SUMMARY:
Somewhere out in the deep reaches of outer space, a mysterious singular red spacecraft streaks through the galaxies. More on that later, because next we go down to Earth to the Angel Grove FM radio station KAGV. Inside we find Tanya's new job as Deejay, playing everyone's favorite generic jams! Kat comes walking into the studio, and is amazed by how dreary... err, great the audio tape-filled place is. Tanya loves being a disc jockey, even if she isn't up to Howard Stern levels of controversy just yet! As the two girls discuss things, a voice is suddenly heard on the speakers sounding emergency over and over. Tanya knows something's wrong, and turns the systems up trying to find out who's sending a message and what it is. He keeps asking for someone to response, and the two female Rangers' questions on who he's looking for are answered when he announces he must contact Dimitria!
[opening credits]
Inside the Subcraft, Porto waddles onto the bridge after having intercepted an incoming message from an approaching spacecraft. Divatox asks her scientific advisor what it is they seem to want. Elgar's playing with wires and shocking himself, when he quips that maybe they're wondering if they'll change their long distance company. Porto relays what little info he's received, and it involves the person trying to contact Dimitria! Since any friend of hers is an enemy of the pirate queen of evil, she orders Porto to locate the source of the transmission, while Rygog prepares the destruction beam. Her mutant nephew wants to help out, but given his track record Divatox just tells him to go play with the sharks. Porto mentions the spacecraft is using the KAGV radio station as a homing beacon, to which an idea springs to mind on how Elgar can make himself useful. Divatox has him take a detonator to the surface to destroy the radio station frequency to prevent Dimitria from being contacted. Up at said station, the voice continues sounding emergency (apparently the signal is only audible as an incoming transmission and everyone listening to the radio is none the wiser). Tanya knows they need to get to the Power Chamber to alert Dimitria to someone trying to reach her. Problem is Tanya's in the middle of a live radio show, so leaving is not an option at the moment for her. She reluctantly stays behind while Kat teleports away to begin searching for clues on this mystery message. At the Juice Bar, the radio is blasting as Lt. Stone and the other patrons enjoy listening to Tanya cranking out the jams. Bulk & Skull Chimps recognize their friend's voice on the airwaves, to which Bulk gets an idea from the realization that her show reaches people all over the city.
Outside the KAGV station, Elgar teleports and gleefully approaches the large metal radio tower. He places down a detonator shaped like an antique radio right on the tower, before teleporting back to the Subcraft, leaving only one hour remaining until the music dies for good! Meanwhile in the Power Chamber, Adam & Kat help Alpha isolate the frequency the message is on. Once they lock on to it, next Adam's able to locate the coordinates of where this is originating. Dimitria is surprised to see it's originating from her home world of Inquiris! Alpha gets an attitude like usual when urged to get a visual, but pulls through in getting the red spacecraft on the view screen in no time. The transmission connects and we see inside the cockpit, where a rubbery suited guy anxiously steers his way to Earth. His name is Visceron, and he's got to see his old friend Dimitria right away, she asks what the urgent information is but he cannot tell her for fears of someone listening in on this conversation. His fears are founded, as Divatox & Elgar share a large set of headphones eavesdropping in on the transmission. He'll be on Earth soon, so he signs off leaving everyone confused as to what's the big secret. Divatox calls for Rygog, and gives him a change of plans involving Visceron. Instead of killing him, she wants to know what this information is. He'll be captured and Divatox will be privy to what Dimitria is supposed to know first. Elgar busts in on the evil meeting to gloat about his role in planting the bomb on the Radio tower. Speaking of which, the detonator is down to only twenty minutes remaining and Tanya's still on the air!
[commercials]
Visceron is approaching Earth quickly, but Porto & Rygog are aiming a capture beam on his location. Without warning, he's fired upon and is unable to do anything but scream as his transmission to the Power Chamber goes to static. Nobody can figure out what happened, but Alpha's sure Divatox is behind this somehow. The new bot's right, as Divatox orders Rygog bring the messenger in for interrogation. Elsewhere at the KAGV station, Tanya keeps cranking out the funky fresh nondescript beats when her Turbo Navigator begins to go off. She rifles through her yellow backpack and opens it up, indicating a detonator is nearby!
In the Subcraft, poor stunned Visceron is being dragged in by a couple Piranahtrons for a confrontation with Divatox. She puts on some sinister charms in trying to squeeze out the information he's bringing for Dimitria, but Visceron seems to know Divatox and won't utter one bite of info to her. She flirts with him, saying she needs someone big & strong like him on her crew, as she's surrounded by incompetence. Elgar's in the background tossing a bucket of water out of the porthole, until a moment later when the water splashes back. Visceron still resists and says he'll never work for the likes of her, so she loses her temper, grabs his arm and flips him over! Pinning him on the ground with her sharp heeled boots, his reluctance to tell her anything is met with an order by Divatox for him to be taken to the sea caves until he's ready to break his silence. Back at the Radio Station, Tanya tries unsuccessfully to reach the Power Chamber on her communicator. Eleven minutes left until the tower comes crumbling explosively down!
At said Power Chamber, Alpha has no luck in contacting Visceron. Kat decides to let Tanya know what's going on, but the communicator isn't responding to her. Alpha figures out the problem, that the radio frequency might be scrambling the frequency of the communicators. Adam helps Alpha work on descrambling the signal. Meanwhile, in the sea caves, Visceron has been thrown against a coral reef and his helmet's smashed open. His face is partially visible, and his body is smoking. Elgar & Porto are hanging around, and go up to him upon noticing he's awakened. Even beaten severely he refuses to disclose his message, but Divatox has a brightly dim idea to change him into a menial servant, run him ragged with physical labor and he'll sing like a canary. Porto obeys her order and thinks it a good plan by whipping out a toxic Super Soaker. Spraying Visceron's head wounds with this potion, Visceron's noggin bloats to a smiley golden globe!
Elgar gives a menacing chuckle, tells Visceron his new fate as a dishwasher, and tosses him an apron and some rubber gloves. Suited up for minimum wage work, he gets to scrubbing dishes even when there's nothing in his hands! Soon, Visceron is busting some suds in the kitchen, ripping through plates like his name was Doctor Detergent! Rapidly finishing the dishes, he's rushed off and done the laundry, and the vacuuming and even the dusting. Now he's bugging Divatox for something else to clean, but she smacks him with her vanity mirror. He begins to shine a golden goblet in one of her plundered treasure chests. Back at the KAGV Station, Tanya continues trying to communicate with her Power Pals. Given only one solution left, she hops on the microphone and shouts out a dedication, hoping their dials are tuned to her show. Luckily the Power Chamber picks it up, as she dedicates this next song, "I Need You Now", to the Power Rangers, stressing it is "Da Bomb". Adam & Kat can read between the lines well and know she's talking about a detonator. Alpha tells them he'll have Justin & Tommy meet them there, as Kat & Adam Shift Into Turbo!
Green & Pink Rangers teleport to the Radio Station and begin combing the area trying to locate the detonator, not aware that Divatox's spotted them on her periscope. Needing a distraction, she has Porto send down a school of Piranahtrons. This also gives her a possible use for the slave labor Visceron. The P-Trons swarm on the two Rangers, some kicking occurs, Kat gets held helpless by two of them as three others leap toward her. Luckily, Red & Blue Rangers teleport right in front of her, leaping right back after the flying fishies. Tommy says they came as soon as they could (busy driving in circles again, Thomas?) and Adam states it was just in time. The Rangers knock the Piranahtrons around until they melt off, not realizing the detonator is just a few feet away attached to the radio tower! They split up and try to cover more ground, but completely overlooking the obvious (here's a HUGE HONKIN MISTAKE: During the P-Tron battle, the clock reads "4:57", now that the fight is over? "7:39". So which is it?!) With no one around, Porto & Visceron portaport in front of the tower, Porto telling him to guard it with his life. He agrees to guard it with his wife, but he's not married! Correcting him before portaporting back to the Subcraft, Porto remarks this guy makes Elgar look like Einstein! Inside the radio station, Tanya awaits anxiously for her friends to arrive, when Pink Ranger rushes inside to greet her. Tanya's Turbo Navigator says the detonator is near the tower, so before Shifting Into Turbo, Tanya puts on a long song (likely the extended version of "In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida") and joins the group outside. They meet resistance with Visceron, whom isn't letting them by as per his orders. Charging up his bulbous red eye, he fires off some blasts at our heroes.
[commercials]
Getting fired upon by the guy with the big ol'head, the Rangers rush him and return the favor with some direct hits. He really takes his job seriously, laying each of them out without breaking a sweat. Since Yellow Ranger wants to be on the radio, Visceron picks her up and throws her up onto the tower. She grabs on safely and jumps back down with a flying kick, that does no good as Visceron counteracts it. She falls hard, but it lands her right next to the detonator. Taking hold of it, she notices only twenty-five seconds remaining. Visceron tries getting it back, but Justin pulls him off, giving Tanya a chance to toss it towards Tommy. Only fourteen seconds left, there's no time to disarm it, and even less to rid it as Visceron chases after it, the Rangers playing really hot-and-deadly potato with the bomb! Visceron finally rests control of the detonator from Kat, with almost no time left. He gleefully lifts it into the air, claiming victory, as the Rangers duck & cover as the clock hits zero and Visceron goes ground zero! The brainwashed, bighead guy goes kaboom, and the Rangers horrifically rush to his sizzled side. Down in the Subcraft, Divatox and everyone onboard cheers over the destruction of that hardworking nuisance. Outside the Radio Station, as the smoke clears the brainwashing wears off, leaving a smoking and severely injured Visceron laying on the ground. Kat recognizes him as Dimitria's friend, and this sends chills down the Morphed spines of all the so-called heroes there. Divatox's celebrating gets more elated, as she grabs hold of Elgar and dances around. Noting how her arch-rival's friend was blown to bits by her own precious Power Rangers. Alanis Morrisette gets no royalties, but Divatox mentions "Isn't it ironic" and Elgar turns to us and says "Don't cha think?".
Soon inside the Power Chamber, the Ranger teens have demorphed and await vigilantly around the stasis container for Visceron's condition to improve. Alpha doesn't think he's going to make it, and Tommy apologizes to Dimitria for doing this. All of the Rangers regret bringing her pal to the brink of death, but she questions how could they have known it was him. Tanya talks about how this shows just how evil Divatox can be, and Tommy remarks he doesn't think they've ever been up against this much power before. Dimitria asks them after all they've been through have they not learned the power of love & friendship? Adam's confused as always by her puzzling riddles, but Dimitria shows them what she means as she waves her hands inside the plasma tube. Visceron is engulfed in a blue glow as his wounds heal and his body is restored. He groggily awakens from his explosive induced coma and is welcomed to Earth by the Rangers. They promise to explain everything that went on with him later. Dimitria questions why he put himself into such peril to deliver her a message. He has important news from Inquiris that she should be made aware of, it's been discovered that her birth records were tampered with. She's always thought she was an only child, but now according to recent date that's not true at all. To put it bluntly, Dimitria has a twin sister! (Of course, it was intended that Divatox, also played by Carol Hoyt, would be revealed as her twin sister, but thanks to both Carol being replaced by Hilary Shepard Turner in later episodes, and Judd Lynn replacing Doug Sloan as head writer of PRT, this was ignored completely.)
[commercials]
Adam, Kat & Tanya walk around the street, discussing this strange turn of events. Knowing how good Dimitria is at asking questions, they're sure she'll find her twin in due time. Kat points out how smart of Tanya it was to contact them through her radio show, which reminds her that she left the studio on the air! The three teens make a dash for the KAGV station, expecting totally dead air. Close enough, as it turns out the Bulk & Skull Chimps have taken over the radio equipment, trying to tell everyone they've been turned into monkeys and need help! Skull doesn't care if nobody understands them, it's still fun being a DJ. All everyone hears is the two chimpanzees chattering aimlessly, Lt. Stone stopping to listen to the air waves. He recognizes those two voices somewhere, but can't place them. Bulk calls for the Power Rangers if they're listening, but Skull doesn't think they are. Aside from the occasional gibberish, the monkeys are playing a few tunes on the turntable or whatever passes for a record player around there. Kat, Adam & Tanya stare into the studio, mouths agape at the site of the two apes doing Tanya's job! They come inside, shocked at the sight of the chimps, as Tanya answers the telephone. It's her boss, Mister Marshall, the radio manager, apparently chewing her out for plummeting the ratings. This isn't the case, as it turns out he thought the idea of having the monkeys on the air was hysterical and loved it! Even morphed into chimpanzees, Bulk & Skull help the Rangers out. Her job saved, Tanya tells them she owes them one, as the radio continues playing (up next, a whole hour of "The Monkees"!). This is likely how the TBS series "The Chimp Channel" got started, i'm sure. Ook-ook!
[end credits]
_BLOOPERS:_
Kat & Adam Shift Into Turbo in the Power Chamber, but Adam forgets to twist his wrist to summon forth the Morpher. He does it too late, screws up the shot, and slaps himself on the head; Tanya talks with Pink Ranger about the Turbo Navigator saying they're somewhere near the radio tower. Pink Ranger speaks in a deep, muffled voice (the ONLY time on the series you'll ever hear just what it sounds like when someone really speaks inside one of those helmets) and Tanya tells him to hold on a second. Attempting to do the scene again, she fumbles something about a Turbo Radio, then jumps up & down in frustration; Kat & Adam stare at our direction, laughing bemusedly. The scene stretches, Kat sticks out her tongue and Adam does his impression of one of the Chimps' rapid mouth movements, which Kat mocks by flapping her hand in a "talk-talk" manner; Adam & Tanya look serious in the Power Chamber, and then look at each other, before busting into laughter along with the crew.
