My brother had Steve (and his mission vehicle accessory whozit, I think). I had Maskatron.
Rewatching the Six Million Dollar Man on DVD
- Thread starter 23skidoo
- Start date
Yeah, I had that. I think the lens was wide-angle, so it actually made things look smaller, the exact opposite of what Steve's eye actually did.
Inspired by this thread, I just watched the pilot The Moon and the Desert again. I thought it was a pretty mixed bag. I was surprised at the amount of stock footage they used. By this, I don't mean the NASA shots and the footage of the crashing space plane, but the reused shots of Rudy Wells! My God, half the first episode must be taken up by Martin Balsam looking benignly into the camera! The footage did duty for Rudy's concern for his charge while on the moon, on the test flight, post crash on the carrier back to Colorado and while Steve was in hospital in Colorado.
I really like this pilot. I always have. I think it was here 35 years ago that I learned to love a little angst!
Oliver Spencer refers to Steve as "scrap parts" not once but twice, and one of those times after he'd met him. Still, they managed to lighten the mood towards the end of the second part, with what was probably some obligatory light humour for the time.
Still, after all these years, that footage of the crashing NASA test plane is shocking and horiffic, and it surprises me that anyone could survive it, let alone Lee Majors with his handsome face intact.
I really like this pilot. I always have. I think it was here 35 years ago that I learned to love a little angst!
Oliver Spencer refers to Steve as "scrap parts" not once but twice, and one of those times after he'd met him. Still, they managed to lighten the mood towards the end of the second part, with what was probably some obligatory light humour for the time.Still, after all these years, that footage of the crashing NASA test plane is shocking and horiffic, and it surprises me that anyone could survive it, let alone Lee Majors with his handsome face intact.
I have an almost complete collection: Steve, Jaime, Oscar, Bigfoot, Maskatron. I don't think I have Fembot, though. They're all in pretty rough shape but they're still cool to have!
You did not see the pilot. Not really.
What you saw was a reedited version that was created for syndication years later incorporating footage from about 3-4 epsiodes to stretch the original 70 minute film to fill 2 one-hour episodes. It is awful - the only good part about it being the fact Martin Balsam, the original actor to play Rudy Wells, agreed to record a new voiceover. But look carefully and you'll also see Martin E Brooks (who played Rudy later) in several scenes!
The original pilot is simply titled The Six Million Dollar Man - you'll find it's 100% better. If you can't find it, then your best bet is to start watching The Moon and the Desert version from the point where the general asks where Austin is. That's where the pilot really begins. Also pretend the crash footage is about half the length (most of the M&D version is taken from a later episode of SMDM where Austin recreates the flight that maimed him), and the extended surgery scene right after the crash isn't in the pilot either - it more or less cuts straight to Rudy telling Oliver about Austin's injuries.
Also avoid any two-part versions of Wine, Women and War and The Solid Gold Kidnapping you might come across. They suck, full stop. The original 70-minute TV movies are far superior and have no filler. (The syndicated version of WWW, for example, has a five-minute scene added, using a body double, of Steve Austin fishing. Seriously. Just to fill time - there's no such sequence in the original movie.) One reason why you often see people saying the original pilots are bad films is because they base their judgment on the syndicated versions which, sadly, are the only versions that have been widely available. Until now.
One cool thing about the new DVD set is they include both versions of the pilots so you can compare.
Meanwhile, I've just watched The Rescue of Athena One, the first of several SMDM episodes written by Trek veteran DC Fontana and the first of four appearances of Farrah Fawcett-Majors in the series. I hate to say it but my memories of Farrah were somewhat colored by her physical decline in her last decade, her weirdness on Letterman in the 1990s, and the stereotyping of Charlie's Angels. Seeing her several years before that (she hadn't even done the poster yet), I can definitely see why she became a superstar. In some respects I can also see her character (Major Kelly Woods, the first American female astronaut) being a dry run for Jaime Sommers.
I still have a few episodes to go before "Burning Bright", which was the Bill Shatner episode, and "The Coward" which features George Takei.
Alex
Last edited:
I was watching the DVD that was released in the UK 2 or 3 years ago so I don't have that luxury, I'm afraid. Thanks for all the information, by the way, very interesting. I did spot Martin E Brooks, by the way.
Hopefully you'll be able to see the new DVD version at some point - if not right now, when the individual seasons are released next year. It could be quite interesting.
Someone told me that you can even see Alan Oppenheimer at some point in the re-edit (the other actor who played Rudy) but so far I haven't been able to spot him. They might have been thinking of the original (non-syndication) opening credits for the other two pilot films in which both Balsam and Oppenheimer appear.
Alex
Yeah, I had that. I think the lens was wide-angle, so it actually made things look smaller, the exact opposite of what Steve's eye actually did.
I still have the six million dollar man figure but it's missing the small plastic "electronics" cubes that fit in his arms and the fake skin that covered them is long gone along with his sneakers and most of the hair painted on his head. I used to have Bigfoot and Oscar Goldman as well but they are long gone.
I brought the bootleg DVD set on Ebay a year or two ago for $30 bucks but I will buy myself this set for Christmas just to be able to see perfect quality video and soundtrack.
My mother got me the Steve figure along with the Bigfoot ( If memory serves it had Ted Cassidy's likeness?) and the Death Probe. Alas each of them were damaged while "jumping" out of my two-story bedroom window and many other "bionic" feats....
^ My grandmother bought my brother and me a Steve Austin figure each, so there'd be no fighting. I can't remember whose got lost/ damaged/ blowed up first but they long, long ago bit the dust. It would take more than $6m to put them back together ...
Those action figures bring back a helluva lot of memories,...BUT in all reality right now I wanna see the entire series. Too bad I don't have the $240 bucks to shell out.
That second pilot movie would have probably turned me off if I totally remembered it.
That second pilot movie would have probably turned me off if I totally remembered it.
Are you able to play region 2 dvds? SMDM is out on those really quite cheaply at the moment.
I watched Day of the Robot and Run, Steve, Run a couple of days ago. I enjoyed them both, plot holes not withstanding, although I suspect Run, Steve, Run had more to do with LM wanting to show off his horsemanship than anything else!
I am reminded watching the episodes again what a handsome guy he was.
He turned up recently in a live-action movie of the Cartoon Network tv show Ben 10, playing Ben's grandad. I tried to explain his significance to my childhood to my daughter, a Ben 10 fan, but at three years old, it was somewhat lost on her ...
Isn't it only the first two seasons that are available in region 2, at least so far as UK releases? There's an Italian region 2 release of the third season, which has an English soundtrack option. I believe France is the only region 2 country with all five seasons released, but those box sets don't have English soundtracks.
While it was nice to see him again, I felt Majors was miscast there. Grandpa Max is more a Brian Dennehy type. Then again, in the second live-action movie he was played by Barry Corben, who was even more miscast.
^Yes, even on my brief viewing of the animated show (which she loves and my wife and I hate!), I didn't have Grandad down as the Lee Majors type.
I hope to avoid the second movie so probably won't have an opinion on the casting there.
I hope to avoid the second movie so probably won't have an opinion on the casting there.
, hopefully one day a movie reboot will due it justice
.Yeah, Wikipedia indicates they only bothered with the first 2 seasons. One of the selling features of the new set is it's considered the first-ever (English-language) release of all the seasons. Likewise, apparently the third season of Bionic Woman has never been (legally) issued to DVD anywhere, so when it comes out in 2011 that's apparently going to be a first, as well.
One or two of the reunion movies were issued to DVD in Region 2 earlier this year, and that was also promoted as the first DVD release of them (though the first movie did come out on VHS in the UK).
I finished the first season the other night and am now into the second season. So far I'm quite impressed with how well the episodes have stood the test of time. They aren't all classics (Run, Steve, Run is a bit naff and a borderline clip show) but they're fun and it's interesting to play "spot the star", especially ones who hadn't become famous yet. I'm currently watching out for John Landis in a pre-directing acting turn in "The Pal-Mir Escort", and I have a hankering to track down a copy of Amok Time after seeing Arlene "T'Pring" Martel in "The Last of the Fourth of Julys" which also features Kevin Tighe - at the time a big star for his role in Emergency - hidden under a mullet wig as a villain! On a more obscure level, one of the episodes features English actress Jane Merrow and it's bizarre to see her in this because I'm used to watching her in shows like Danger Man, UFO and The Prisoner!
Still a ways to go before Jaime, Bigfoot and the mustache arrive, though, but reading up on the show I've been reminded of some of my old-time favorite episodes that are upcoming, such as the DC Fontana-written Straight on Till Morning which was the first alien-based episode, and there's also an episode I remember from late in the series about Steve travelling in time that weirded me out back in the day. And of course, Farrah comes back for a few episodes, too.
Alex
6MDM was my favorite pre-Star Wars entertainment property, and I sure enjoyed many hours of playing with the toys: Steve, Maskatron, the rocket/med bed thing, and the awesomely cool mission command center with the inflatable dome.
I'm somewhate tempted to check this out, but I'm afeared it's best remembered through the hazy recollections of early childhood. I learned this the hard way after trying to watch an episode of the A-Team a few years ago.
I'm somewhate tempted to check this out, but I'm afeared it's best remembered through the hazy recollections of early childhood. I learned this the hard way after trying to watch an episode of the A-Team a few years ago.
Probably, but so is the TARDIS sound and you can find files of it all over the place. Maybe no one's bothered to make one.
I'm somewhate tempted to check this out, but I'm afeared it's best remembered through the hazy recollections of early childhood. I learned this the hard way after trying to watch an episode of the A-Team a few years ago.
I was worried about that too, but my concerns were alleviated when the Bionic Woman set came out. Yes, you can see the "strings" (so to speak) easier on DVD, and we've become accustomed to better SFX and different forms of storytelling. But frankly that can apply to anything that's old. In 10-20 years people will be sneering at Avatar's campy special effects too. Bet on it. There is no such thing as future-proof entertainment as long as technology continues to change and people's tastes keep changing.
My suggestion is to take the $30 gamble and get the first season of Bionic Woman on DVD, because it includes 4 SMDM episodes as well as a dozen BW episodes, so you can probably tell from that whether the "A Team effect" might be in play for you, while at the same time you're not really endangering childhood memories of, say, Bigfoot or Death Probe. Or even the Fembots, for that matter.
(You can probably find SMDM episodes to sample on things like Hulu, as well, but I don't like watching TV shows on a computer screen if I can avoid it and Hulu isn't available in Canada, so I'll just leave that on the table for others to consider.)
Alex
Similar threads
