I found an ep of Captain Power at Wal-Mart for $2.00. Should I buy it?
Well, either buy it or burn it....
Captain Power was, certainly, an extreme case, and yes, I walked off that show after the first season because I felt the merchandising was starting to drive the show, and determine where the stories were going to go. That won't happen on this show because I won't *let* it. If that makes me a little leery on this stuff...well, that's better than being too eager, I suppose.
Sci-Fi Channel has indicated many times that they would like to acquire Captain Power, but (in what I must say I think is a doofy move) the producer won't release the show unless SFC agrees to finance new eps. Cart before the horse, if you ask me. Get the show on first, create the need, THEN do more.
Doofy, I tell you. Doofy, doofy, doofy. Maybe even doofiest.
I had very little to do with Captain Power after walking off the show because I thought there was too much power being given to the merchandising aspect. And I'm not sure how much to reveal; I can say that Larry DiTillio, who came in after me as story editor, edited an entire season worth of scripts; 24 scripts are lying around, waiting to be filmed. I kinda gave him the elements I wanted to see dealt with, and left. (I seem to remember a Starlog interview with Larry a couple of years back where the arc is pretty much spelled out for year two.)
NOTE: For an extract of that article, See DiTillio Speaks - The Shape of Wars to Come
Yeah, the Siskel and Ebert thing was great. For those who didn't hear about this...we worked *very* hard to make Captain Power nominally a show for grownups, screw the toys. And we got hammered in the press, mainly by people who hadn't watched the show. So one day, I'm watching SisBert doing their collective thing, a video round-up installment of their review show...and suddenly they say, look, we don't normally talk about TV series, but there's this one show you gotta check out, it's got a dopey name, and forget the toys, but there's something Going On with this show, it's really got a great story.
It was, alas, too little too late for CP.