I remember watching this show as a kid, I watched it regularly, and even then realizing how silly it was.
The basic concepts of the show changed over time. At first, it was the tale of a former astronaut who wears a suit of super-armor and fights crime. That really didn't change. However, his patron, the powerful Mr. Hungerford, was a computer with the mind of the founder of a big megacorp. It was explained in the beginning of the series that his personal records, psychological profile and company files were all blended together to create an AI that had the mind of Mr. Hungerford, a main character of the show even did it in that episode. The AI didn't exist at the very beginning of the show. Of course, later in the show when it became all about psychics and strange pseudo-science we find out that all along what "really" happened was a psychic helped him upload his mind into the computer (never mind that he was dead and buried in the first episode, when he supposedly hired this psychic).
The show sank to self parody pretty easily. In one episode about a billion-dollar lottery giveaway (which was just an excuse for a clip show as characters stood around in a bar reminiscing about former adventures and what they would do if they won the lottery), they even have a little girl come up and thank the hero for saving her mommy from a cult a while back. It was a painfully overdone cliche of the show that some charismatic man with questionable powers was leading some ominous cult that ol' Super Force rides in on with his motorcycle and power-armor and saves the day.
In the second season, the show became all about psychics, as our hero has a near death experience and comes back with psychic superpowers that make him impossible to hit and lets him see through walls, and throw in a psychic regular character. The second season ended on a cliffhanger where Super Force had his mind destroyed by a gadget and presumably they were going to fix that in the third season, that never came, so it ended as mindlessly as it lived.
Presumably it's future politics were meant as satire. When one of the characters wins said Billion Dollar Lottery, we find that in 2020 there is a 101% income tax on incomes of One Billion Dollars or more, so the winner gets no winnings, and owes the government 10 Million Dollars too. Oh, and in 2020 there is free welfare for all that lets people live without working if they choose, but nobody wants it because everybody has a good work ethic and doesn't want something-for-nothing. I'll presume these were the creators attempts at social commentary.
It had huge, epic battles that were just a guy in a suit and some buff bodybuilder doing wrestling moves out in a field or next to what seemed like a city reservoir or something. All the aliens looked exactly like humans, the more outrageous ones might have white hair or bright blue eyes! Oh, and alien bounty hunters have anti-matter storage canisters the size of coke-cans that can supposedly destroy the Earth in one blast, but when they try and use it, it's defective so it doesn't work and the Earth is saved. I don't even want to think about how a defective anti-matter storage device prevents it from exploding.
It was fun to watch as a little kid, but I do wonder what kind of tiny budget the show was made on to have such cheesy effects and makeup, lame plots and lack of continuity between episodes. The suit and bike were cool, and that was probably most of the budget for the show right there.
The basic concepts of the show changed over time. At first, it was the tale of a former astronaut who wears a suit of super-armor and fights crime. That really didn't change. However, his patron, the powerful Mr. Hungerford, was a computer with the mind of the founder of a big megacorp. It was explained in the beginning of the series that his personal records, psychological profile and company files were all blended together to create an AI that had the mind of Mr. Hungerford, a main character of the show even did it in that episode. The AI didn't exist at the very beginning of the show. Of course, later in the show when it became all about psychics and strange pseudo-science we find out that all along what "really" happened was a psychic helped him upload his mind into the computer (never mind that he was dead and buried in the first episode, when he supposedly hired this psychic).
The show sank to self parody pretty easily. In one episode about a billion-dollar lottery giveaway (which was just an excuse for a clip show as characters stood around in a bar reminiscing about former adventures and what they would do if they won the lottery), they even have a little girl come up and thank the hero for saving her mommy from a cult a while back. It was a painfully overdone cliche of the show that some charismatic man with questionable powers was leading some ominous cult that ol' Super Force rides in on with his motorcycle and power-armor and saves the day.
In the second season, the show became all about psychics, as our hero has a near death experience and comes back with psychic superpowers that make him impossible to hit and lets him see through walls, and throw in a psychic regular character. The second season ended on a cliffhanger where Super Force had his mind destroyed by a gadget and presumably they were going to fix that in the third season, that never came, so it ended as mindlessly as it lived.
Presumably it's future politics were meant as satire. When one of the characters wins said Billion Dollar Lottery, we find that in 2020 there is a 101% income tax on incomes of One Billion Dollars or more, so the winner gets no winnings, and owes the government 10 Million Dollars too. Oh, and in 2020 there is free welfare for all that lets people live without working if they choose, but nobody wants it because everybody has a good work ethic and doesn't want something-for-nothing. I'll presume these were the creators attempts at social commentary.
It had huge, epic battles that were just a guy in a suit and some buff bodybuilder doing wrestling moves out in a field or next to what seemed like a city reservoir or something. All the aliens looked exactly like humans, the more outrageous ones might have white hair or bright blue eyes! Oh, and alien bounty hunters have anti-matter storage canisters the size of coke-cans that can supposedly destroy the Earth in one blast, but when they try and use it, it's defective so it doesn't work and the Earth is saved. I don't even want to think about how a defective anti-matter storage device prevents it from exploding.
It was fun to watch as a little kid, but I do wonder what kind of tiny budget the show was made on to have such cheesy effects and makeup, lame plots and lack of continuity between episodes. The suit and bike were cool, and that was probably most of the budget for the show right there.