The Netflix teaser for the Power Rangers reunion is bittersweet nostalgia

It’s hard to talk about the history of the Power Rangers without getting a little sad. Power Rangers: Once and Always is a stark reminder of this, a Netflix special reuniting some of the original cast members Mighty Morphin Power Rangers for the 30th anniversary.

The promotional video Once & always doesn’t give many details, just a few select quotes about what it’s like to get the band back together. It’s both exciting in its sincerity and bittersweet between the lines, because it’s hard to talk about a reunion for a franchise as closely followed as Power Rangers and not think about who is not

there and unfortunately who tip His.

The cast includes a collection of actors who were on the show during the show Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Era: David Yost and Walter Emanuel Jones, the original Blue and Black Rangers, along with Steve Cardenas, Johnny Yong Bosch, Karan Ashley and Catherine Sutherland – who respectively played the second Red, Black, Yellow and Pink Rangers. Also joining the crew, per Weekly entertainmentShe’s a new face: actor Charlie Kersh, who plays Minh, daughter of Trini, the original Yellow Ranger. Kersh’s character is likely a tribute to the late Thuy Trang, who played Trini and died in a car accident in 2001.

In the short teaser there are shots of Yost and Jones in costume, as well as Ranger group shots, which notably includes the Green Ranger – a character only played by the late Jason David Frank, who in many ways was the face of Power Rangers up to and including his death by suicide last November

. The video leaves Frank’s involvement to speculation, but when a tweet from 2018 by David Yost is an indication that the idea of ​​a Netflix reunion special has been floated before, and it’s possible, but not guaranteed, that Frank will show up posthumously.

As successful as Mighty Morphin Power Rangers would be to spawn a mega-franchise that would regularly reinvent itself for 29 seasons – the 30th, Power Rangers: Cosmic Fury

debuting on Netflix this fall (its first season as a streaming exclusive) – the young cast that started it all would be struck by a whiff of tragedy long after they left the series. In addition to the tragic deaths of other cast members, Yost himself only recently began embracing his Ranger heritage 2010 revealing that he left the franchise after dealing with constant homophobic harassment.

This dichotomy of triumph and tragedy makes Power Rangers a uniquely charged theme for nostalgic replays. Any adult perspective on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers must contend with both the darkness at its edges and his own wild and unlikely success. the name of the special, Once & always, is a nod to a Power Ranger mantra: once a Ranger, always a Ranger. It’s the perfect summary of the franchise, a bittersweet piece of comic book storytelling made reality – and the gift that’s also a curse.