YMMV / Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future

• Awesome Art: The training videos, which are essentially just non-stop sequences of fast-paced animation.
• Complete Monster: OverMind is a supercomputer originally designed to end war, but after Dr. Lyman Taggart activated it, it decided that machines should rule the Earth. With Taggart, who eventually became Lord Dread, OverMind took control over all robots on Earth and used them to wage war on humanity, wiping out most of them by the series' beginning and digitizing others. Some humans were indoctrinated into becoming "Dread Youth" in order to carry out the will of the machines. Throughout the series, OverMind and Dread work towards "Project New Order", a scheme to drive many people insane with a toxin, launch a space station to digitize large amounts of people, and scorch the Earth's surface. When the project is stopped, OverMind and Dread resort to just wiping out the remains of humanity.
• Cry for the Devil: Lord Dread approaches this trope in a surprisingly early episode, where we learn about Jessica, an artist that Dread knew before the Metal Wars (and when Dread was still fully human). Against Dread's orders, Jessica is blinded in a Biodread attack, and he spends the next 15 years hunting for her — but not for villainous I Have You Now, My Pretty reasons that you might expect. No, Dread simply wants Jessica to design the robot bodies that will house humanity's minds in his New Order. He restores her sight with a prosthesis... only for her to freak out at the ruins of the world around them. Despite Dread's reassurance that the ruins are just a "transition", Jessica decides that she wants nothing to do with him. One can't help feeling just a little sorry for Lord Dread as she ignores his honest pleading (and abandons her newly-regained eyesight) to leave with Captain Power.
  Jessica: He offers me nothing... his world. But in my mind is the world as it was. Mine is a better world than the one you live in, Captain. I wish you could see it.
  Tank: Jumpship's on the way in. Where's Dread?
  Captain Power: Alone.
• Evil Is Cool: Similar to the Imperial Stormtroopers, the Dread Troopers have terrible aims, are easily spotted thanks to their glowing purple chest and die at an alarming rate. On the other hand, their design is intimidating and more than one fan will tell you that they look neat. Similarly, Lord Dread — like most bad guys — lived only to get owned by the heroes on a regular basis, but he was still a cool villain who was a major inspiration for the Borg.
• Jerkass Woobie: Soaron. Yes, the big tin turkey was nothing less than unrepentantly evil throughout the series, but it's hard not to feel just a little bit sorry for him in that one scene where Blastarr abuses him for laughs while he was helpless and still regenerating.
• Special Effects Failure:
  • Leaving aside the badly aged CG, expect this any time Soaron fires his lasers.
  • In one episode, Tank is smashing through a wall made of cinderblocks... except there was no mortar holding them together. The cinderblocks just fall on the ground like someone was pushing them.
• Uncertain Audience: One of the things that held the show back. On one hand, the storyline itself was fairly dark, dealing with themes about fascism and humanity's impending extinction via cybernetic revolt — less than entirely kid-friendly stuff. Then again, the title, the heavy (and primitive) CGI, and the Merchandise-Driven nature of the show was enough to discourage most adults. The live-action violence further confused matters.
• Woolseyism: The French dub changed all iterations of "digitize" to "disintegrate" which makes the Bio-Dread Empire even more evil. Additionally, the Bio-Dreads themselves are referred to by the far less on-the-nose name of "Biotrons", with Lord Dread likewise referred to as the "Biotron lord".

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