet, Astronema has received this from a few viewers, portraying her as being as brutal and uncaring as someone like Grimlord or a totalitarian, Orwellian dictator like Big Brother in 1984.
• Rooting for the Empire: It's comical and minor, but who else was cheering on Rita during her fight with Divatox?
  • As with Ecliptor vs. Darkonda.
  • Also when Astronema kicks Darkonda out of the Dark Fortress, much to the delight of Ecliptor (as well as quite a handful of viewers).
• She Really Can Act: While the Large Ham traits eventually resurfaced, the initial reveal of Karone being brainwashed was well done, with Melody Perkins being rather unnerving.
• Signature Scene: Bulk and Skull's I Am Spartacus routine at the show's finale.
• Special Effect Failure: Some footage was clearly green screened and looks really bad, even by 90s standards. Though not all of it can be placed at the hands of Saban- some of it is the fault of the Stock Footage used from Megaranger, like whenever Ecliptor goes giant.
  • The Ninja Turtle costumes play with this a bit in that they're marginally better than their home series in some aspects (better neck seam blending, fewer instances of the bandanas covering the eyeholes), and worse in others (The show's case of Hong Kong Dub with the voice overs and animatronics are more obvious), with Michelangelo's shell coming apart from his back during the finale of "Shell-Shocked".
    • About midway through when the Turtles and Astronema take over the Mega Ship, one of the panels ends up splitting for a second.
• Stoic Woobie: Ecliptor. Despite being firmly on the side of evil, he truly does love Astronema, having raised her when they first met, and would never intentionally hurt her. Unfortunately for him, Darkonda often uses him for his own goals such as fusing with him so he would get harmed, or reprogramming him to brainwash Astronema. Even still, after finding Astronema's fallen body next to Andros, he immediately became mournful towards her, even reaching out to her in his final moments before the Z-Wave killed him, showing that there was still some good in him.
• Tear Jerker:
  • An early episode starts with Andros watching a recording of him playing with Karone as a kid, which ends with her getting kidnapped. While he's completely silent as he watches the video, he's very clearly Trying Not to Cry.
  • For some reason that is completely unknown to anyone, the screen gets really, really blurry when Andros smashes Zordon's tube.
  Zordon: Andros, listen to me...it is your duty as a Power Ranger to save the universe. Now is the time.
  • Ecliptor being killed in the finale.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Dark Specter, despite being (ostensibly) the series' Greater-Scope Villain, does very little throughout the season and ends up being killed by The Starscream Darkonda early in the Grand Finale. He never even once has a real fight with the Rangers.
  • Ecliptor being killed by the Z Wave could count as this. Despite being created solely to be evil, he had shown a loyalty to Astromena, and was only evil in the finale due to being brainwashed by Dark Specter. Meanwhile, Zedd, Rita, and Divatox were purified by the Wave, with Rita going on to become, of all things, the Mystic Mother, despite them all having been shown as unrepentant in their villainy in previous seasons. Not only that, but what about Squatt, Baboo, Finster, Klank, Orbus and Porto- all of whom were not really villainous, so did they get turned human too or were they turned into sand as well? (Kinda justified, because that whole bit was imposed by the Fox Kids censors.) Fortunately, Finster's fate was explained in the graphic novel Soul of the Dragon, which confirmed that he was purified by the Wave, though not turned into a human like Rita, Zedd and Divatox.
  • While the finale is generally beloved, some fans wish that they had brought back some of the previous Rangers to help in the final battle on Earth.
  • Lokar would have been a perfect ally for the Ultimate Alliance of Evil, and a perfect weapon against the good guys. The Z Wave would have likely destroyed him in a similar manner to his Zyuranger counterpart Dai-Satan's death.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Despite numerous bits of foreshadowing, Dark Specter never finds out about Astronema's plan to drain his energy with the Psycho Rangers. It also never goes anywhere.
  • As per Christopher Khayman Lee himself, "Grandma Matchmaker" falls under this; he would've preferred Andros to be Ashley's "boyfriend" instead of Carlos.
  • It's debatable, but there are elements of this in the Psycho Ranger arc - the season had to that point been focused on the Rangers searching for Zordon and the massing armies of Dark Specter that consisted of all the Big Bads of the previous seasons, and then that all takes a backseat for eight episodes of a nearly beat-for-beat translation of the equivalent arc from Megaranger, keeping the Rangers mostly confined to Earth. While the Psycho Rangers delivered a storyline that fans had been waiting for since Rita unleashed the evil Green Ranger on the original Power Rangers, it did take away time from the ongoing storyline that this season had been building up to that point.
• Tough Act to Follow: Every season after in Space has essentially been trying to copy the magic that made this season work. Some have managed better than others, but one major advantage this season has had over the others is the returning characters and strong mythology and continuity nods. The standalone team, standalone season format makes it more difficult to escalate the action and develop the characters.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Ecliptor's death in the finale. He was a Noble Demon throughout the series who despite his villainy showed that he would support Astronema even when she chose to turn her back on evil. Then he was turned into a cyborg with most of the good in him purged. Many fans felt that he deserved to be purified along with the other villains in the finale rather than killed, especially since past villains like Zedd and Rita got to live despite also being unrepentant villains and having much longer rapsheets of villainy than him.
• Win Back the Crowd: Its predecessor, Turbo, has started to get some love for its second half, but is still widely considered a weak season overall by a lot of fans. In Space is still held in high regard and considered the best series by many.
• The Woobie:
  • Waspicable. He was a Monster of the Week, but is otherwise actually a really nice guy. Unfortunately, he is constantly bullied by the other monster from his episode, Sting King, as well as Ecliptor into doing evil acts he truly does not wish for, such as scaring Bulk and Skull and attacking during a kids' birthday party.
  • "Seymore" is a good alien/monster who is basically the slave of another monster named Jakarak. After he stows away on the Megaship Andros decides to protect him when Jakarak comes after him. At once point Seymore starts crying and blames himself for Jakarak coming after the Power Rangers, and, even worse, Jakarak later traps Seymore in his body so he's just a helpless face attached to his torso. Luckily, the rangers kill Jakarak, and take Seymore back home, where it turns out he has a Love Interest.

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