Odd, downbeat, adult-themed 1st Season SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN episode is actually somewhat haunting while ultimately being rather silly at times. OSI Colonel Steve Austin accompanies his Russian astronaut buddy (and future KILLER FISH co-star) Gary Collins -- yes, Gary Collins -- to "inspect earthquake damage" and try to rescue Collins' fetching fiancée after she is trapped underground in a Russian military industrial facility that houses a nuclear power plant. The catch is that the computer core of the reactor is equipped to defend itself, and does in a scene that gave me nightmares for a decade after first encountering this as an 8 year old tyke. It is somewhat goofy after 30 years of people being sliced apart by lasers ala RESIDENT EVIL but to our fragile brains in 1974 it was one of the most nightmarish things we had ever seen ... even though we were crying we knew it was waaaay cool.
Now, what is it about the Russians and our preoccupation for showing their military & industrial facilities as battered rubble strewn wreckage laden wastelands of death? Russian nuclear technologies also always fail, and the episode pretends to climax with a "Red wire or blue wire?" puzzler as Steve tries to keep the reactor from self-destructing, since all things made by the Soviets are naturally hot wired to blow themselves up. Wherever this episode was filmed was well suited to the claustrophobic, underground story, and it really does look as though Steve & Mr. Collins really are scrabbling around in a vast, ruined, underground complex ... though it is odd that the only person living or dead whom they encounter is Collins' fiancée. Maybe the quake happened on a Sunday when everybody else slept in. And in the end Steve saves the day not by some bionic feat, but simply by pulling a plug and shorting out the grounding wire. Can't beat that simple American ingenuity.
This was also the episode that introduced the Steve's Dead Buddy plot device where anyone who knows the Bionic Man (or simply shares his profession) comes to a foul end before the conclusion, leading Steve to stand there introspectively and wonder what the point of it all is. This was also the episode that introduced the Bionic Secret plot device, whereby pretty much anyone and everyone connected with the story is taken into confidence and told Steve's Bionic Secret. Which is odd considering that these are Russian SOLDIERS at the height of the cold war: To opine that Steve Austin was a walking security risk is cutting him some slack. I also like the emphasis placed upon governmental "credentials" in this drama, as if one of the protocols of the Cold War was that we could not chopper elite special operatives into Ruskie installations without some form of ID.
On the other hand, this is a pretty downbeat & grim little effort for a show about a bionic man, with a great melancholy ending and a sort of STAR TREK inspired notion of the Russians and Americans joining forces for a change to explore space together instead of just plotting to wipe each other off the globe. There is also a perhaps inadvertent homage to Martin Cadin's source novel, "Cyborg", when Steve gets bonked on the noodle by a chunk of falling debris. In the book his shattered skull is reinforced with a kind of Teflon steel that can withstand the blow of a hammer while protecting his brain. Either the production crew knew of that and slipped in a sly nod to the original work, or Lee Majors was just lucky it was a piece of Styrofoam.
8/10
Now, what is it about the Russians and our preoccupation for showing their military & industrial facilities as battered rubble strewn wreckage laden wastelands of death? Russian nuclear technologies also always fail, and the episode pretends to climax with a "Red wire or blue wire?" puzzler as Steve tries to keep the reactor from self-destructing, since all things made by the Soviets are naturally hot wired to blow themselves up. Wherever this episode was filmed was well suited to the claustrophobic, underground story, and it really does look as though Steve & Mr. Collins really are scrabbling around in a vast, ruined, underground complex ... though it is odd that the only person living or dead whom they encounter is Collins' fiancée. Maybe the quake happened on a Sunday when everybody else slept in. And in the end Steve saves the day not by some bionic feat, but simply by pulling a plug and shorting out the grounding wire. Can't beat that simple American ingenuity.
This was also the episode that introduced the Steve's Dead Buddy plot device where anyone who knows the Bionic Man (or simply shares his profession) comes to a foul end before the conclusion, leading Steve to stand there introspectively and wonder what the point of it all is. This was also the episode that introduced the Bionic Secret plot device, whereby pretty much anyone and everyone connected with the story is taken into confidence and told Steve's Bionic Secret. Which is odd considering that these are Russian SOLDIERS at the height of the cold war: To opine that Steve Austin was a walking security risk is cutting him some slack. I also like the emphasis placed upon governmental "credentials" in this drama, as if one of the protocols of the Cold War was that we could not chopper elite special operatives into Ruskie installations without some form of ID.
On the other hand, this is a pretty downbeat & grim little effort for a show about a bionic man, with a great melancholy ending and a sort of STAR TREK inspired notion of the Russians and Americans joining forces for a change to explore space together instead of just plotting to wipe each other off the globe. There is also a perhaps inadvertent homage to Martin Cadin's source novel, "Cyborg", when Steve gets bonked on the noodle by a chunk of falling debris. In the book his shattered skull is reinforced with a kind of Teflon steel that can withstand the blow of a hammer while protecting his brain. Either the production crew knew of that and slipped in a sly nod to the original work, or Lee Majors was just lucky it was a piece of Styrofoam.
8/10
