There were a lot of copycats back when Power Rangers was new and at its peak. One such TV show was Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad. It starred Matthew Lawrence as Servo, a superhero who looked eerily similar to Ultraman.
The year was 1994.
The series centered around Sam Collins and his friends, Amp (Troy Slaten), Sydney (Robin Mary Florence), and Tanker (Kevin Castro), three high school friends in a band they call “Team Samurai”, because, you know, Sam Collins.
This insane thing known as a power surge occurs, and it pulls Sam into his computer, turning him into his own original creation, Servo. During the same power surge, antisocial and fellow student, Malcolm Frink (Glen Beaudin) has his own computer visited by an escaped military AI named Kilokahn — who, in retrospect isn’t as bad as current AI — and they strike up an alliance of sorts. Kilokahn takes Malcolm’s rad monster drawings and turns them into megavirus monsters to wreck the technology that we take for granted.
This all brings Servo and Kilkahn to a head, with Servo and friends battling the megavirus monsters to save both the technological and real world from dire consequences.
No, I didn’t forget to mention who played Kilokahn. He deserves his own section. The dashing rogue AI is voiced by the magnificent Tim Curry. How a Power Rangers copycat swung that is still beyond me. And he definitely enjoyed chewing up scenery with just his wonderful voice.
Instead of fighting in the real world, Kilkahn sends his megavirus monsters in the digital world to destroy from within, while Sam and friends transform into digital superheroes to fight them. It’s Power Rangers as a metaphor for antivirus protecting your computer from harm.
Syber Squad never came close to the heights that Power Rangers did, but I did enjoy it a lot as a child; a show about fighting monsters, with some computer nerdy stuff thrown in, had me completely hooked.
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