We Have The Technology! (The Six Million Dollar Man)

Member Name: T4imbo3107

Product:	The Six Million Dollar Man
Date:	28/12/08 (333 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Classic 70's TV show.

Disadvantages: I've grown up and can see the faults!

One of TV greatest heroes came to life in the seventies. Based on a novel called Cyborg by Martin Cardin the character of Steve Austin was bought to life in five seasons of The Six Million Dollar Man. A total of 100 episodes were broadcast between January 1974 and March 1978.

Put yourself in Steve Austin's place....after having a near fatal plane crash you find that you have just become one of the world's first upgraded humans. For a total of $6 million you get a Bionic eye, arm and two legs thrown in and all you have to do is work for the American Government and take on near suicidal missions that only your special abilities will prevent you from becoming an insurance right off!

Well in a nutshell that was the premise of The Six Million Dollar Man, the seventies TV show that is still legendary amongst people of a certain age, well those of 35 or more. Steve Austin, played by Lee Majors, was the man who went through the plane crash and came out the other side as a superhuman with extraordinary abilities. A man who could run at 60mph, jump up to ledges on a fourth floor and see far beyond distances of that of a mere human thanks to his Bionic eye. What I always about is the red tracksuit and the manner in which he runs, in the early episodes Lee Majors was told to right at near full speed, in the episode it was shown in slow motion which gave the effect of high speed running a more powerful and dramatic look and meant that the series never had the "Benny Hill" running motions that would have made it look plain silly. At the time Majors was well known through his part as Heath Barkley in The Big Country, this show made Lee Majors a household name around the world, and is something that Majors is still associated with today as the show is still broadcast.

Running for a total of five seasons the show concentrated on a well tried formula, that of good versus bad and although the majority of the stories are basically Austen using his powers for good, some of the stories go beyond the normal parameters and break the confines by having something happen to one of the main characters or in some cases having them replaced by a perfect double. In fact the perfect double was something that Producer Glen A Larson used quite a lot in his shows with Austin and Oscar Goldman.

Steve Austin was basically labelled as Government Property and this was hammered home throughout the series by Oscar Goldman. Goldman was effectively M to Austin's James Bond and gave Steve his orders. If anything went wrong with Austin then he had back-up in the form of Dr Rudy Wells, creator of Bionics and close friend of Steve since before the accident. Both these characters were played by accomplished actors, Goldman was played by Richard Anderson who made the part his own and today's is still involved with bringing the Bionic Man back to the screen whether on TV or the cinema. Although he has appeared in other shows, it is The Six Million Dollar Man that he is best remembered for, he was Executive Producer on three TV movies that were made in the mid-nineties that were basically a reunion movie and two pilots that could have spawned a new Bionic series.

Dr Rudy Wells was played by three actors; in the Pilot episode he was played by Martin Balsam, in the first two seasons he was played by Alan Oppenheimer and after that Martin E Brooks took the role. Interestingly although Balsam was a well known film actor at the time, it was Oppenheimer who went on to become the unknown cult hero to the younger generation; he became the voice of He Man in the Masters of the Universe animation.

Sound effects played an important part in the story telling and to this day it always amazes me that the "da da da da da" sound used when Austin uses his Bionic eye is made by a metal ruler being slapped over the edge of a table and the recording of the sound slowed down. So simple yet very effective when used in this manner.

The series also attempted to explain how Austin felt when going through the difficult patch and the first season had a great number of scenes where Steve is being checked over and from this the background of the character is set and can be grown upon through the character evolving as time goes on. My personal favourite will always be the second season episode where a Seven Million Dollar Man is introduced, played by Monte Markham, the character of Barnet Miller is introduced as the next Bionic Man that Austin only finds out by chance, the story then involves the two men competing against each other and working together on assignments handed to them by Oscar, the story takes a twist in the fact that Barney snaps and becomes power happy which causes problems for Oscar.

Throughout its run the series had a high calibre of guest stars appearing in various stories; most notable were the NASA officials who appeared in small parts in the series. Curiously Majors wife at the time, Farah Fawcett, appeared in a total of four episodes and strangely not necessarily as the same character which causes all continuity issues. Other actors to appear included Carl Weathers from Rocky, William Shatner, George Takei, David McCullum, Britt Ekland and so on. The talent that was bought in was impressive for a TV series and the chemistry showed in screen.

As the series developed and evolved, the abilities that Austin performed started to grow and increase to the stage that Austin could read a book in seconds and use his bionic arm to dig into stone similar to a jack hammer which was starting to extend the abilities into that of a Superman and was a departure from the novels as well as the earlier more grounded episodes. After the successful second season the stories started to change in direction in quite a radical manner. The first two seasons had effectively been about the main character being given assignments or being dropped into a hostile situation, baring in mind that he was an ex-Astronaut and held the rank of Colonel in the American Air Force the stories had quite a wide scope and utilised a lot of this information as background or a setting to where the story was going to be set, from the third season the stories slowly started to become more science fiction based and expanded the realms of fantasy rather than the reality which the early episodes based themselves in. A good example is the Sasquatch that turns out to be part of an Alien party that are based on Earth. The character of Bigfoot as it was known as appeared in something in the several episodes with most being two-part stories that continued the following week.

Unfortunately this marked the stage in the show that the same opponents that Austin had already defeated started making a return, opponents such as the Death Probe, Dr Chester Dolenz, Bigfoot, and Barney Miller all made a return appearance. One story dealt with the fact that Austin had travelled through time, overall it was the quality of the scripts that were starting to let the show down and affect ratings as they were basically re-cycling the same characters again and again. The formats of the show were also tinkered with as some stories had one of the main characters appearing in the other's show. Common to both were Richard Anderson who was the Boss of both of the Bionic people. This was played upon to the extent that a three part story called Kill Oscar was broadcast with each part being in a different show, so Part 1 would involve both Austin and Sommers with Wagner as a guest star on The Six Million Dollar Man, Part 2 would be a solo story with Sommers on The Bionic Woman and the final part would involve both after Austin was bought back in after being injured at the end of Part 1 so that both could act as a team again. For the American networks this was a good way to get ratings up on both shows, but the audiences thought differently and this was one of the reasons as to why both shows were cancelled.

The Six Million Dollar Man was one of the first shows to have a full blown merchandise range associated with it, and today figures and accessories can fetch a small fortune. To give an example a boxed Steve Austin figure can reach upwards of £200, accessories such as the vehicles can easily break £100.

An original aspect was that the series also had a number of attempts at a spin off series as well with only a few being accepted, the most obvious one being The Bionic Woman which ran in conjunction with The Six Million Dollar Man for three seasons and Jamie Summers played by Lindsay Wagner, Sommers was Austin's girlfriend who was involved in a sky diving accident. This was told as a two part story called The Bionic Woman where after Jamie's accident she is upgraded like Austin with two Bionic legs, a Bionic ear and arm. On the whole this works but other attempts such as Max the Bionic Dog, and The Bionic Boy didn't as this just seemed to be milking the opportunities.

On a darker note the series caused a number of injuries to kids who thought that the Bionic Man was real life. In America one child pierced his eye with a knife in the hope that he could be given a Bionic one and across the country injuries were reported with kids of all ages have broken bones when jumping off garages. This led to the show having to broadcast a warning before it was aired.

Overall the series is enjoyable but dated to watch these days, after all Majors wore some outfits that could only really be identified with the seventies. He also changed the appearance of the character on a regular basis, longer hair, different style which really mucked up any continuity and also meant the action figure of Austin didn't resemble the character any more as the parting of the hair was on the other side of the head. What most annoyed the fans was the fact that Majors grew a moustache that seemed to age the character. The moustache itself was not a full variety but that which you see film stars from the 1930's wear which made Austin look remarkably like Errol Flynn or Clark Gable in appearance. With ongoing talk of a remake of the series for the big screen, it's a case of fingers crossed as this is the one that a lot of people have been waiting to see. After all it can't be any worse then the recent remake of The Bionic Woman, eight episodes and cancelled.

The program will always have a great level of nostalgia for me and to watch it again brings back some great memories of where I was and the age I was at the time this was originally broadcast, which if I remember correctly was Wednesdays at 7.30pm on ITV, after all just watching the opening titles and hearing the opening narration ebvery week had an effect on me like rabbits staring at the headlights of a car! I went to my happy place.

Summary: A TV classic!