And you've surrounded yourselves with excuses for why the next act won't begin, and it's clear that the kids aren't going to be all right again. -- Matthew Amster-Burton, Allright Again
A Mind Occasionally Voyaging

Month: January 2012

Mine the Glory, Mine the Power

Mine the DVD.

Power Jet XT-7, ca 1987 and Captain Power DVD set, ca 2011

Special thanks to my mother-in-law, who despite the normal tensions that exist in a mother-in-law/son-in-law relationship, has a pretty solid knack for getting me a Christmas present I really enjoy every year.
This DVD set is pretty top-notch for the price range. The transfer is good but not perfect — in particular, the title sequence is a little fuzzy, and there is a bit of choppiness in the high-action sequences. The visual quality isn’t quite as good as, say, the remastered Doctor Who classic series DVDs, but those run about as much for one six-part serial as this entire season box set. It’s still quite good in the less action-heavy sequences, and Soaron cleaned up so nice that I’m half-convinced they just went back in and re-rendered all his models using someone’s laptop in their spare time. There are no subtitles or captions, which is unfortunate. Again, easy to forgive under the circumstances, but it’s a shame that the hearing-impaired are going to miss out. And, of course, for my own selfish reasons, it would have been helpful to have a transcript I could look at to verify some of the dialog.
The commentary and interviews are great. It’s a shame they couldn’t get in a few more commentaries, but I can’t imagine it’s easy to come up with 22 minutes worth of things to say about a show you were involved in a quarter century ago for each of twenty episodes.
Conspicuous by their absence are the direct-to-video animated “Training Videos”. I can only guess that the distribution rights for those were different, having been made by Armtic, a now-defunct anime studio. They don’t add much to the experience, but it means I’ll be toting those three ancient VHS tapes along with me until the day I die. A real collector’s edition might have also benefited from something like a commercials gallery, though the quality of the clips they show in the documentary suggests that those may no longer exist in decent quality recordings.
The documentary is a real treat, providing some framing and exposition that goes a long way to help us modern viewers understand the reasons for some of the really bizarre design and storytelling choices, and they talk at length about the direction they would have taken the show in the second season — a lot of which surprised me, and I’ll go over it in length as my review series progresses (Sorry about the hiatus. Sadly, my son doesn’t really have the attention span for a half-hour action-adventure yet.). They also debunk and confirm various bits of theoryJMS goes so far as to mention that “people on the internet” had identified rape symbolism in the depiction of digitization. Given what a quick googling of “captain power” and “rape symbolism”, I gotta ask: did I just get a shout-out? I’ve thrown out here.
One of the really weird coincidences I noticed though, was the episode ordering on the DVD: they’re in the same order as the order I’d previously announced for my reviews. So that’s convenient. The upshot for you folks at home is that I imagine my screen shots will be a lot less grainy and color-corrected.
I will point out this: I wasn’t able to get my Power Jet XT-7 to interact with the DVD. They mention the difficulties they had during development getting the toys to work, so my suspicion is that the process of deinterlacing and upconverting that 25-year-old NTSC signal to play on my 1080p screen probably destroyed the carrier signal. I’ll see if I can dig out a dumber DVD player and a CRT screen and try again when I get the chance. I also can’t rule out that my 25-year-old Power Jet XT-7 just isn’t up to it. If you can make it out in the picture, the thing is suffering from a few decades of grime and a couple of missing parts. It does make all the expected shooty-sounds, though it power cycles if you shake it too hard.
In all, this is a great DVD set, well worth the price. I’d probably have paid double for a set with more special features and more work done on the remastering, but at this price, and given the obscurity of the series, it’s clearly a labor of love. It’s priced like a budget shovelware release, but it makes a really serious effort that you don’t usually see with comparable season boxsets for shows of this vintage. Captain Power aficionados have undoubtedly already bought a copy, but if you’re just curious: this is worth it. For that matter, if you’re a fan of Babylon 5, this is probably worth it just to see an example of JMS developing some of the stylistic elements he would later use.
Next time, I’m going to go into a bit more detail on one of the coolest extras on the DVD. Until then, Power On!
Oh, and one last thing: I’d like to give a small shout-out to CPL of Captain Power Lives!, who has a fantastic collection of images of hard-to-find or unreleased Captain Power toys and links to various other reviews of the DVD set.

Ross Cooks: With Bacon! (Mushrooms in Hummus-Queso)

Made this to use the leftover mushrooms from the previous night. Served over the leftover rice from the previous night.

  • 8 strips of bacon
  • 1 medium onion, diced
  • 4 celery stalks, diced
  • 12 oz baby portabello mushrooms, halved
  • Optional: 3 slices of ham, diced
  • 8 oz hummus
  • 4 tbsp Salsa Con Queso
  • 1 tbsp-¼ cup heavy cream or milk
  • ½ tsp worcestershire sauce
  • 1 tbsp cream cheese

In a large skillet, fry up the bacon until crispy. Take it aside and crumble. Saute onions and celery in bacon grease until tender, then reduce heat to medium-low and add mushrooms. Cook the mushrooms about 5 minutes — you’re not trying to fry the mushrooms all the way through yet. Reduce heat to low. If you want a bit more protein and have some spare ham laying around, toss it in now. Add hummus and queso to the pan and stir. Add cream or milk to thin the sauce to a medium or medium-thick consistency. Add a dash of worcesterchire sauce for flavor and then incorporate the cream cheese. Return the bacon to the pan. If you’ve got a bit of balsamic vinegar left over, go ahead and drizzle some over the top.
Simmer, covered, over low heat for about 15-20 minutes. Serve over rice.
This makes a very delicately-flavored but savory sauce. I gave some thought to adding some curry powder to kick it up a notch, but it’s occurred to us that our son might appreciate it if Leah avoided spicy foods until his stomach gets used to this thing we call “digestion”.

Ross Cooks! Chicken Balsamasala

A chicken dish based on chicken marsala, but using balsamic vinegar instead of marsala wine. I served this over brown rice and spinach, with a side of butternut squash, and used a white truffle butter too cook the rice and squash.
Also, this came out a bit oily, so I’d suggest draining off some of the oil before making the roux.

  • 1/2 cup vegetable oil
  • 3 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into large pieces
  • 1/3 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 tsp paprika (I used a hot Hungarian paprika. The spiciness was a bit of an issue. If you like the spiciness, maybe try using a cajun seasoning instead of paprika)
  • 2 medium onions, diced
  • 1 tbsp butter (optional. I used a black truffle butter here)
  • 1½ cups chicken broth
  • ¼ to ½ cup balsamic vinegar (The real deal. You probably already know that most of the stuff sold as “balsamic vinegar” is just red wine vinegar with molasses. I managed to snag a couple of bottles of Cavedoni Botte Piccola at a substantial mark-down, though it was hard to persuade myself to commit so much of it)
  • 3 tbsp spaghetti sauce
  • 12 oz baby portabella mushrooms, sliced thick
  • 1 tbsp heavy cream

Heat the oil in a large skillet over high heat. In a shallow bowl, mix the flour and paprika. Dredge the chicken pieces and then fry in the skillet until golden brown. Do not overcook. Remove chicken and put aside. Fry onions until nearly translucent. Remove onions and put aside. Add remaining flour (Don’t add more than 3 tbsp yet) to pan and stir with a wooden or silicone spoon to form a roux. You can hold back some of the flour if it looks like the roux is thick enough. Melt in the butter if the roux becomes too thick. You should end up with a ball about the size of a small egg.
Deglaze the pan with the chicken broth, incorporating the roux. Whisk in a quarter-cup of balsamic vinegar and the spaghetti sauce. Bring to a boil. Add the mushrooms. Reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, for about half an hour, until the sauce has reduced by about 30-50%. Add the chicken and onions back in about 15 minutes before cooking is finished. Add additional balsamic vinegar to achieve a nice balance of flavors. Finish by stirring in a tablespoon of cream.