Six Million Dollar Man: Better, Faster, Stronger

Based on Cyborg, a novel by Martin Caidin, The Six Million Dollar Man first aired as a TV movie in 1973. The first film was a major ratings success, so it was quickly followed by two more made-for-TV films in November 1973. The weekly series began airing 50 years ago on January 18, 1974.

Lee Majors, at that point best known for his role on The Big Valley, was cast as Steve Austin, astronaut and test pilot. When his test vehicle crashes on landing, he has one arm, both legs and an eye replaced by state-of-the-art bionic technology that gives him incredible strength and vision.

Naturally, this technology didn’t come without a hefty price tag – hence the show’s name – and that was the key to Austin’s recruitment into a more clandestine form of government service.

In the pilot movie, Darren McGavin played Steve Austin’s boss, Oliver Spencer, Director of the OSO. He was replaced in the second film by Richard Anderson, who played Oscar Goldman, head of the OSI, through the rest of the series.

Dr. Rudy Wells, the scientist who created the bionic limbs and eye, was played Martin Balsam in the pilot, then by Alan Openheimer (1973-1974), and finally Martin E. Brooks for the remainder of the series.

Steve Austin’s adventures ranged from semi-serious science fiction to campy espionage, but he was a hit with kids, soon spawning action figures, comic books and magazines, and more.

In 1975, a two-part episode introduced Austin’s old flame, tennis star Jaime Sommers, who soon became (after an accident) the Bionic Woman. She died at the end of the second episode (at the tail end of the second season) but the viewer outcry was so strong that she was revived at the beginning of the third season, but with a major twist.

When he was injured on a mission and in need of repair on his bionics, Austin underwent surgery. While there, he believed he saw Sommers. He was angry to find out that his friends Goldman and Wells had kept her survival from him, but he soon found out that there was a reason: she didn’t remember anything about their relationship or time together. In fact, trying to remember it caused her significant pain and endangered her life.

For the rest of the series, Steve quietly longed for her in a way she couldn’t quite reciprocate. This didn’t slow the action down, however, as Sommers got her own spin-off TV series and appeared periodically on The Six Million Dollar Man.

In 1977, when ABC, the network which aired The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman, canceled the spin-off, NBC picked it up. This distinguished Richard Anderson and Martin E. Brooks as the first actors to play the same characters simultaneously on two different networks.

Both series were canceled in 1978, but they gave rise to a trio of new TV films less than a decade later, The Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman (1987), Bionic Showdown (1989), and Bionic Ever After? (1994). The second film notably featured an early role for Sandra Bullock, and the third finally saw Steve Austin and Jaime Sommers tie the knot. Majors reprised the role of Steve Austin in all three productions, which also featured Richard Anderson and Martin E. Brooks.

There have been some truly horrible ideas floated for new Six Million Dollar Man movies as vehicles for Jim Carrey or Chris Rock, but we have thus far been spared. A revised Bionic Woman lasted eight episodes in 2008 on NBC and had virtually nothing except the name Jaime Sommers in common with the original. A new reboot film has been in the works for years, but has stalled several times.