Photo courtesy of George Cifrancis
The Jessica Steen Page
- Pilot, about Jon and Athena's relationship
Power receives a strange and cryptic message from Athena Samuels, a long lost 'friend' and former lab assistant of his father's. The message is simply "King's Knight to Queen's Bishop 3". Power has the message traced and discovers that its originating source is Sector 19, formerly San Francisco, where he and Athena first met. He and Pilot take the Jumpship to search for Athena.
Enroute, Pilot asks Power if he and Athena were 'Just friends?'. Power explains that the message is a private joke between them which authenticates its origins. The last he had heard from Athena, she was part of the West Coast resistance, a group largely known to have been destroyed by Dread.
Landing in San Francisco, Power tracks Athena's radio signal and heads off. Pilot remains with the Jumpship but gassed unconscious by a helmeted figure. Power taces the source of the signal to the City Limits bookstore, his and Athena's old haunt. Activating his Power suit, he enters the store only to come face to face with the muzzle of a laser pistol held by a very shaken looking Athena. Before Power can say anything, she blasts him.
Stunned by the blast, Power collapses. Dread meanwhile has been monitoring the situation and sends in Soaron to stop Athena from killing Power; he wants Power alive. Meanwhile, back at the Jumpship, Pilot recovers and immediately radios Hawk at the Base.
Power recovers from Athena's attack and retaliates with a starbit.She replies with a bomb blast that knocks out Power's suit. Defenceless, Power watches helplessly as she points her laser pistol at him to administer the fatal blow. But before she kills him, Athena reveals her motives. She relieves her horror at being digitized and stored in the machine and tells Jon that she is saving him by killing him. As she raises her gun, Soaron swoops in.
Undaunted by Athena's actions and the Bio-Dread looming over them, Power tells Athena that life is always better than death. He kisses and embraces her as Soaron prepares to digitize them. In the nick of time, Hawk streaks in and blasts Soaron from the air. Pilot continues the attack from ground level while Tank and Scout arrive on Skybikes to provide more firepower. Together, they manage to beat back the Bio-Dread.
Back at the Power Base, Pilot patches up Athena and extracts the tracker from her neck. Sensing that Power and Athena want a few moments alone, she leaves. Power assures Athena that he will take her to a safe place. But first, a game of chess.
Comment
The opening episode of Captain Power immediately sets the tone of the series as being anything but 'kiddie'. What could have more adult overtones than a former lover brought back from the past as bait to lure the hero? There is also a lower level of robot bashing in this opening episode. Its a serious, smack in the middle of the fray type storyline that grasps the attention right away.
We immediately get a sense Pilot's feelings towards Power both at the beginning and the end of the episode, as Pilot coyly asks if Power and Athena were 'just friends' and her reluctance (if its the right word) to leave Power and Athena alone. But Power's confiding tone in Pilot belies a close, or at least, potentially close relationship.
Power does not reveal the whole extent of his relationship with Athena - he doesn't come clean to Pilot on the full extent of his relationship with her. Nor it is very clear how it fits in chronologically. In A Summoning of Thunder, Jon is shown to be a young man, perhaps of 20-24 - he would have been very young when he met Athena.
Larry DiTillio had this to say about the episode:
'Shattered' was my first script for the show. Joe called me and said he was working on Captain Power and said come up with a story. He also said , "Do ANYTHING you want, we want to do real hard-edged stuff and anything is fair game". So I sat down with the bible and looked for a hook. Then I came across the character profile of Power which stated he had a code against killing human beings. And I said to myself hey, what if he found himself in a situation where killing was the only recourse? So in the original pitch, the story went like this - Athena is sent to kill Power, but fails. He learns she was digitized and cannot stand the thought of going back into the machine again (in essence her mind has been raped)... Power tries to convince her he can protect her when they're set upon by Soaron. Power is hit badly and Soaron has Athena in his grasp. She begs Power to help and he realizes the only thing he can do is spare her the agony of being inside the machine. So he kills her.
When I told Joe that story there was a profound silence. Joe admitted he had said ANYTHING but didn't quite expect this. Nevertheless he took the story to Goddard. They liked the story but not the killing. They said if I reworked it so that Power saved Athena at the end instead of my admittedly bleak finale, I could do it. So I did. And I really liked it, as did they. They immediately asked me to do 5 more. Which I did. And that's the story of Shattered.[It would have been a damned good one too IMHO - BL.]
Watch out for...
