V.R. Troopers

I have special memories of this show because my nephew who was 4 to 6 during its run had some V.R. Trooper action figures and left them at the Sheepshead Bay Movie theater and was quite upset when his father wouldn't let him go back for them. He was a devoted follower of the show and back in the day I checked it out.

It was a show for its time, the Nineties, when people were becoming aware of the virtual world via the home computer. Terms like cyber space and virtual reality were becoming known even to the youngest kids. It would follow that a show would be developed for them.

V.R. Troopers was obviously borrowing a lot from the Power Rangers and it too was of Japanese origin. Three clean cut American youths who were devoted karate students, Brad Hawkins, Michael Bacon, and Sarah Brown are chosen by Dr. Jeffrey Combs who lives inside virtual reality as Power Ranger like troopers fighting the wicked Grimlord who is the ruler of virtual reality and he'd like to conquer our reality.

What none of them know is that Grimlord is already here even if his army is not. He's a millionaire developer Carl Ziktor, a Donald Trump or Carl Paladino like figure who is one all around meanie in any reality and a villain you love to hate.

Brad Hawkins has an additional reason for getting in this fight. His father was a noted scientist who disappeared a decade before and now through Combs has contacted him. He went into virtual reality to fight Grimlord and now urges his son to the fight.

Sarah Brown works for an underground newspaper and she proves to be a valuable source of information for strange doings.

V.R. Troopers was a show aimed at viewers who hadn't passed into double digits in age. As such it had clear cut heroes and villains. A visit to the laboratory of Dr. Combs even turned Brad Hawkins dog Jeb into a talking pooch. Maybe he got himself a blog and passed on speech and the blog to Stan.

Two seasons only for V.R. Troopers, there should have been more.

It boggles the mind when you think of what executive meeting was behind the creation of this one. "Hey, I've got an idea - let's do Power Rangers with a slashed-in-half budget!" That doesn't sound like such a good idea to me - mainly because it ISN'T a good idea.

Here's your premise - two guys and a girl go around fighting a decadent capitalist who moonlights as the evil Virtual Reality Warlord "Grimlord". They also like to take out his entire army in every episode (goons with such incredible names as Fist-bot and General Eye-bar. Obviously they didn't have the imaginative "Transformers" authors when they came up with the names). It's not such a hard task, as a mop and a bar of soap would be more effective at world domination than Grimlord and his minions.

As one might expect from this type of show, the characterization of our three "heroes" is slightly optimistic. I'm currently 20 years old, coming on 21 - which isn't too far off the age of the three VR Troopers in this "TV Gem". I enjoy singing in my band, going to rock clubs, going to the pub, sitting in front of the tele and listening to a bit of music - which is pretty typical, I'd say. Whereas Ryan, Kaitlin and J.B. have full time jobs, and enjoy going to the Dojo and beating up bad guys in order to save the world in their FREE TIME. Right. If someone asked me whether I wanted to become a VR Trooper, the first question would be "How much?" and the second would be "who's covering for me at the week-end?". As the VR troopers a) seem not to get paid at all (despite the fact that their students debts will still be BLOODY high) and b) drop whatever they're doing 24/7 to go off and play with Grimlord, they must be insane.

Of course, you could argue the fact that without them, the world would be in danger. However, you would be ignoring the fact that no matter how many times Grimlord's army shoots at anything, they never hit the target. So we're really in no danger. And for an Evil Warlord, Grimlord's really not that evil. It seems to never have occurred to the guy that as his army is completely incapable of making the slightest dent on the teen-age heroes when in costume, killing them in their sleep would be the easiest option. After all, Grimlord knows exactly who the VR Troopers actually are, in a bizarre plot point. How long do you think Bruce Wayne would have lasted if the Joker knew who he was? Not too long, really.

While all those issues are slightly silly, there are some aspects of the show that are nothing short of annoying. In a few examples:

1) The way the scene of a fight will shift from a rock face to open land to a forest to a lake and back to the bloody rock face again.

2) When in costume, the VR Troopers compensate for the fact that we can't see their lips by nodding their heads around inanely. It looks ridiculous, and if I talked to one of them, I would point and laugh.

3) The dog. It talks. Strange really, as the motion that the dog makes whilst talking looks incredibly like the motion that a normal dog makes when chewing on something. And the words are (of course) completely out of sinc. Also, the dog's favourite insult is blowing a rasberry at someone. This is obviously achieved by filming the dog putting it's tongue out, and playing it in reverse. And they do that on a regular basis. It's not funny, it's annoying.

4) "Forces of darkness, empower me. Take me back to my virtual reality." Every damn episode. Anyone with a basic education in English could tell whoever wrote that that the second line is a few syllables too long. But Hell, "poetic license". Or in this case "complete-absence-of-poetry license".

5) The features of the programme that were SUPPOSED to be amusing were anything but. For instance - that newspaper editor.

HOWEVER - after all this, this show has perhaps the highest recommendation I could possibly give. And why, you ask? It's one of the funniest things I've seen in my life! It goes into the same bracket as "The Final Countdown" by Europe - things that are so bad, they're brilliant! Forget that it's attempting to be serious, and you will enjoy it as much as "Blackadder", "Fawlty Towers", or any great sit-com which you enjoy.

If you can, watch the episode with "The Doggy Rap" in it. Conclusive proof that not only can white men and women NOT rap, but some black men can't either.

Not to mention the fact that the "actress" playing Kaitlin is very attractive. I'm a red blooded male, after all.

This was a somewhat interesting show. It had an original premise and an interesting group of characters. Granted, the show seemed like a rip off of any of those Power Rangers shows, but the show quickly established an identity for itself. It's a shame it was cancelled after only a couple seasons or so, it was just getting very interesting.

There is something interesting about it: If anyone here Knows the Japanese Metal Hero shows, then you know the three shows involved.

First season: Jiku Senshi Spielvan (Dimensional Warrior Spielvan), Choujinki Metalder (Super Man Machine Metalder).

Second Season: Jiku Senshi Spielvan (Dimensional Warrior Spielvan), Uchuu Keiji Shaider (Space Sheriff Shaider)

The Interesting Part: On the first season, They used Metalder battle scenes for when Ryan Steele fights. On the Second Season, they turn back the clock and use Shaider scenes for Ryan Steele battle sequences.

Oh well, I just want to point out something.

VR Troopers was okay...suprisingly, it's counterpart is actually 3 unrelated Metal Hero Shows. Not to mention, they were all 80s shows. So trying to tie in together 3 unrelated shows that were all out-dated 80s footages was some effot there. However, if Saban was trying to pull something like this. I'd prefer he adapt something like Blue SWAT or the Rescue Mission Series, like Winspector or Solbrain. On second thought...nevermind...one, look how Beetleborgs turned out and it's too little too late for using early 90s Japanese footage for this Millenium. That and Saban is no longer in the toku-adapt business any more, that's Disney's department now.