Warp Section

I’m a fan of science fiction and fantasy. Obviously. But there are very few things that I go completely, you know, fannish over. Like memorizing all the episodes, joining mailing lists, collecting every scrap of news and memorabilia I can. Writing fan fiction, for God’s sake. Star Wars is one of the things I have a deep, abiding, and obsessive love for.

Captain Power is the other.

I say that so if everything else I say about it sounds adoring and gushing beyond all proportion, you’ll understand why. And if you’re thinking to yourself, “Captain Power. Wasn’t that a totally dorky live-action kids’ show with these stupid toy things that were supposed to let you shoot at the screen and wrack up points?” you’d be right. Except it was actually, you know, really good. You doubt me. I can tell. I can see your eyebrows rising in doubt. Let me explain.

The story editor on the show was a guy named J. Michael Straczynski. Yes. That J. Michael Straczynski. Lawrence diTillio was another writer. Douglas Netter was one of the producers. Is this starting to ring some bells? Like, a good chunk of the creative team that went on to produce Babylon 5? So when I tell you Captain Power had complex characters with dark and troubled pasts, complicated storylines with intelligent writing, and an ongoing plot that required you to pay attention from one episode to another, you must believe me. When I say that there are strong signs in the show that Straczynski was already playing with ideas that would later come to fruition in Babylon 5 (in fact, one of the characters, Tank, was produced by a genetic engineering program known as Babylon 5), you must believe me. In short, this was the most intelligent “kids” show ever to air. (I’d rather not talk about the toys, because frankly, the show would have been better off without them. Without the toys, the show wouldn’t have relied on the support of Mattel, and Mattel wouldn’t have been able to thoroughly pull the plug on it.)

This was my favorite show when I was 14, and a big reason for that was “token” female character Pilot (played by Jessica Steen, who many people remember as Doctor Julia Heller on Earth 2). Except that she wasn’t token. This was one of the first times I saw a woman character on a science fiction TV show who acted like and was treated like an equal. She dressed in a khaki military uniform, just like the others. A pilot and mechanic, she was a fully integrated member of the team. She rescued the guys as much as they rescued her. In a TV landscape where so many women characters, especially on half hour kids shows, were running around in pink spandex or brass bikinis, squealing in fear and not doing much else, Pilot was truly a role model to aspire to.

Which brings me to the second reason Captain Power had a huge impact on me. To put it bluntly, Captain Power was the only kids show that didn’t lie to kids about the brutality of war. While the A-Team couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with their machine guns, and exploding airplanes on GI Joe morphed into parachutes to reassure us that no one really died, people on Captain Power died. All the time. In every episode. And when my punchy rebellious teenage self was starting to notice how completely unrealistic it was for these shows to put their characters in life-threatening situations week after week without actually killing anyone, Captain Power did the unthinkable. In the final episode, Pilot died when she manually destroyed the Power Base’s reactor, blowing the base up to keep it out of the hands of the evil Lord Dread. I couldn’t believe it. I sobbed for days.

And yet. Pilot’s death made this show and this world more real than anything else I was watching at the time. I’ll say it again: Captain Power was the only kids show that didn’t lie to kids about the brutality of war. For that alone, it deserves a medal.

Twenty years later, fans are still hatching theories about how Pilot could have survived the explosion. The scripts for the second season were written, though not produced, and pirated copies and scraps of information are passed around like resistance propaganda. Say whatever you will about it, Captain Power lives on. As well it should.

Power on!

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J. Michael Straczynski has announced that the principal photography for Babylon 5: The Lost Tales has been completed, coming in under budget and a full day ahead of schedule. They still need to work out the computer effects and whatnot, but I am starting to get excited about the Babylon 5 universe again.

I am one of those people that ignore Crusade, and Legend of the Rangers, and hope they go back to their roots, and bring us something really compelling. It sounds like J.M.S. has that in mind though, as here are some details:

This first DVD, entitled “Voices in the Dark,” covers the same 72 hour period of time as Sheridan travels on board a Presidential Cruiser en route to Babylon 5 from Minbar for a celebration marking the 10th anniversary of the founding of the Interstellar Alliance. One part of the story follows Sheridan as he picks up an unexpected visitor on the edge of Centauri space, Prince Regent Dius Vintari, and a warning about what will come afterward delivered by the techno-mage, Galen. The other part of the story is set aboard Babylon 5, as Colonel Lochley summons a priest from Earth space to deal with a problem that may have dark supernatural overtones. The two parts of the greater story intersect at certain key plot and thematic points, so that they overlap and complement each other while telling separate, but simultaneous, stories.

Read more about production and whatnot at Babylon5Scripts.com.

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I miss Babylon 5. It was one of those life changing sci-fi shows that I watched when I was younger. I did not really like Crusade, or Captain Lochley but overall J. Michael Straczynski did a great job creating a universe that was just interesting to watch as it unfolded. I figured after the Legend of the Rangers, an okay movie, that the universe had died.

Recently though, J. Michael has announced something interesting that we can expect to see at some point in time: direct to DVD collection of 20 minute stories called Babylon 5: The Lost Tales.

These stories will expand on the characters that were previously established. The only character he mentioned would not be covered would be G’Kar since he believes no one should ever voice G’Kar except for Andreas Katsulas, who passed away earlier this year.

Warner Bros has greenlit the project and he says production starts this September, hoping for a DVD release in the second quarter of next year.

Also missing from The Lost Tales will be Richard Biggs, who played Dr. Stephen Franklin, as he has also passed away.

I look forward to seeing what JMS does with the opportunity, and I will probably be one of the first to run to the store and pick up the direct to DVD feature. I also hope to see at least one more really great space battle with a Whitestar involved. Those things look sexy and can really move.

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I admit it, I was a big Babylon 5 nut. When the series was in its first run during the mid-nineties, I was addicted to it. I never missed an episode, no matter what else was going on in my life. It came on at seven in the evening for me, and everything stopped during that time.

It was early in season four when my girlfriend at the time decided to call around that time. I told her that I really like to watch the show and I would call her afterwards. She took that as a challenge and called me again at seven in the evening the next day.

There was a fight going on, and she wanted me to pick spending time with her, over spending time with my favourite science fiction show. It was right at the height of the Shadow War, and I was really into the show. I stopped paying attention to her and eventually she hung up.

By the time the episode named Into the Fire aired, I no longer had a girlfriend. She realized that I had chosen Babylon 5 over her.

The only regrets I have over the whole thing is that first off, I couldn’t convince her to call at a different time. Secondly, had I know the conclusion was going to be so much the opposite of what I had hoped, I might have just taped the episodes to watch them later. Who knew that the Shadows and the Vorlons were basically going to run away. I wanted to see the ultimate fight. The civil war later in the season was much more interesting.

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