I was 13 the year 'Super Force' debuted. Wow, I thought this show was awesome. It had cool stuff that all action/sci-fi fans identified with. Decent butt-kicking in every episode, interesting technology and gadgets, a motorcycle (and jumps through windows) likely inspired by 'Street Hawk' and a strength enhancing power suit with bullet-stopping capability. What wasn't to like? The answer to that was: attention to detail, poor (or no) continuity and plot progression and overall poor scripts episode after episode. I only caught about eight episodes before my local network pulled it and it disappeared into obscurity. Fastforward twenty-two years and "Helloooo Youtube". I read the review from wingsandsword before I watched all "available episodes" from season 1. Then...I had to stop watching.
The show's low budget is now painfully clear. It was a show that couldn't live up to it's potential. It needed better planning before production ever began, at least two more writers and possibly one or two technology consultants, and I believe it needed a one-hour runtime instead of the thirty minutes it was allotted per weekly episode. Just by watching the first episode of the four-part pilot you can tell that- A. Few people had any visions of what technology and space travel would be like ten years into the future much-less the thirty when it was set and- B. Nobody really cared much about believability. The spacecraft used for Zach Stone's Mars mission is an outdated capsule rather than a large multi-person space vessel, and his hero's welcome parade took place in what appears to be a warehouse. Things never got better. I finished watching the first season to satisfy the kid in me but I wouldn't watch any more because I knew it was only going to get worse.
!SPOILER IMEDIATELY AHEAD!
In the final episode of season one the Super Force suit malfunctions after an upgrade went untested. Zach Stone fell into a coma and then died. Now, anyone with half a mind for a quality TV production would have known that this would have been the time to shut down the series and review what went wrong and where it could go should it get a second season. This was the perfect time to reboot the series, and it could have been rebooted right back into itself with a bigger budget, consultants, writers and the one-hour runtime it needed for proper working order.
Here's my idea for episode 1 of season two: Zach Stone could have woken from a coma aboard a space-station to discover that Super Force had been nothing but a dream and that one of the other astronauts aboard his spacecraft saved the entire crew instead of him. Suffering from dual memories Zach returns to Earth to find the people he thought he knew are not the same people. F.X. Spinner is the majority shareholder of Spinner Industries. Teo Satori is the head of RnD (or basically F.X.'s original role). Frank Stone never disappeared and Zach's father is alive, although he is in the hospital and is dying from some incurable ailment. E.B. Hungerford is the police commissioner but he is more concerned with his own interests rather than the public's. With significant spaceflight missions canceled for the next year Zach decides to follow in the footsteps of his father and brother and commits to the police academy. Throw in a terrorist organization, some organized crime activities and a scheme or two from Hungerford to prompt a need for the Super Force suit (and design a suit with a better looking helmet) and you now have the new 'Super Force'.
'Super Force' was just too cool to have failed because so few people cared enough to make it into what it could/should have been. I almost cried when I decided to stop watching. They ruined my show and I now choose to believe that my idea above is how things actually happened. (Being a dream would actually have explained perfectly why all of the first season was so bad and unbelievable.) I totally understand, and feel for, the fans of the original 'Battlestar Galactica'.
Long live 'Super Force'.
The show's low budget is now painfully clear. It was a show that couldn't live up to it's potential. It needed better planning before production ever began, at least two more writers and possibly one or two technology consultants, and I believe it needed a one-hour runtime instead of the thirty minutes it was allotted per weekly episode. Just by watching the first episode of the four-part pilot you can tell that- A. Few people had any visions of what technology and space travel would be like ten years into the future much-less the thirty when it was set and- B. Nobody really cared much about believability. The spacecraft used for Zach Stone's Mars mission is an outdated capsule rather than a large multi-person space vessel, and his hero's welcome parade took place in what appears to be a warehouse. Things never got better. I finished watching the first season to satisfy the kid in me but I wouldn't watch any more because I knew it was only going to get worse.
!SPOILER IMEDIATELY AHEAD!
In the final episode of season one the Super Force suit malfunctions after an upgrade went untested. Zach Stone fell into a coma and then died. Now, anyone with half a mind for a quality TV production would have known that this would have been the time to shut down the series and review what went wrong and where it could go should it get a second season. This was the perfect time to reboot the series, and it could have been rebooted right back into itself with a bigger budget, consultants, writers and the one-hour runtime it needed for proper working order.
Here's my idea for episode 1 of season two: Zach Stone could have woken from a coma aboard a space-station to discover that Super Force had been nothing but a dream and that one of the other astronauts aboard his spacecraft saved the entire crew instead of him. Suffering from dual memories Zach returns to Earth to find the people he thought he knew are not the same people. F.X. Spinner is the majority shareholder of Spinner Industries. Teo Satori is the head of RnD (or basically F.X.'s original role). Frank Stone never disappeared and Zach's father is alive, although he is in the hospital and is dying from some incurable ailment. E.B. Hungerford is the police commissioner but he is more concerned with his own interests rather than the public's. With significant spaceflight missions canceled for the next year Zach decides to follow in the footsteps of his father and brother and commits to the police academy. Throw in a terrorist organization, some organized crime activities and a scheme or two from Hungerford to prompt a need for the Super Force suit (and design a suit with a better looking helmet) and you now have the new 'Super Force'.
'Super Force' was just too cool to have failed because so few people cared enough to make it into what it could/should have been. I almost cried when I decided to stop watching. They ruined my show and I now choose to believe that my idea above is how things actually happened. (Being a dream would actually have explained perfectly why all of the first season was so bad and unbelievable.) I totally understand, and feel for, the fans of the original 'Battlestar Galactica'.
Long live 'Super Force'.