Special Guest, J. Michael Straczynski, will be making two presentations at Bucconeer. The Saturday afternoon event will be a presentation of Babylon 5 videos including bloopers and some possible surprises.

On Thursday evening, he’ll be doing an interactive session with the audience where you will be able to ask him questions. And while many of us want to learn more about Babylon 5, The Babylon Project: Crusade, and where JMS is going from there, you might want to take the time to learn more about how he got there. Joe spent many years in television, as a writer and story editor, before deciding to write and produce his own show. For me, a prime example of his talent as a writer will always be a live action children’s show from the late 1980's.

The same year that the next generation of Star Trek appeared on television, another science fiction show made its debut. It was sponsored by a toy company and was intended to be interactive with toys sold by that company. The main characters ran around wearing goofy outfits that appeared when they proclaimed "Power On!" They shot up robotic bad guys in a lot of battle scenes (to interact with the toys) and the show had a really stupid name: Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future. What I did not know then, was that it also had a story editor named J. Michael Straczynski.

I never intended to watch Captain Power. When I first heard about it, I thought it would be nothing more than a half-hour commercial for toys. I was already fed up with all the toys based upon kid’s TV shows, I did not need to see a show based upon toys. However, it just so happened that where I lived, Captain Power aired immediately after Star Trek: The Next Generation. Due to the whims of syndicated televison show scheduling, I watched some episodes of Captain Power—and I was hooked.

Despite the distractions of the required battle scenes with robots that had flashing chest panels (to interact with the toys), there was a story line and characters that intrigued me. The story was set in a future after "the Metal Wars, where man fought machine, and machine won." Jonathan Power and his team were fighting (quite literally) for humanity against the part man/part machine, Lord Dread, who was building for a "New Order" where human minds would be placed in "perfect" machine bodies. It was a live action show, combining actors with computer generated characters (the BioDreads).

Over half of the 22 stories were written all or in part by Joe. In those episodes were the elements of television storytelling that JMS would execute so wonderfully in Babylon 5. There was some effort at maintaining the continuity of the show. Some plot elements introduced in an episode were developed in later episodes. There was an ongoing storyline as the team foiled various aspects of Lord Dread’s plans for his "New Order" throughout the season. But most importantly, JMS and the other writers gave us characters to know and care about.

Captain Power may not go down in the annals of history as a great classic television show. But, thanks to people like JMS, it was much better than it should have been (and far better than the toy company sponsor deserved). JMS and the other writers took a show intended to sell toys and created a good science fiction television show that generally managed to rise above its many flaws.