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Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future was a syndicated 1987-88 sci-fi/action television series that ran for 22 episodes. A toy line was also produced by Mattel, and during each episode there was a segment that included visual and audio material which interacted with the toys.
[edit] General plotThe storyline was set on Earth in the twenty-second century following the Metal Wars, a cybernetic revolt that had resulted in the subjugation of humanity by intelligent machines. Captain Jonathan Power and a small group of guerrilla fighters, called "The Soldiers Of The Future," opposed the machine forces that dominated this alternate future of Earth. [edit] Criticism and cancellationCaptain Power attempted to appeal to both children and adult audiences. Ultimately, this became the show's undoing; it was seen as too violent for children (e.g. toys for shooting at the television, live-action violence), and its less mature aspects, such as the title, drove away adult audiences. Other factors contributing to the show's failure included the higher cost of a live-action show (each episode cost an estimated $1 million to produce) compared to the cheaper production costs of a cartoon, as well as the fact that the gameplay between the show and the toys was extremely poor. Poor timeslot choices also contributed to the show's undoing: it was sold to syndication as opposed to a regular network timeslot, which resulted in some television stations airing it in the 5-6am timeslot on Sunday mornings. The subsequent poor ratings hastened the show's demise. In an article from Starlog #128 written by Marc Shapiro with quotes from one of the writers of the show, Larry DiTillio, there are the following statements:[1]
J. Michael Straczynski commented about the show's cancellation and the planned second season.
IN 1987 Captain Power was the target of anti-toy related children's television advocates who claimed that the series focused on selling children expensive toys to fully participate. [3] [edit] StoryEach episode began with the following introduction and recap of the storyline: "Power on." Actor Timothy Dunigan, outfitted in his character's full regalia, would turn to the camera and deliver this line. Then Brad Crandall, a noted voice-over artist, would declaim: "Captain Power And The Soldiers Of The Future "Earth, 2147. The legacy of the Metal Wars, where man fought machines—and machines won. By the year 2132, advanced robotic soldiers known as Bio-Mechs had replaced human soldiers in the armed forces of the world's nations. The existence of Bio-Mechs meant that wars could be fought without significant loss of human lives. This had the effect of transforming the concept of war into a nearly harmless battle between machines, and wars became an everyday event. A group of scientists, led by Dr. Stuart Gordon Power(Bruce Gray), began working on an advanced supercomputer capable of overriding the control systems employed by the militaries of the world to operate the Bio-Mechs, and thus stop them, bringing an end to war.  This supercomputer, known as OverMind, required an equivalent to human brain patterns to become operational. Dr. Power's closest associate, Dr. Lyman Taggart (David Hemblen), became impatient with the slow pace of the project and hooked himself up to OverMind, using his own brain patterns to bring the supercomputer to operational status. Both Taggart and OverMind were changed by the experience. Taggart became obsessed with the precision and "perfection" of machines, and convinced himself that the next step in human evolution involved the merging of human consciousness in perfect mechanical bodies. OverMind became sentient, and shared Taggart's beliefs. Using OverMind to take control of Bio-Mech armies throughout the world, Taggart launched a crusade to bring his vision to life. In mere months, the world was devastated by the Metal Wars, an apocalyptic conflict between Taggart's machine legions and the rest of humanity. Desperate, the world governments turned to Dr. Power to find a way to stop Taggart. He developed the "Power Suits," exoskeletal suits of armor coupled with advanced weapons. But before testing this new weapon, Dr. Power apparently died trying to rescue his son Jonathan from Taggart. Taggart himself was severely wounded, and OverMind "repaired" him by transforming Taggart into a cyborg. Discarding his previous identity, Dr. Lyman Taggart became Lord Dread (also David Hemblen). By the year 2147, with fifteen years having passed since the beginning of the Metal Wars, humanity had been largely annihilated by Lord Dread's forces, and those who survived lived miserable existences in hiding. To bring about his ideal, Dread turned to "digitizing" human beings, storing them within OverMind. His armies roamed the world, seeking humans to digitize. These Bio-Mech armies were usually led by Bio-Dreads, advanced sentient machines, or by human officers and troopers loyal to Dread, who controlled the world from his headquarters in Volcania, somewhere in North America; subsequent fan fiction located this city on the former site of present-day Detroit, Michigan. There were still human resistance groups that battled Dread's Bio-Dread Empire. Some were mere bands, and there was at least one major resistance network, called the East Coast Resistance. The most famous of these groups was the one known as "The Soldiers of the Future," led by Dr. Power's son Jonathan(Timothy Dunigan). Holding the rank of Captain, Jonathan Power commanded a group of five soldiers against Dread's forces. His soldiers used the Power Suits developed by Dr. Power, making them much more effective in dealing with the Bio-Mechs. Operating out of a "Power Base" concealed in the Rocky Mountains on the former site of an abandoned NORAD installation, they relied on a supercomputer built there, whose main control program was called the Mentor (also Bruce Gray), an artificial intelligence whom Dr. Power had created in his own image and with his own voice so that his son would never be without him. [edit] "Project New Order"During the first (and only) season of the show there was a story arc involving "Project New Order"- Lord Dread's plan to eradicate human life and develop his ideal world. The plan consisted of four stages:
Captain Power's group used a system of teleportation portals both to move quickly around the North American continent and to keep their base's location secret. But at the conclusion of the first season, Lord Dread broke the codes used to operate this system and sent forces to assault the base. Power and most of his team escaped the facility, but Corporal Jennifer "Pilot" Chase (Jessica Steen), a former member of the "Bio-Dread Youth," was cornered inside and activated the base's self-destruct mechanism, killing herself and the Bio-Dread troops. J. Michael Straczynski was the writer of the last episode of the series. He commented about Pilot's death, revealing that the scene was inspired by an especially tragic event in his own past.[4]
[edit] Proposed second seasonHad the show not ended with the first season, plans for the second season entailed an anguished Captain Power neglecting his duties as the leader of the team and focusing more on a thirst for revenge. Major Hawk would have taken on more of a leadership role with the team in Power's absence. Two characters were to be introduced: Ranger, a woman who would be Tank's love interest and Pvt Chip "TNT" Morrow, a soldier who appeared in the first season. The plot also covered the team's quest to find Eden II, a secret human refuge mentioned in the first season, while setting up a base of operations on a facility that was the prototypt of the Power Base. [edit] Adult storylineA great majority of the show's story line was filled with romance and intrigue, which was made for the adults who watched the show with their children—who more often played with the toy, shown following. Thus, the story was filled with romantic kisses, sexual innuendo, and occasionally scenes which implied sexual encounters between characters. Mild profanity was also present; "damn" was said on at least one occasion, and Pilot told Blastaar to "go to hell" in response to his order to surrender. In addition, the violent death of one of the major ongoing characters in the series (detailed above) was also an unusual development for a children's series. The inclusion of a "Bio-Dread Youth," which recruited young survivors to Lord Dread's ideals to further advance his agenda, also paralleled the Nazi regime. [edit] Action figures & interactive game Captain Power was also an attempt to cash in on the interactive television game market by Mattel. Some ships and playsets, when firing at the screen, would interact during various segments of the Saturday morning TV program. Video releases were available as well. The first interactive toy and game for the series was a toy XT-7 jet with a video cassette. There were three tapes in all. "Future Force Training," "Bio-Dread Strike Mission," and "Raid On Volcania." The tapes had openings and closings in live action with the cast of the television show. The actual mission itself was animated and took place in the jet cockpit from the first-person point of view of the pilot/player. Players would hold the toy jet and face the screen. The toy was actually a sort of light gun that responded to signals from the television playing the tape. The more the player fired at appropriate targets on the screen, the more points the toy jet would rack up. The more times the sensor on the toy jet got "hit," the more points the jet would lose. Upon reaching zero points, the cockpit would eject automatically. The XT-7 also could interact with the live action television broadcast in the same manner. Since the "game" was only a VHS tape, the missions played out the same way all the time. Other interactive objects in this series were the "Phantom Stryker" Bio-Dread ship, the "Interlocker Throne" for Lord Dread, which consisted of a stationary tank on a tripod and an optional target viewer that could be taken on and off, and the "Power On" platform which one could plug the Captain Power figure into and whenever the transformation was triggered on screen or the base was fired at by one of the other vehicles, the toy would immediately trigger the "Power On" sequence causing the chest of the figure to glow.
[edit] Episodes[edit] Season One
[edit] Season Two (unproduced)[n 1]
[edit] Characters
[edit] Comic bookThe show also spurred a short-lived comic-book of the same name illustrated by Neal Adams with stories by J. Michael Straczynski, who was also the series story editor, writing half the episodes and providing stories or outlines for many more. [edit] References[edit] External links
Categories: 1980s American television series | 1987 television series debuts | 1988 television series endings | Action figures | Canadian science fiction television series | Fictional captains | First-run syndicated television programs in the United States | Interactive television | Mattel | Toys of the 1980s | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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