Captain Vyom

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Captain Vyom - The Sky Warrior
Genre Science fiction, Action
Created by Ketan Mehta
Starring Milind Soman
Tom Alter
Opening theme "Captain Vyom" by ??
Country of origin India
Original language(s) Hindi
No. of seasons 1
No. of episodes 54[1]
Production
Running time Approx. 24 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel DD National
Picture format PAL SDTV

Captain Vyom is an Indian science fiction television series that aired on DD National channel in the late 1990s. The series aired in India on DD1 every Sunday morning at 10. It became extremely popular among youth because of its concept of time machine and the world of 2220. The titular character was played by Indian model Milind Soman. Later on, the series was re-aired on SAB TV channel.

Setting

In 2220 A.D. mankind has conquered the solar system and is reaching out into space. Earth is ruled by a World Government, with headquarters in Delhi. Space stations have been established on many planets of the Solar System. One of these stations is a high security prison on Io, a moon of Jupiter. Here, the twelve most dangerous criminals are held up in suspended animation. Each one of them is an expert in their field. When a meteorite strike hits the base, destroying its security system, these criminals break free and escape. The Earth Government assigns its top law enforcer, Captain Vyom, the mission to arrest these fugitives. Vyom is the son of one of the Earth's top scientists and the grandson of the ruler of the Parajeevs from the thirteenth dimension, a race of beings ten million years ahead of us in civilization. He was brought up in a monastery in Ladakh, and he has yogic powers of concentration. Vyom, with his special crew, leaves for the mission in a spaceship named Ulka.

Cast and characters

The crew

  • Captain Vyom : Played by Milind Soman. An orphan with a mysterious past, but dedicated to his line of duty. It was later revealed that he is half human and half Parajeev (literally meaning parasite, a breed of body snatching aliens). His father was famous scientist Dr. Om Swaroop (also played by Soman) and his mother was Parchhaayee ( played by Nethra Raghuraman), the daughter of Kaala Saaya (the emperor of the Parajeevs). His abilities include all the basic virtues of a soldier, along with excellent leadership qualities and keeping cool even under the worst of circumstances. In one episode being half Parajeev, it was seen that his body was unaffected by any sort of harmful radiation and he could hold his breath longer than a normal human being.
  • Commander Pablo : The pilot and Big Bob of the ship, oldest of the crew, with a very sad past. He always kept himself busy and tried to maintain a light mood to avoid contact with his melancholic past and alcohol. It seems as if he had become an alcoholic in the past after losing his family.
  • Lieutenant Maya : Played by Kartika Devi Rane, Maya was a psychology student. She has a slight romantic interest in Captain Vyom but she tries her best not to let her emotions come in way of her duty and the discipline of the ship.
  • Captain Blaze : Played by the flamboyant Sanjay M. Singh, muscular hunk of the ship. In charge of the defence and weapons. He was second in command to Captain Vyom. He was engaged to Chhaya, (the twin sister of Maya), who had died recently. He often felt drawn towards Maya, because of her resemblance to Chhaya, which created an awkward situation for both Maya and Blaze.
  • Dr. Zen : Played by Divya Palat, Dr Zen was the doctor and biologist in the ship. Another babe for the Glam factor, although her spouse or love interest was never mentioned. She was the regular victim of being flirted and hit upon by the villains.
  • Fuller : European by his appearance and attitude, he is the engineer of the ship. A gizmo freak and slightly arrogant but nerdy. The genius inventor had designed the ship Ulka along with Pablo, His invention SYD-E, an android robot also served as a member of the crew.
  • SYD-E : An android robot invented by Fuller. Played by Shahzaad Saeed. Because of his exact human appearance, he was often mistaken for a normal human being. Although a robot, he was treated and regarded as an equivalent member of the ship. He often served as a comic relief by taking normal conversations and sarcasm as orders.
  • Surya : A teenager on the ship. Played by Jeto Sanjana. With all the typical sides of a kid being honest, truthful and juvenile. He was mostly seen assisting either Commander Pablo or Dr Zen. Commander Pablo acted as a father figure to him.

Other notable characters

  • Vishwapramukh: Played by Tom Alter, the president of the world government. Dressed up in suit with a pattern of the British Flag. He has a very strong faith in Captain Vyom. And he made a remark that Captain Vyom was the only soldier in the entire universe who can do such a gruesome task of arresting the twelve criminals.
  • Astro-Guru: Real name Chandrakant Shastri, the wisest man in the entire universe (with a white beard) and a huge laboratory. He was the inventor of the only time machine in the world and sent captain Vyom to the past, in the present time. He was often consulted by Vishwapramukh and Captain Vyom in case of difficult situations. According to the timeline of the show, he was at least two hundred years old. His real name was revealed in the time travel sequence and his young appearance was seen only in two episodes.
  • Dr. Om Swaroop: Also played by Milind Soman was a renowned scientist, dedicated to his research of the universe. Kaala Saaya (the kingpin of the villains) had planned to assassinate him, because he believed that Dr Om Swaroop had the potential to actually fail his invasion of the Earth. Dr Swaroop had invented G-Gun with which Parajeevs can be killed.
  • Parchhaayee: Played by the dusky beauty Nethra Raghuraman. She was the daughter of Kaala Saaya, and was sent to kill Dr. Om Swaroop. She could shoot alpha rays from her eyes. She took over the body of Naina, Dr. Om Swaroop’s wife. Upon realising the true intentions of her father and falling in love with Dr. Om Swaroop, she betrayed her father fled to the fifteenth dimension with Dr. Om Swaroop.
  • Kaala Saaya: The emperor of the Parajeevs, a race of body snatcher aliens, pitch black in colour. He was a megalomaniac, but very cunning and brave with an ambition of taking over the universe, starting with the Earth. He considered the twelve fugitives as worthless as compared to his strength and ambition. He sent his daughter Parchhaayee to assassinate Dr. Om Swaroop and an alien to take over the crew of Ulka, while Captain Vyom was in the past, the alien was captured by Dr. Zen by a spray of liquid nitrogen. He ultimately surrendered in a duel to Captain Vyom in the last episode on the condition that Captain Vyom becomes the ruler of Parajeevs.
  • Naina: Also played by Nethra Raghuraman, she is the wife of Dr Om Swaroop, but she was taken over by Parchhaayee.
  • Ambika: The girlfriend of Chandrakant Shastri, appeared only in the time travel sequence in two episodes. A news reporter, served more as a comic relief because of her excessive curiosity.

The twelve fugitives

(in order of their appearances in the show)

  • Teja: A megalomaniac alien with a wasp like appearance. The last of his kind, belonged to the race of aliens who depended upon the light of their star. He invented a technology to create gigantic lenses in space to increase the intensity of the light of a star. But he burned his planet using his machine. Now threatening to burn the Earth, he demanded for being the emperor of the earth, and a queen. Blaze and Maya were sent to arrest him. Maya seduced him by saying she would love to be the queen of earth and a suitor for such a powerful being. Blaze threw a pitch black chemical over Teja to make him unconscious and arrest him.
  • Paras: An expert alchemist, with golden coloured skin, he always spoke in rhymes. He had the technology to convert the chemical structure of any substance, like turning sand to gold and stones to diamonds. His ship was all covered with gold, and gems and jewels and considered stealing wealth as pointless because he could create gold himself. His only weakness was that he could not create mercury, and also had the addiction of sniffing mercury. He threatened to destroy earth by converting the water on earth into radio active element. Demanding the “Elixir Of Life” kept in maximum security in the palace of Vishwapramukh. Captain Vyom stole his jar of mercury and arrested him while trading it with the jar of the “Elixir Of Life”.
  • Chhalasur: A master of trickery and an expert illusionist. He regarded himself as an artist just performing in a show. He was able to kidnap Maya by a hit on her head and putting her to sleep. He sent Chaya to kill Vyom and others. Chaya was hypnotized. But later on she was normal. Chaya, Vyom and Blaze went to Chhalasur's ship to bring Maya back and to capture Chhalasur. In a gruesome fight chaya was killed in order to save Blaze. Captain Vyom and others escaped with Maya. Chhalasur was killed in an explosion from a device which was installed in his ship by Captain Vyom.
  • Mohini: An expert in hypnotism, she could seduce and take control over any man by taking the form of the women of his fantasies. Though she was crippled and ugly in reality and her true appearance was revealed in her mirror reflection, causing her spell to break. Also a master in combat and weapons. After her escape from Io, she seduced the workers of a sulfur mine on Venus. Blaze and SYD-E were sent to arrest her. After a grueling sword fight, (with Blaze carrying a shield with a mirror to see her true appearance) she outsmarted Captain Blaze, hypnotizing him and blowing up SYD-E’s head. She entered in Ulka and hypnotized every man and Maya and Dr Zen were knocked out unconscious by the men of the crew. Dr. Zen, Maya and Surya were only crew members who could not be seduced by her, as two of them were women and Surya was not an adult. Ultimately captain Vyom captured her by fighting with a sword and a mirror.
  • Durgati (played by Sushmita Mukharjee): The loud mouth biologist who took pleasure in plaguing entire civilisations. She nearly plagued the crew of Ulka, Pablo being the most seriously hit, resulting in Vyom serving as the substitute pilot. She specially wanted to kill Dr. Zen, and it was revealed by Dr. Zen that Durgati was her classmate and was in feud with her since early days. Durgati was killed by Vyom with a lethal virus she had kept in store “specially” for Dr. Zen.
  • Morpha: A shape shifting alien who could take the form of any living being. His father Murphy was a renowned diplomat. Murphy volunteered to help the crew of the staff to arrest Morpha. Morpha entered Ulka under disguise and strangled his father, who while dying chewed his finger so that he could be recognised under any disguise. After hiding in the ship for a long time under the guise of Maya, Blaze identified him. Morpha went in a fist fight with Vyom, while taking the form of Vyom. During the fight Morpha chewed up the finger of Vyom, leaving a confused Maya and Blaze as whom to shoot.
  • Kineto: A notorious and sadist psychic, who could do anything by the power of his mind, including moving things to changing the forms of things (he turned Surya into a giant insect). He took pleasure in seeing his victims suffer. He attempted to kidnap Shakti, (the adopted daughter of Vishwapramukh) during her trip into deep space to see a supernova. Shakti was rescued by Vyom before Kineto could kidnap her. She was brought to Ulka, where Maya grew jealous by her beauty and her fondness towards Vyom and went in with a Star Wars like fight with illuminated swords. Kynato attacked Ulka, and it was revealed by Dr. Zen that Kineto too was made in a laboratory by a scientist using the same technique he used later to create Shakti, and Kynato wanted to replace his aging life force by the young life force of Shakti saying that with such powerful and restless mind consumed lots of life force. Kynato was killed by Shakti when she converted herself into energy & destroyed the energy of Kynato. Shakti was played by Perizaad Zorabian.
  • Sonic (played by Dino Morea): The lord of sound waves. His weapon was in the shape of a giant piano with only six notes (as opposed to seven in a Sargam), which he could use to cause destruction. He also carried a small wooden mouth organ (sounding more like pan flute) that could hypnotise any person, putting him under his control. He hypnotized an entire human settlement over mars. His plan was spoiled by Surya who broke the rhythm of his tunes by loudly chanting “OM” along with the children of that settlement. He was captured by vyom. He was married to Venom, who was bearing his child.
  • Venom (played by supermodel Madhu Sapre and later by Achint Kaur): An expert of poisons and toxins, herself had a snake like appearance. Her breath could paralyze anyone and her bite caused immediate death. Upon the death of her husband Sonic she attacked Ulka seeking revenge, especially against Surya. She paralyzed the crew of the ship, except Captain Vyom who was in mars at that moment, and bit Surya. She also bit SYD-E, thinking he was human. But her fangs got stuck in SYD-E’s arm, and SYD-E knocked her unconscious. The entire crew was saved by vyom with help from astroguru who helped him to develop an antidote, but Surya was left blinded in the episode. As a result, he had to withdraw from the mission.
  • Gravito: An alien and an ex member of the army of the universe. As his name suggests he was an expert in manipulating the forces of gravity by using his technology. He was admired upon by Vyom and Pablo for his bravery and strength. He attempted to destroy the temporary prison where the arrested fugitives were held. He nearly succeeded when he malfunctioned the artificial gravity system of Ulka, but the crew of Ulka had been sent to the temporary prison, leaving behind Dr. Zen and Captain Vyom, who manually repaired the artificial gravity control while floating in the air. Gravito attacked the new prison and increased the gravity of the place several times causing everybody to fall and get stuck to the ground. He was attacked from behind by Captain Vyom when he was escaping to sun to recharge his ship's power.
  • Computo: A cyborg, half human, half computer. He had teamed up with Gravito. While Dr. Zen and Captain Vyom were busy in repairing the artificial gravity control of their ship, Computo entered the Mother Computer, (the main server on earth reigning over all the computers of the world), through the system of Ulka. Captain Vyom went inside the mainframe of mother computer wearing a radiation proof space suit in an attempt to reboot the Mother Computer manually. Computo went in a fist fight with Vyom, tearing his suit. It was then revealed that Vyom had no effects of radiation over him, while Commander Pablo suffered a burned arm in an attempt to pull him out.
  • Vikaal (played by Rahul Bose and later by Ken Philips): A sociopath, with an ability to travel in short durations of time. After escaping from Io, he entered the laboratory of Astroguru, and upgraded his powers to travel back in time to the present time. Captain Vyom, along with SYD-E followed him using the time machine made by Astroguru. It was then that Captain Vyom confronted his parents. He was killed by Vyom when he was trying to kill Vyom's father.

Character Details

Real Name: Vyom

Identity/Class: Human/extra-dimensional hybrid, armed with advanced technology

His Job: Defender of the Earth and the spaceways.

Affiliations: Agent of the World Government

Enemies: The 12 criminals viz Teja, Vikal, Morpho, Computo, Mohini, Paras, Gravito, Kineto, Sonic, Venom, Durgati, Chhalasur (These are the prisoners who escaped from the prison on the moon of Jupiter named Io)

Known Relatives: father Dr. Om Swarup (a brilliant scientist); mother Parchhaayee; maternal grandfather Kaala Saaya (ruler of the parasites from the 13th Dimension)

Aliases: The Sky Warrior

Base of Operations: Outer space

First Appearance: Unknown

Powers/Abilities: Yogic powers of concentration, immunity to radiation.

Home Media

Although the series was later syndicated on a cable channel SAB TV, no home media releases have been made or announced.

Trivia

  • Although not India’s first sci-fi show, it was considered ahead of its time because of the advanced graphics (never seen before on Indian television) and screenplay it had. The show was a great success and still has reruns on Pogo TV. Despite being a kids program, the show found a huge fan following among adults too, nearly gaining a cult status.
  • Except the control room of Ulka, the show never had any real sets. They were all computer generated graphics.
  • The production house set up a separate animation studio named Maya for the show. It is now an institute of animations and graphics designing in India.
  • Supermodel Madhu Sapre, the then fiancé of Milind Soman played the role of Venom, although they barely had any scenes together.
  • The glamour factor associated with the show was very high because most characters were played by top models of the Indian Glamour world.
  • Diamond Comics published a comic book series based on this serial.[2]

See also

References

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External links

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