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When I saw that Jason Russell at Starry Eyed Press had written a new Captain Video book I was a little surprised. I guess I shouldn’t have been. After all, they were the ones who had asked me to write my Tom Corbett, Space Cadet serial (which, by the way, is picking up more traction on Kindle Vella).

I think Russell and Starry Eyed Press have their eye on reviving a lot of old science fiction television that is now in the public domain. That’ll be exciting. I can’t wait.

Curious, I picked up a virtual copy.

It’s a fast read, which is good. This could easily have been serialized on Kindle Vella as well, but it works as a small book, too.

I must admit to knowing next to nothing about the original Captain Video and His Video Rangers TV show (1949-1955).

According to the summary at Amazon:

“Guardian of the Safety of the World”, private citizen-scientist Captain Video, assisted by his teenage helper The Ranger and an army of Video Rangers, preserves the peace in the far-off future, fighting the evil Dr. Pauli of the Astroidal Society and a bunch of other baddies (Nargola, Mook, Kul, Clysmok). The show appeared nightly Mon-Fri, featured many outlandish weapons and techno-gimmicks, and was run on a minuscule prop budget.

In doing a little background research, I also found out:

A spinoff series, The Secret Files of Captain Video, aired on Saturdays from September 5, 1953, to May 29, 1954, alternating with Tom Corbett, Space Cadet. Each of the 20 half-hour episodes told a complete story.

So there is a “Tom Corbett” connection here as well (maybe they’ll meet as the result of some cross-dimensional rift or something – HINT, HINT).

The trick in bringing seventy-five year old science fiction TV shows made for children into the present is to strike a balance between that old school adventurism and innocence with modern physics and what we know today about space travel vs. what they didn’t know then.

In writing my “Tom Corbett” serial, I somewhat updated the characters as well. I left Tom relatively unchanged by the passage of time, but I needed to give more adult (still good, clean fun) motivations and backgrounds to the other players to make them more interesting. I think it worked out, at least as far as the people commenting on the episodes are concerned.

Russell’s book is actually two stories. The first features the evil Dr. Pauli and his henchman who escape prison with a dastardly plan in mind: to start an interstellar war. The second involves the universe of the TOBOR robots.

Dr. Pauli, having invented a teleportation gun with common items found in prison, hijacks an alien mining ship and intends on using it to destroy the Pluto colony which is packed with dignitaries at celebration. Through intelligence and guile, Captain Video and his Rangers aboard the updated spaceship Galaxy V manage to foil the plot.

I won’t give too much away, but it is an interesting blend of old space opera and modern physics.

In the second story, an unscrupulous salvage team find an abandoned and presumably disabled war DIORD (droid spelled backward) on a small moon of Jupiter. However when they attempt to take it back to Mars and turn it over to their financial backer, it comes alive and, with sinister telepathic powers, attempts to take them and their ship over to commit heinous mayhem.

It’s all great fun and back-in-the-day escapism which I really enjoy.

The only thing that kind of bugged me, and this is more true in the first story than the second, is that Captain Video and his crew were too perfect. Especially the Captain seemed to do no wrong, had no internal conflicts, really had no particular depth at all. His crew gushed all over him for his greatness and all that stuff.

Like I said, the trick with these adaptations is to balance the old school with the new school, capturing the essence of both. It’s not easy and I know I didn’t do a perfect job with Corbett and Company. However, it was hard for me to read the parts where the Galaxy V rangers were endlessly praising Video for his accomplishments. No matter how much nostalgia you want to summon, some things don’t play well three-quarters of a century later.

It actually reminded me of the dialog between Batman (Adam West) and Robin (Burt Ward) in the 1960s campy Batman TV show I watched as a kid. Viewing some of the old episodes is fun keeping in mind they were made between 1966 and 1968 and even for that time, were ridiculously tongue-in-cheek. Notice, no one is trying to replicate that exact style for the Caped Crusader today. It would probably still be fun, but whoever was writing it would have to make at least a few changes.

All that said, Captain Video: The New Adventures is a fun romp into the past for we oldsters or for younger people who like it classic and in black and white.

It’s not as outlandish as you think. Even 24th century Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill) while serving on Voyager loved to take a break and play Captain Proton on the holodeck.