Thursday Throwback: Captain Power

By Stephen Tramontana on February 18th, 2010

• Tweet
• Link to StumbleUpon
• 2 Comments

Ah, to grow up in the 1980’s. We’ve already covered two 80’s-related concepts here at Thursday Throwback, and while I promise they won’t all be from that decade, it’s hard to ignore.

There must have been something in the water, because the 80’s gave us so, so many original concepts that really seemed to take hold: Transformers, Masters of the Universe, M.A.S.K., Voltron, COPS, Inhuminoids, and the list goes on and on.  Even G.I. Joe, which had been around, was retooled in a much more successful way.

And if you grew up in that decade, you were no doubt aware of the charges from parents groups that these shows were little more than half hour commercials built to sell toys. In the case of Secret Wars, they were right. Sometimes, they were wrong, and this brings us to today’s Thursday Throwback: Captain Power.

Don’t remember him? You’re probably in the majority. Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future ran for one season between 1987-1988. The show took place on Earth in the year 2147, where man was pitted in a struggle against Lord Dread and his army of biodreads. As was common for the time, the show was supported by a toy line produced by Mattel. And that’s where the trouble started.

The Mattel toys were supposed to be the next big thing, toys that interact with the show. Now you too could be a Soldier of the Future! Parents groups, who had spent most of the decade trying to make their case, finally had their smoking gun. You see? To enjoy the show, you have to buy these toys! Problem was, the toys weren’t very good and didn’t really interact with the show at all.

Another problem was that, unlike the Saturday Morning cartoon lineup, Captain Power was syndicated, so no one knew what time it was on. Some markets it was on during weekday afternoons, some markets it was 5am on Sunday morning. It made it impossible to get any kind of traction.

The sad part is, Captain Power actually had some great writing talent behind it. Future Babylon 5 and comics superstar J. Michael Straczynski was the story editor for season 1, along with Larry DiTillio. Together, they tried to create a more adult show with a story-focus. The irony that it got called out as an advertisement for toys bothered Straczynski greatly: “Yeah, that’s a show that is an example of what to strive for, and how sometimes good intentions can get derailed. We genuinely wanted to come up with a long-term story, and by and large, we succeeded. The problem was the marketing in front of the show, and the merchandising behind the show…we got killed from both sides.”

This is one of the few shows that actually killed off a main character in the first season, team pilot Jennifer Chase, who sacrificed herself to help the Captain Power team escape. Straczynski, who wrote that episode, based it off the experience of a friend’s suicide:

“I’ve never talked about this before-said I was in a thoughtful mood-but I’ve known several people, friends, who’ve taken their own lives. In one case, I spoke to her just beforehand. Tried, through the phone lines, to reach her one more time, pull her back from the edge. I couldn’t. Years pass. Time comes for me to write the last filmed episode of Power.”‘

“Jennifer Chase is going to die, partly of her injuries, partly of her own volition. Part of my life went into that scene, in the way it was constructed, and what was said. And what was not said, what never had the chance to be said, and thus still burns. I knew that, at the crucial moment of that scene, he couldn’t be near her, as I wasn’t near my friend…it had to be long-distance, hearing but not seeing her, and the terrible pain of arriving too late. I cannot watch that episode without crying. Ever.”

Pretty heavy for a kids show. Unfortunately, we’ll never know what happened to Captain Power, but in this day of the modern reboot, that door may be open yet.