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All this makes me really want to see this stuff again. Haven't seen anything since, well, the seventies. I've noticed on shows that I have rewatched, like Emergency, that there is sooooo much padding, so many shots of the fire trucks leaving the station, turning the corner, driving driving driving. I can imagine the running scenes in SixMillionDollarMan are similar, just time-killing dead bits. But I sure would like to watch 'em!
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There are a couple of two part episodes, particularly in the final season, that had no business being two parts. Return of Deathprobe, for example, has a lot of pointless scenes of Steve runing after the tank, attacking it, running from it, and since there's a good 40 minutes until the end credits, you know he's not gonna accomplish anything that early. Yet they don't fill in the time with anything other than "it's changng course on its own!" "Maybe we can jam the signal" and so on. Watching a tank lumber through the unpopulated countryside (with the exception of one kid fishing in a large puddle) just is not exciting.
Of course, for all the great episodes in the run, there are plenty of cringe worthy installments, featuring guest appearances by Sonny Bono, Rodney Allen Rippy, and Flip Wilson. Oh and Farrah. Four times.
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Posted: |
Nov 16, 2010 - 9:54 AM
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By: |
Eric Paddon
(Member)
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There are a couple of two part episodes, particularly in the final season, that had no business being two parts. Return of Deathprobe, for example, has a lot of pointless scenes of Steve runing after the tank, attacking it, running from it, and since there's a good 40 minutes until the end credits, you know he's not gonna accomplish anything that early. Yet they don't fill in the time with anything other than "it's changng course on its own!" "Maybe we can jam the signal" and so on. Watching a tank lumber through the unpopulated countryside (with the exception of one kid fishing in a large puddle) just is not exciting.
Although as a kid I have to admit the sound of that thing always used to scare me.
Mind you, my tongue in cheek comments aren't meant to rip the series. I'm having fun going through it, but it is interesting to see it all now through an adult lens for the first time and take note of the things that don't age as well even as it remains enjoyable still.
Oh, and let's add that while Steve Austin may have inspired trends in prosthetics, thankfully that did not apply also to the world of men's fashion! 
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Wow, if anyone is hungry for an old-school James Bond film (albeit with a lower budget) just sit back and enjoy the "Wine, Women and War" pilot episode! Best line: "I'm sorry I had to violate your porthole."
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Wow, if anyone is hungry for an old-school James Bond film (albeit with a lower budget) just sit back and enjoy the "Wine, Women and War" pilot episode! Best line: "I'm sorry I had to violate your porthole."
My box hasn't arrived yet, but I seem to recall that ABC initially wanted Steve to be an American James Bond, making flippant remarks, sexual double entendres, and so on. But all that harsh chauvinism was jetisoned in favor of a more friendly and respectful hero when the regular series got started. Good move.
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My box hasn't arrived yet, but I seem to recall that ABC initially wanted Steve to be an American James Bond, making flippant remarks, sexual double entendres, and so on. But all that harsh chauvinism was jetisoned in favor of a more friendly and respectful hero when the regular series got started. Good move.
Indeed. I'm glad you confirmed this, because I was afraid I had hallucinated the whole thing. What's bizarre about this particular pilot movie is that if foreshadows events in LATER Bond films such as "The Man With the Golden Gun," "The Spy Who Loved Me," "Moonraker," even the Daniel Craig "Casino Royale"! There's also a theme song wailed by Dusty Spiringfield ,"He's the man, he's the six million dollar man!" For a Bondhead like me, this was the most hilarious show I've seen all year.
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So far I've watched the first two movies and the "Iconic Opening" feature. Mild spoilers follow.
Novelist Martin Caidin was actually there when Bruce Peterson crashed the M2-F2 in 1967. It gave Caidin the idea for the book. I love the test flight scene in Movie One, especially the use of realistic radio chatter, which was probably taken verbatim from Peterson's actual flight recording.
Apparently the whole point of the lifting body program was to find out what shape would work best for the yet-to-be-designed Space Shuttle. The drop footage of the HL-10 looked so cool and futuristic in SMDM's regular opening titles, I used to doodle it in school as a boy. Its lack of resemblance to the two-finned M2-F2 that crashed never bothered me. [I recall that as the series wore on, jet aircraft would often be portrayed with non-matching footage. An F-4 would become an F-105 and then change back again. The show wasn't going to create fx shots with jet miniatures, so they did what they had to do with stock footage. At least one time, they mixed up Saturn V and Saturn IB footage, which I suppose reflected a big hurry in the editing room.]
Steve is a civilian here, and they make quite a point of it. He would later be ret-conned into an Air Force colonel, but in 1973 the air was still thick with Vietnam-vintage anti-military sentiment. There's even a broad anti-US government sentiment reflected in the callous, almost inhuman Oliver Spencer character (Darren McGavin) and the nasty twist in the mission he sends Steve to Saudi Arabia for. It's like we're the bad guys, like poor Steve is the pawn of our villainous government. That kind of thinking was considered very hip and sophisticated at the time.
Steve's parachute jump looks terrific. Apart from using such a little airplane, it gave the movie almost a big-screen feeling.
I think Barbara Anderson had a much better role on STAR TREK as Lenore Karidian than her nurse part here. Lenore was vivacious, electric; Jean Manners is bland and generic (but I wish nurses still wore that classic uniform!). Plus, it's hard to believe she would fall in love with Steve after he didn't speak to her for four months. There's a syndrome in bad writing where the protagonist treats everyone like crap but they all love him anyway. That issue is creeping in here.
[Does anyone still have the Caidin novels? What was the nurse's name in CYBORG? And in CYBORG IV, wasn't there an injured Air Force pilot named Dick Manners? Kind of a coincidence that the name Manners would show up twice. I wish I hadn't stupidly parted with my SMDM and BW books. I had the whole collection as a kid.]
Movie Two:
The uncaring spy-chief trait is carried over to Oscar Goldman in WINE, WOMEN, AND WAR, albeit toned down a little. I'm sure Richard Anderson was saying, "If this thing goes, I want to be likable."
Britt Ekland is a visual treat, as she would be again in THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN and "The Gun on Ice Planet Zero." She's probably one of the all-time best-looking blonds; I'm surprised she wasn't a bigger star. Her luminous face and hair could just fill the screen and make men happy.
Casting David McCallum as a Russian spy seems tremendously unoriginal, and he was groomed like a sheep dog. Didn't work for me.
Michele Carey looked familiar, and her IMDB page shows a lot of TV guest shots.
I think Eric Braeden ("Arlen Findletter") is a personal friend of Jeff Bond, but I can't find the thread.
They didn't waste any time with their first Rudy Wells swap-out, from Balsam to Oppenheimer. Does anybody know what really happened with these guys?
I was also surprised to see Steve's elegant, silver bracelet show up so early, in only the second movie. I used to want one just like it. As a kid I thought it was the coolest thing ever, but it's not a standard item and I never found one.
The balcony scene in Alexandria, Egypt was made fairly spectacular by tricking it into the middle of a matte painting. The underground missile hangar was some pretty good miniature and matte work.
To sum up WWaW, the show hadn't hit its stride yet. They took a superficial scraping of the Bond films and came away with some things that don't travel well and that neither Majors nor his character could pull off. Where Bond the ivy-league, worldly gourmet in a Saville Row suit could get away with acting self-satisfied, amused, and condescending, Steve Austin with a rural accent and a squeaky-clean NASA pedigree really can't. I have one more movie of the week to go and then I'm eager to get into the regular series. I don't remember a thing about "Solid Gold Kidnapping" but I'm sure I saw it in syndication a few times. IMDB shows another Bond girl in the cast.
The SMDM main title featurette was terrific, but I wish someone would have mentioned Oliver Nelson and the music. The title sequence was always one of my favorite parts of the show. Jack Cole was brilliant to use the multi-layered visuals he talked about. A good, ominous pre-title sequence followed by the Cole titles was an immensely effective one-two punch.
Imagine if the horrible opening titles from WINE, WOMEN, and WAR had been used for the whole series. I'll bet the show would have lasted one year at most. You can't fully appreciate how superb the Cole titles were until you've seen the cheap, uninspired schlock they threw together for WWaW. I like the Glen Larson song as a fun novelty item, but it sets the wrong tone if we're going to take Steve Austin seriously. The song must have been another aspect of the James Bond imitation that permeates Movie Two.
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So far I've watched the first two movies and the "Iconic Opening" feature. Mild spoilers follow.
Novelist Martin Caidin was actually there when Bruce Peterson crashed the M2-F2 in 1967. It gave Caidin the idea for the book. I love the test flight scene in Movie One, especially the use of realistic radio chatter, which was probably taken verbatim from Peterson's actual flight recording.
Apparently the whole point of the lifting body program was to find out what shape would work best for the yet-to-be-designed Space Shuttle. The drop footage of the HL-10 looked so cool and futuristic in SMDM's regular opening titles, I used to doodle it in school as a boy. Its lack of resemblance to the two-finned M2-F2 that crashed never bothered me. [I recall that as the series wore on, jet aircraft would often be portrayed with non-matching footage. An F-4 would become an F-105 and then change back again. The show wasn't going to create fx shots with jet miniatures, so they did what they had to do with stock footage. At least one time, they mixed up Saturn V and Saturn IB footage, which I suppose reflected a big hurry in the editing room.]
Steve is a civilian here, and they make quite a point of it. He would later be ret-conned into an Air Force colonel, but in 1973 the air was still thick with Vietnam-vintage anti-military sentiment. There's even a broad anti-US government sentiment reflected in the callous, almost inhuman Oliver Spencer character (Darren McGavin) and the nasty twist in the mission he sends Steve to Saudi Arabia for. It's like we're the bad guys, like poor Steve is the pawn of our villainous government. That kind of thinking was considered very hip and sophisticated at the time.
Steve's parachute jump looks terrific. Apart from using such a little airplane, it gave the movie almost a big-screen feeling.
I think Barbara Anderson had a much better role on STAR TREK as Lenore Karidian than her nurse part here. Lenore was vivacious, electric; Jean Manners is bland and generic (but I wish nurses still wore that classic uniform!). Plus, it's hard to believe she would fall in love with Steve after he didn't speak to her for four months. There's a syndrome in bad writing where the protagonist treats everyone like crap but they all love him anyway. That issue is creeping in here.
[Does anyone still have the Caidin novels? What was the nurse's name in CYBORG? And in CYBORG IV, wasn't there an injured Air Force pilot named Dick Manners? Kind of a coincidence that the name Manners would show up twice. I wish I hadn't stupidly parted with my SMDM and BW books. I had the whole collection as a kid.]
Movie Two:
The uncaring spy-chief trait is carried over to Oscar Goldman in WINE, WOMEN, AND WAR, albeit toned down a little. I'm sure Richard Anderson was saying, "If this thing goes, I want to be likable."
Britt Ekland is a visual treat, as she would be again in THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN and "The Gun on Ice Planet Zero." She's probably one of the all-time best-looking blonds; I'm surprised she wasn't a bigger star. Her luminous face and hair could just fill the screen and make men happy.
Casting David McCallum as a Russian spy seems tremendously unoriginal, and he was groomed like a sheep dog. Didn't work for me.
Michele Carey looked familiar, and her IMDB page shows a lot of TV guest shots.
I think Eric Braeden ("Arlen Findletter") is a personal friend of Jeff Bond, but I can't find the thread.
They didn't waste any time with their first Rudy Wells swap-out, from Balsam to Oppenheimer. Does anybody know what really happened with these guys?
I was also surprised to see Steve's elegant, silver bracelet show up so early, in only the second movie. I used to want one just like it. As a kid I thought it was the coolest thing ever, but it's not a standard item and I never found one.
The balcony scene in Alexandria, Egypt was made fairly spectacular by tricking it into the middle of a matte painting. The underground missile hangar was some pretty good miniature and matte work.
To sum up WWaW, the show hadn't hit its stride yet. They took a superficial scraping of the Bond films and came away with some things that don't travel well and that neither Majors nor his character could pull off. Where Bond the ivy-league, worldly gourmet in a Saville Row suit could get away with acting self-satisfied, amused, and condescending, Steve Austin with a rural accent and a squeaky-clean NASA pedigree really can't. I have one more movie of the week to go and then I'm eager to get into the regular series. I don't remember a thing about "Solid Gold Kidnapping" but I'm sure I saw it in syndication a few times. IMDB shows another Bond girl in the cast.
The SMDM main title featurette was terrific, but I wish someone would have mentioned Oliver Nelson and the music. The title sequence was always one of my favorite parts of the show. Jack Cole was brilliant to use the multi-layered visuals he talked about. A good, ominous pre-title sequence followed by the Cole titles was an immensely effective one-two punch.
Imagine if the horrible opening titles from WINE, WOMEN, and WAR had been used for the whole series. I'll bet the show would have lasted one year at most. You can't fully appreciate how superb the Cole titles were until you've seen the cheap, uninspired schlock they threw together for WWaW. I like the Glen Larson song as a fun novelty item, but it sets the wrong tone if we're going to take Steve Austin seriously. The song must have been another aspect of the James Bond imitation that permeates Movie Two.
Good review. At least WWaW seems more like a classic James Bond movie than anything Pierce Brosnan did!
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Posted: |
Nov 25, 2010 - 1:11 PM
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By: |
Eric Paddon
(Member)
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They conscientiously got away from the Bond formula of the second and third pilots to stress more Lee Majors as the modern cowboy and more "humanized" man with super powers. Commendable in playing more to Majors' strengths, but as I've gone through most of the first four seasons and all of S1 of "Bionic Woman" for that matter, I have to admit the repetitive formula of bad guys always being someone *inside* the agency or project or government selling out (and never defining just who they are selling out to) gets a bit annoying, especially when hardly ever do you see Steve Austin go up against a defined foreign threat of significance. This I suppose just reflects the post-Watergate mentality of always looking to baddies and crooks in the government as fodder for storylines, and the whole trendy detente philosophy of the day dictating a distance from foreign threats but for me it really dates the show a lot worse than the usual trappings associated with the show.
Also, while Kenneth Johnson is often very informed on the subject material and can give a lot of fascinating insights, he also has a tendency to get full of himself in his commentaries and in the big hour long "Debriefing" section. I think the way he tries to trumpet the Bionic shows as so much superior to the typical superhero type shows because his characters are simply "more human" gets a bit overboard when you also have to remember that Johnson wrote the "Bigfoot" storyline that is the most outlandish bit of comic book style absurdity to grace the TV screens in the 70s. I don't think that does much for the argument that a Bionic show is better somehow because of its greater "realism" in the characters if you're then going to plunk them in situations that only belong in the comic books Johnson so obviously disdains. The Bionic shows have to be seen IMO as nothing more than good entertaining live action comic books in their own right with different kinds of leading characters, but comic book entertainment nonetheless.
And I also don't think I had to hear him for more than three or four times confess his desire to have shot a scene showing Steve and Oscar as a couple, especially wishing he could have had kids see that. Saying it once as a joke can be funny, but carrying it on like after the joke has been made then makes him come off like a creepy slash fic author.
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I think the way he tries to trumpet the Bionic shows as so much superior to the typical superhero type shows because his characters are simply "more human" gets a bit overboard when you also have to remember that Johnson wrote the "Bigfoot" storyline that is the most outlandish bit of comic book style absurdity to grace the TV screens in the 70s. I don't think that does much for the argument that a Bionic show is better somehow because of its greater "realism" in the characters if you're then going to plunk them in situations that only belong in the comic books Johnson so obviously disdains. The Bionic shows have to be seen IMO as nothing more than good entertaining live action comic books in their own right with different kinds of leading characters, but comic book entertainment nonetheless.
Regarding 1970s TV, I think the bionic shows were better but not for Johnson's reason:
THE INCREDIBLE HULK and WONDER WOMAN offered the super-strength fantasy, the pursuit of justice, and a likable protagonist, but Bruce Banner had to be slight and unimposing so the Hulk could be more gigantic by comparison, and neither side of him was glamorous. Wonder Woman was glamorous but in a highly unrealistic way. And both heroes had to bust out of their normal personas to do great things. As themselves they led thankless lives, and unlike Clark Kent, they spent very little time as superheroes, at least not enough to soak up much appreciation.
Steve and Jaime had unforced glamour and charisma. Just walking down the street they looked like the attractive, graceful, put-together, sexy adults that as kids we wished we could be. They looked real, plausible, achievable, and yet fantastic. It was tantalizing to put yourself in their place. "I haven't stopped growing yet-- who's to say I won't be built like Steve?" Or for a girl, classy-beautiful like Jaime. And when there was something great to do, they did it as themselves, often receiving appreciation or wonderment for their special powers.
Then consider the music scores. Oliver Nelson for Steve, and Joe Harnell for Jaime: they created a pair of energetic, melodic jazz worlds that I wanted to live in. The sound was sleek and powerful, you could groove to it, and it belonged exclusively to them. The music proved Steve and Jaime were special.
Regarding Kenneth Johnson, when he was listed as the writer of a BIONIC WOMAN, it was going to be one of her best episodes by far. Whatever his faults, that stands. I haven't heard his commentaries yet, and if he's annoying, so be it.
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I think the way he tries to trumpet the Bionic shows as so much superior to the typical superhero type shows because his characters are simply "more human" gets a bit overboard when you also have to remember that Johnson wrote the "Bigfoot" storyline that is the most outlandish bit of comic book style absurdity to grace the TV screens in the 70s. I don't think that does much for the argument that a Bionic show is better somehow because of its greater "realism" in the characters if you're then going to plunk them in situations that only belong in the comic books Johnson so obviously disdains. The Bionic shows have to be seen IMO as nothing more than good entertaining live action comic books in their own right with different kinds of leading characters, but comic book entertainment nonetheless.
Regarding 1970s TV, I think the bionic shows were better but not for Johnson's reason:
THE INCREDIBLE HULK and WONDER WOMAN offered the super-strength fantasy, the pursuit of justice, and a likable protagonist, but Bruce Banner had to be slight and unimposing so the Hulk could be more gigantic by comparison, and neither side of him was glamorous. Wonder Woman was glamorous but in a highly unrealistic way. And both heroes had to bust out of their normal personas to do great things. As themselves they led thankless lives, and unlike Clark Kent, they spent very little time as superheroes, at least not enough to soak up much appreciation.
Steve and Jaime had unforced glamour and charisma. Just walking down the street they looked like the attractive, graceful, put-together, sexy adults that as kids we wished we could be. They looked real, plausible, achievable, and yet fantastic. It was tantalizing to put yourself in their place. "I haven't stopped growing yet-- who's to say I won't be built like Steve?" Or for a girl, classy-beautiful like Jaime. And when there was something great to do, they did it as themselves, often receiving appreciation or wonderment for their special powers.
Then consider the music scores. Oliver Nelson for Steve, and Joe Harnell for Jaime: they created a pair of energetic, melodic jazz worlds that I wanted to live in. The sound was sleek and powerful, you could groove to it, and it belonged exclusively to them. The music proved Steve and Jaime were special.
Regarding Kenneth Johnson, when he was listed as the writer of a BIONIC WOMAN, it was going to be one of her best episodes by far. Whatever his faults, that stands. I haven't heard his commentaries yet, and if he's annoying, so be it.
uhhhh that was DAVID Banner....
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Well, I officially launched the Christmas season by making the first Christmas oriented TV program I watched be "A Bionic Christmas Carol". I remember seeing this one when it first aired 34 years ago but never knew until now that the "Mrs. Cratchit" character for this was none other than Antoinette Bower. In light of her memorable roles a decade earlier on "Invaders", "Wild Wild West" etc. (her Trek episode is not one of my favorites) it's kind of strange seeing her as a saintly wife and mother telling the kids it's time for them to take a bath.
That said, looking at the episode as a whole it really is a nice character driven piece, and coming on the heels of some overly padded episodes that had way too much repetitive action, it's a welcome change of pace from the SMDM norm and most importantly it hits all the right notes in conveying the spirit of the Christmas season. Ray Walston would have made a great Scrooge in a regular production of Christmas Carol.
I hope I like this one better when I get to it as an adult. I never gave it much of a chance as a kid because it seemed like half the TV series ever aired had done the story. And I wanted serious action episodes.
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I liked "The Solid Gold Kidnapping." Elizabeth Ashley is a cutie; I'm glad her hair grew back so fast after brain surgery to implant new memories.
I think my vague memories of the "Wine" and "Solid Gold" plots are more from the books than the episodes, which is weird because I watched the series over and over in syndication. So I wonder if the syndy package left them out most of the time.
"Solid Gold" borrowed openly from THUNDERBALL. The villains had a board of directors just like SPECTRE, but without the deadly chairs or hiding the boss's face. They even carried on basically the same conversation: going over each big crime they'd planned and how well it had paid off. Also, one of their operations involved a guy in full-face bandages being smuggled on a gurney by a nurse wearing a vintage white dress uniform with navy blue cape. It was getting into full-blown homage territory. It's the "We Heart THUNDERBALL" episode of SMDM.
I think Barbara Carrera wore the caped nurse uniform in NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN. They had a real chance to be sexy there but spoiled it with the eye surgery plot device that made me squeamish. Ick. Still a good costume, though. I googled "nurse uniform" and let's just say, don't do that at work. Not safe for work.
Amazingly, the Bond-SMDM borrowing went both ways. THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN snapped up Britt Ekland right after she was in "Wine." And THE SPY WHO LOVED ME re-shot the "Solid Gold" scene where Steve is in a ski lodge, lying in front of a fireplace with a girl he picked up, only to receive a signal from headquarters that he was needed for a mission. That really surprised me.
David White and Maurice Evans of "Solid Gold" were both on BEWITCHED for eight years. Of course, if you really want to see the supporting cast and guest stars of BEWITCHED, check out THE GHOST AND MR CHICKEN. Most of them are in it.
I also watched the first regular episode, "Population: Zero." We finally get Oliver Nelson's music going. Steve's character theme is especially welcome. The climactic action scene with javelin throw was really good. They had Steve sweat from his left underarm and not the right one, a questionable detail they would never bother with again.
"Population: Zero" featured both Paul Carr and Paul Fix from "Where No Man Has Gone Before." That was a probably a coincidence; they each did so many TV guest shots that they had to cross paths at some point. Per IMDB, it seems like Fix was a fixture in westerns (much like another ST doctor, DeForest Kelly), while Carr had a career's worth of western guest shots followed by another lifetime on sci-fi/adventure shows, missing only LOST IN SPACE.
Paul Carr would re-appear as Malachi Throne's right-hand man in "The Bionic Woman" Parts 1 and 2. His "Population: Zero" credit is missing from IMDB, but they list SMDM "Just a Matter of Time." So Carr was in four episodes altogether. He also had four BUCK ROGERS guest shots.
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I never liked Solid Gold Kidnapping. The story was bland and without much character. As much as I didn't think Glen Larson had a feel for the character, Solid Gold seemed like an in-between version: caught in the mid point separating Larson and Harve Bennett. The cast included Terry Carter but didn't have a Stu Phillips score. It was also pretty hysterical how phone booths seemed to be in the oddest places - like in the middle of parking spaces.
The TV movies were pretty heavily padded to fill out 2 episodes in syndication. They were in the regular rotation, but were so awful, I can't blame anyone for forgetting them.
Population Zero is outstanding in comparison (and quite good on its own). Surprisingly, the episode (and others) was written by Elroy Schwartz, son of Sherwood who created Gilligan's Island and The Brady Bunch. Elroy had written some truly awful stuff for his dad's comedies, but would do extremely well on Six Mil. Seeing his name attached to some of the better episodes was a shock.
The Six Million Dollar Man series was really consistently excellent for its first two seasons, as a well balanced mix of action, espionage, and sci-fi. Once The Bionic Woman got her own series and Bigfoot appeared on SMDM, the series began its downward slope. The passing of Oliver Nelson was a major blow to the series and it lost its musical identity. The last two seasons were really different in tone and quality, beginning in the 4th season, with Lee Majors growing his moustache and losing a ton of weight. He also seemed to lose interest in doing any real acting, letting his eyebrow do all the work. The 5th season, truly a year too far, still had some gems, but it was mostly a collection of tired ideas stretched out into two-part "epics." Joining the series as a producer this year was the infamous Fred Frieberger. Unlike many genre fans, I don't agree that he is an automatic kiss of death. Star Trek was going to fail in its third season with or without him. However, he is truly responsible for the demise of Space:1999. For Six Mil, he didn't do so badly. At its worst, the season was simply bland. Perhaps this is because he didn't have full control, but either way, the series limped to the finish line without an actual final episode (unlike The Bionic Woman). However, the reunion movies gave the characters closure and did it pretty well for the most part.
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