Retro Review: Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future

Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future, a 1987 live-action series, predates Power Rangers as an earlier example of a toy-driven action show built around heroes who transform into powered armor to fight machines. Set in 2147, fifteen years after the “Metal Wars” left the world in ruins under the machine-led Bio-Dread Empire, the show follows a five-person resistance team led by Captain Jonathan Power, using power suits designed by his father, Stuart Power.

The team includes Major Matt “Hawk” Hawkins, the aerial fighter; Lieutenant Michael “Tank” Materson, the team’s genetically engineered strongman; Sergeant Robert “Scout” Baker, a stealth specialist and computer expert whose armor includes a holographic-disguise function; and Corporal Jennifer “Pilot” Chase, the team’s youngest member, pilot, and mechanic, who had defected from the Bio-Dread’s youth program. An AI called Mentor, modeled on Stuart Power’s likeness, runs the team’s base and its systems.

The Bio-Dread Empire is led by Lord Dread, formerly the scientist Lyman Taggart, left half-machine after a final confrontation with Stuart Power; Dread commands the AI Overmind and two Bio-Dread generals, the flight-capable Soaron and the ground-based Blastar, both of whom “digitize” human captives into stored data, alongside an army of mass-produced BioMech soldiers.

The review credits the series with more thematic depth than typical children’s programming of its era, citing storylines involving a psychologically unstable army commander, Pilot’s past catching up with her twice, including a near-trial over a prior Dread-army attack, and glimpses of Lord Dread’s residual humanity, including a scene where he lets Power visit his father’s grave undisturbed. A season-long arc, Project New Order, layered in a slow-burn mythology involving a mysterious line of code in Soaron’s programming and a rumored refuge called Eden 2, sought by war-weary survivors.

Because Mattel funded the toy line, the show was built around action sequences using light-up targets keyed to companion toys, a mandate the review says frustrated the writing staff. The series was also notable as one of the first American television productions to use significant CGI, with both Blastar and Soaron rendered digitally at a time when the cost and planning required were substantial; it was filmed on a retrofitted Canadian bus terminal standing in for its sets. Despite material developed for a planned second and third season, including new characters and further Project New Order revelations, the show was cancelled after a single season when toy sales underperformed and it drew criticism from parent groups over on-screen violence.

The review closes by noting that head writer J. Michael Straczynski has cited the show as an early testing ground for a series built around a planned beginning, middle, and end, an idea later realized in Babylon 5, and that a since-stalled attempt to revive the concept as an hour-long drama, Phoenix Rising, was in development by original producer Gary Goddard. It rates the series 4.5 out of 5.