Tag: Mattel

Television Review: ‘Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future’

All hail to the machine! All glory to my Lord Dread!

This review originally appeared, in a slightly different form, on my previous blog, which is now defunct. I am working to move my redeemable material from there to here. I recently introduced the magical girl to this show, so I think it’s time to bring this review back online.

Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future, starring Tim Dunigan, Peter MacNeill, and Sven-Ole Thorsen. Created by Gary Goddard and Tony Christopher. Head screenwriter J. Michael Straczynski. Landmark Entertainment Group, Mattel, and Ventura Pictures Inc., . 22 episodes of 20 minutes (approximately 440 minutes). Not rated.

Jim Bawden of the Toronto Star once called Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future “the most ambitious series ever made for television,” and he did not exaggerate. For a short period during my childhood, this show was all the rage, but it lasted only one season: Mattel pulled the money when the toy tie-in sold poorly, so it swiftly fell into obscurity, though it continues to enjoy a cult following. There were VHS releases of all the episodes back in the ’80s, but aside from those, Captain Power was for many years available only on fan-made bootlegs. However, in , VSC produced an official DVD release. This is a great boon, for Captain Power is a show that should not be lost.

Captain Power’s history much resembles that of the similarly ambitious and ill-fated Battlestar Galactica—though Captain Power has yet to see a melodramatic, humorless, and oversexed remake. There were attempts to remake it, and for a while a new show called Phoenix Rising</cite >was in the works, though as far as I have been able to discover, it died in preproduct ion hell.

Funded by Mattel and billed as children’s TV, Captain Power sparked controversy for its high levels of violence. It was expensive, costing a million dollars per episode, with innovative special effects—including the first regular appearances of CGI characters in a live-action TV series. It is of continued interest in part because the lead writer was for a time J. Michael Straczynski, who went on to create Babylon 5. There is even a place called Babylon 5 in Captain Power, so Straczynski had that name in mind even back then.

But what really made Captain Power unique is now hard to appreciate: It was the first and last interactive TV show. The Mattel toy line included action figures and a few other items, but the most important toys were the XT-7 and the BioDread Phantom Striker, both futuristic jet fighters. They were light-sensitive, and they would react to certain special colors on the screen. With the toys, you could shoot the villains, and they would even shoot back. Hitting them earned you Power Points, and getting hit took your Power Points away.

But that’s not even the coolest part: If you lost all your Power Points, the cockpit would eject and send your action figure flying across the room, which was hella cool to an eight-year-old boy. The toys also had a “room mode” that allowed you to shoot them at each other like laser tag. It was good, clean, potentially-put-somebody’s-eye-out fun. Unfortunately, the interactivity hasn’t survived the digital transfer, so don’t expect to dig out your old XT-7, load in the DVDs, and blast away at BioDreads on your flatscreen.

I know it doesn’t work because I’ve tried.

Continue reading “Television Review: ‘Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future’”

‘Captain Power’ is the Greatest Sci-Fi Television Show of All Time

All praise to the Machine! All glory to my Lord Dread!

At the moment, I’m unable to play DVDs on my computer, but I ask you to forgive the picture quality and to watch this video. In fact, since this is from a TV show that originally broadcast in the 1980s, the quality you see here is probably close to what you would have got back when this originally aired:

This is from the episode “Freedom One,” from the short-lived 1987 television series Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future. This is in some ways the most ambitious television show ever made, being the first live-action show to have CGI-rendered characters (you can see one on screen here), being replete with action sequences and special effects, and full of innovative set design combined with miniatures. The show cost a cool million per half-hour episode and during its brief run had more-or-less taken over every film-processing studio in Toronto. Most of it was filmed inside a gigantic, abandoned bus depot that the creators, led by Gary Goddard, had filled with sets, miniatures, computers, and other equipment. J. Michael Straczynski, who became the de facto lead writer, credits Captain Power with teaching him the techniques of making a complex sci-fi television show on a budget, techniques he later used on Babylon 5. Continue reading “‘Captain Power’ is the Greatest Sci-Fi Television Show of All Time”

Was Cleaning Out Some Old Stuff, and Look What I Found!

“First my Striker terminal, then this, this little slap at my industrial complex. You’re a flea, Jonathan Power, and I’m going to swat you!”

I played this in a VCR, and I have no equipment to capture images from it except by photographing the screen, so please excuse the picture quality.

Anyway, I absolutely love Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future, an ill-fated children’s television series that ran for one season in 1987. It was the first—and last—attempt at interactive television, something that many at the time mistakenly assumed was the future of TV. Costing a million dollars an episode, sparking controversy for its violent content, and plagued by continuous fights between the writers (led by J. Michael Straczynski) and sponsor Mattel, the show was destined for early cancellation. Continue reading “Was Cleaning Out Some Old Stuff, and Look What I Found!”