Photon

I remembered this show from when i was a kid. i couldn't remember too much about it, just a few minor things about the characters. for some reason i remembered it being really intense. also it was on really really early in the morning up in PA. I finally, after looking around the web for a long time, found an episode. the first episode no-less. Criminey! This show was so horrible. it was obviously just made to show kids playing lazer tag and having a great time. the show opens with bhodi li telling his mommy "my names not Christopher, I'm bhodi li-PHOTON WARRIOR!!!!!" we then are forced to watch kids playing lazer tag to the song "foot loose". and not just a quick little bit, but the whole song. ahhhhhhhhh my brain hurts just thinking about it. oh yeah, and as if i couldn't get worse, you cant even see the laser beams from their guns. its like they're just running around to the entire "foot loose" song. later on, after bhodi goes up into space or where-ever, they have a crappy laser gun fight to the Phil Collins song "su-su-sudio." ah, trust me, you don't want to know the rest. what can i say......THE LIGHT SHINES!!!!!!!!!!!

This show has been a wonderful introduction into vintage 1980s action, made in collaboration with the people who made Super Sentai. Introduced to me by the great philanthropist and businessman Patrick O'shaughnessy who made allusions to how the struggles of our hero Bhodi Li helped him to overcome his hurdles in life. I find it heartwarming how Parcival and Tivia were able to defeat the evil Arrian empire and their attempts to blacken planets and turn their photon crystals into the darkness. Heavy recommend.

Photon is a classic TV series featuring one of cinemas greatest anti-heroes, David Stay's "Mandarr". Watch as the Aryan Empire seek to conquer the galaxy with their new super-weapon, the blacking ray. Can Bodhi-Lee, our protagonist of questionable character, stop the Aryans and more to the point, SHOULD he?

Watch what George Lucas called "the series I should have made".

"Prepare to get blacked" - Mandarr

Remembering back to the 80's, I get chills of nostalgia. Toys, Video games and all playthings just got reinvented and/or turned on it's ear. Back when the Rubik's Cube was at it's peak, Worlds of Wonder released LAZER TAG. This craze became the rage, but when it came to the Entertainment Marketing, we got a horrible Saturday Morning Cartoon. Entertech, a division of LJN toys, countered with PHOTON. Like it's counterpart, you got a PHASER, a Sensor, but also a Helmet with lights and sensors as well. They didn't stop there. Action figures with the same InfraRed Tag tech followed. Actual Characters that we can get into. Then to top it all off, the LIVE ACTION TV Show. I remember all of the SCI FI Space stuff, kind of a STAR WARS meets POWER RANGERS feel. The Plot. EVERY world has a light orb that lasts 100 years. If the orb is charged by the good guys, everything is beautiful for that time. If the orb is charged with Darkness from the bad guys, the planet becomes a wasteland. So the battle ensues. The good guys fly around in the ZEPHYR with MOM, their computer leader. They use the PHOTON centers as a training facility. Chris Jarvis/BHODI LI becomes the best player and is recruited to join the team of good. He is taken in by: Tivia, warrior princess of Nivia; Parcival, adolescent computer geek from Earth (we think); Lord Beathen, Robotic Ninja Warrior; Leon, the giant Lizard Hero; and Pike, who looks like a Mr. Potato Head. It was a Grandfather to the Power Rangers but without the Bulk and Skull like cheese. More serious like the newer Rangers series. All in all, lots of fun for what it was. Not everything has to win an award to be fun.

And YES, AGAIN IMDb is displaying the wrong COVER to this series. What is pictured is an ANIME that is completely UNRELATED.

Okay, so the SFX make "Blake's 7" look like "Revenge of the Sith"-- so what? I say that as long as you can tell what's going on, the special effects have done their job. As someone raised on the works of Sid and Marty Krofft, not to mention being an old school "Doctor Who" fan, I know better than to condemn an entire show just because one aspect of it is not as brilliant as it could perhaps be with a bigger budget.

"Photon" was well-written, cleverly produced (with wonderfully imaginative costume designs), and expertly performed; the only awkward bit in the latter regard being that the show was produced in Japan, and although the mainly Occidental performers were obviously speaking English, their voices were overdubbed for release in the States. I've always wondered why.

In any case, the "Photon" series was great fun to watch and I know I'm not the only person who thinks it's high time that it gets released to home video.

(I feel it important to point out about this IMDb entry that it's wearing the wrong video box cover; the one they've shown is from an entirely unrelated anime series.)