50th Anniversary Viewing
The Six Million Dollar Man
"Steve Austin, Fugitive"
Originally aired April 27, 1975
Season finale
Wiki said:
Steve is arrested when an assassin he helped send to prison seeks revenge by framing him for murder. Steve escapes from the police and must find the assassin before the police find Steve.
Steve meets Oscar's quirky new secretary, Miss Callahan (Jennifer Darling), as she's talking to her parents back home on the phone. Once she finds out who he is, the starstruck assistant informs him of the ominous plot contrivance that Oscar's out of the country with Rudy. Steve then gets a call from Charlie Taylor (Andy Romano) at Rudy's lab, who says that Steve's bionic data has been stolen and that he got a call not to report it, suggesting a blackmail attempt. It turns out that Charlie's willingly working with Mr. Hopper (Gary Lockwood reprising his role from Season 1's "Eyewitness to Murder"), but hasn't been filled in on the actual plan...Hopper then putting on a what we learn is a very special glove and pulling out a Five-O Special. When Steve arrives at Charlie's, he finds Taylor dead. Then Hopper comes out in a ski mask, asserts that Steve killed Charlie, and shoots him in the neck with a tranq dart; following which he makes an anonymous call that he heard shots. Along the way, he makes a point of touching lots of things with his gloved hand.
When Steve comes to, he's promptly joined by officers Portez and Atkins (Station 51's Marco Lopez and Reb "Cap this!" Brown), who are followed by plainclothes detective Lt. Dobbs (Bernie Hamilton). Dobbs questions the disoriented Steve, thinking that he's drunk and not buying his story about having been drugged by a masked man, as the dart didn't leave a mark. Dobbs nevertheless lets Steve go. Steve calls Oscar in Jolly Ol' to update him, gets permission to run a computer check on people he's helped put away, and Oscar orders Callahan--whose name he can't keep straight because he changes secretaries every three months as a security measure--to help Col. Austin in any way she can. Dobbs then comes in with a partner and places Steve under arrest, his prints having been found on the weapon. Steve complies until he bionic-spots Hopper standing around on the backlot and remembers who he is. He then kicks his way out of the back of the car and chases after Hopper, only to be shot by the detective. Steve gets up and proceeds to make a getaway through an alley.
Callahan comes home to find Steve in her apartment. She notes that her door is heavily locked, though most of those locks only work from the inside. He tells her his story, and when she expresses skepticism about parts of it that involve superhuman feats...got your Twisted Tea ready?
Steve: What's your security clearance?
Callahan: Um, I'm three.
Steve: Well, you're about to be jumped to a six.
He shows her his leg wound, then sends her to an electronic parts store for first aid supplies.
(The elder, bearded proprietor is played by Lee Majors.) She watches with amazement as Steve extracts the bullet and patches his leg up, then Dobbs comes to the door with a warrant and Steve goes into hiding--hanging out the window by his bionic arm as the lieutenant and his men search the place. After they leave, Steve has Callahan take him to OSI so he can break into the computer room for the search results, which are being held because nobody else has gotten the memo about her clearance yet. After she drops him off, she proceeds to work a detective novel-fueled hunch to question Taylor's neighbors, starting with an old lady wielding a large knife who's more interested in making her cabbage soup (Amzie Strickland). A couple of doors later, while Steve's been using his infra-vision to find and swipe the files, she's invited in for coffee by a guy she doesn't know is Hopper.
He gives her a false name and a false description of a potential suspect, while also asking her a question designed to test her cover as a reporter for the
Post. He then follows her back to her apartment to stake out the place, assembling a surveillance mic and watching Steve return. He listens as Steve learns that John Hopper is supposed to have died in prison months prior, and speculates that he may be dealing with the twin brother who helped John get away with his hits and was never apprehended (filling us in on a plot point that I'd forgotten). Hopper makes another anonymous call to the police. As Callahan's heading to her car, she sees squad cars swooping in and alerts Steve by honking her horn. She watches as he makes a roof-jumping getaway, but is then caught by Hopper.
While the police are searching by land and air for Steve, he once again pulls the trick of going back to Callahan's apartment, which you'd think they'd have caught onto by now. Hopper calls Steve to arrange a hostage rendezvous at a park in the morning. Meanwhile, Oscar rushes back to the States and talks with Dobbs, telling him that Austin could have been framed using a duplicate of his hand with his prints on it. Hopper tips off the police about Steve being at the park, telling them that he shot a cop. Steve sees Hopper watching the park with binoculars from a warehouse roof, and is then approached by Oscar and Dobbs. Neither Hopper nor we can hear as Oscar and Steve fill Dobbs in. After Dobbs walks away, Steve pushes Oscar and makes a break for it, only to be shot down by the police and loaded in a van. Inside, Steve rises at Oscar's reference to Lazarus, Dobbs having directed his officers to aim for the right places. Steve then asks to be given a shot at rescuing Callahan. As Hopper's about to off her and use the spare hand to implicate Steve again, Steve busts in and Hopper uses a lifting platform to knock Steve on the noggin, then tries to crush him with a bulldozer, but Steve kicks it over with his bionic legs and bionic-punches Hopper out.
In the coda, Oscar avoids inducting Dobbs into the Level Six Club by giving him a story about how Steve's hand was duplicated for space research (though he doesn't address the bulletproof part); then learns of Callahan's raised clearance, which Steve uses to negotiate a longer lunch break that she can spend with him.
Apparently Peggy Callahan will be an occasionally recurring character. They made a joke out of Steve trying to get her first name out of her at the end of the episode, though they showed it in the closing credits. Chief among her quirky character traits is that she frequently mentions being a New Englander from Burlington, Vermont. I have to wonder about Oscar's security measure...it seems like a revolving door of secretaries would just mean lots of ladies out there on the job market with inside OSI knowledge, possibly including conditionally raised security clearances.
This will be our last week of the main 50th Anniversary Viewing season with two shows to rub together. On to the last show standing...
Adam-12
"Dana Hall"
Originally aired April 29, 1975
MeTV said:
As Malloy continues his fill-in assignment for Sgt. MacDonald, Reed is paired with the department's first female officer, which presents both of them with a series of unique challenges. On patrol, they detain an underage drunk driver with a dismissive mother, search a parking garage for car strippers, and help round up a large group of young people causing trouble outside a rock concert.
Wells has just been complaining in the locker room about his wife wanting to get a job and her own checking account when everyone takes notice of a lady walking in the hall (Jo Ann Pflug). At roll call, Pete introduces everyone to her--now in uniform--as Reed's titular temporary patrol partner. She's in earshot as Ed protests that Pete had better not put one in his car.
On patrol, Dana finds Jim to be more open-minded about her career choice. They pull over a car that's swerving between lanes and take in the young driver, Tom Bell (Barry Miller), despite his protests that his dad's a big lawyer and he's never been in trouble before. At the station, Hall spars with Wells when he taunts her about her scrawny first arrest, though Pete shoos him off.
Even Reed can't help reacting when she files a nail back in the squad car.
Jim: Where do you keep your lipstick?
Dana: In my sock.
They turn into a parking garage where car strippers have been working and spot a suspect. While Reed's apprehending that one, Hall sees another and chases him down. He ends up taking himself out
Adventures of Superman-style, running into a column while looking behind him. Back at the station, when Woods sees that Dana's brought in a more rugged suspect with a busted face, Reed lets him believe it was her doing, and Jerry goes looking for Ed.
Meanwhile, Tom's mother, Mildred (Marla Adams), has come for him, wanting to downplay the seriousness of his offense despite him still obviously being under the influence, afraid of his father finding out. Both the officers try to set her straight, but when she attempts to appeal to Dana woman-to-woman, Dana puts up her shields, tells her off, and storms out. Reed takes the good cop approach and recommends she bring in her husband and they look into family counseling. He then has a talk with Dana in the break room, informing her that sometimes officers have to display their sympathetic sides, regardless of whether they're male, female, or even Ed Wells.
Jim gets to know Dana better at a commercial break-approved code seven, where she insists on taking the check. After she teases Reed for the second time about being a closet chauvinist, he lets her.
Dana (to herself): You've come a long way, baby.
Adam-12 is one of several units assigned to a 415 outside an amphitheater where a rock concert is being held. Pete directs the effort to bring a crowd of would-be attendees under control as they try to find ways to bust in. One of the rioters whacks Dana with a timber they'd been using as a battering ram and she shrugs it off to cuff him.
A bit later she finds Wells struggling with a couple of suspects, who run off when she approaches. She pursues one of them and he turns to confront her, but gets a baton in the gut, following which she cuffs him.
Back at the station after watch, Wells is willing to accept Dana as an exception, but doesn't like the idea of her opening the floodgates for less qualified female officers. The guys take in Dana in her civvies again, and she makes a point of rushing ahead to the door to open it for Wells and Woods.
Jim (imitating Ed): Well...[snapping finger] there goes the whole department!
I'm pretty sure that other primates do eat eggs. Also, they have to feed their humans, so some amount of their resources would have to be devoted to that.
They don't devote any medical resources to them.
He's still around irregularly at this point, FWIW, but won't be for long.
Which reminds me of a cool mom of a high school friend who came home when we were playing my Beatles records on her bedroom stereo. She yelled for us to turn it up.
