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It’s always sad when an older show goes to become a pop-culture touchstone for countless shows that followed (like the spin-off The Bionic Woman or even children’s cartoon Inspector Gadget), yet doesn’t have the quality to endure the aging process and stand up to future scrutiny. The Six Million Dollar Man has the iconic “We can rebuild him line” and that signature sound accompaniment for when leaping an incredible distance, but the storylines never really fleshed out to be too deep or intricately plotted. Expectations for action/spy adventure serials had to meet a lower bar. In defense of the series, it easily exceeds the expectations for a series of its time, but in comparison to some of the better secret agent and action shows of today and the last 20 years it just can’t compete without a healthy dose of nostalgia to carry you through.
A rough crash in a spacecraft sees astronaut Steve Austin (Lee Majors) rebuilt using mechanical parts (for an arm, both legs, and eyes) in a process the government audited to cost about, you guessed it, six million dollars. His new body comes replete with all manner of useful abilities like super speed, strength and vision, and typically any perilous situation he might get into can be solved by some application of one of these abilities (though occasionally they’ll make the solution the use of his God-given smarts, so as to make him more valid as a character). It’s like MacGuyver, but instead of rigging up a solution based on luckily placed arbitrary items he has around him, he just pulls hits, runs, or sees as needed. It’s like that old expression that when the only tool you have is a hammer, all your problems begin to look like nails. The writers took this to heart and took special care to create obstacles that could be solved by one of his three enhancements.
The set includes the three made-for-TV movies that act as a prologue for the series (including the explanation of how Steve Austin became the Six Million Dollar Man) preserved in their original broadcast format. Most episodes are a new mission courtesy of his position as an agent for the made-up organization, Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI). The first season sees all manner of craziness embedded in a spy skeleton including lasers, trips to space, nuclear meltdowns, father-son reconciliations, and robot impostors. The second season includes stories with endangered species, the return of villainous Dr. Dolenz, lots of plane crashes (and conspiracies surrounding them), earthquakes, ESP, and the introduction and “death” of the Bionic Woman (Lindsay Wagner). Moving on to season three and you find the return of the Bionic Woman, the return of the Seven Million Dollar Man, lumberjacks, (sigh) more ESP, and a plea for the Big Brother program. Season four has more aliens and a robotic Bigfoot (in one episode, for the win), killer space probes, amateur boxing, and clear inspirations for 28 Days Later and Chuck. The fifth and final season has sharks trained to kill (which are awesome), the return of robotic bigfoot, a trip to the moon, time travel, more murderous space probes, and, what may be the weirdest two-part episode to nearly close out a television series ever, a tale about a dating service computer turned evil. To truly finish out your Steve Austin experience, you should then watch the three follow-up reunion TV movies (which weren’t made until almost a decade later), “The Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman”, “Bionic Showdown”, and “Bionic Ever After”, wherein Steve’s son follows in his father’s bionic footsteps, and then the final two see Jaime and Steve get engaged in the midst of being framed and Jaime’s systemic failure.
If you just read through all those random stories that occurred in the various seasons, you realize just how crazy the show was and its eerie obsession with plane crashes. Watching all of these back to back, you realize the series begins to feel extremely repetitive because you can only divine so many stories from kidnappings, stolen weapons, faked deaths, and such before you start treading down really crazy and out of place ideas like aliens and ESP (though ESP was introduced as part of The Six Million Dollar Man’s reality in the very first season). You can’t help but laugh most times at the caper of the week, but usually you get a solid 42 minutes of zany secret agent fun.
DVD Bonus Features
The one extra that can be found on each disc is a retrospective of all the celebrity guest stars that appeared in that respective season. Also, seasons 2, 3 and 4 have audio commentaries for their episodes. Beyond that, the featurettes of each season are unique in theme.
Season 1: Here’s where you’ll find the original made-for-TV movies as well as two featurettes (on the science that inspired the show and the iconic opening sequence), a retrospective on the season’s guest stars, a retrospective piece with one of the producers, and an interactive look at each of Steve Austin’s bionic body parts.
Season 2: Less to be found on this season’s set with a featurette on the sound effects that came to define the show, the only extra beyond commentaries and the guest star retro.
Season 3: Two unique extras can be found on this season set including a featurette on the robotic bigfoot episode of this season and a retrospective look back on the missions of the season with writer and producer Kenneth Johnson.
Season 4: Here we have a featurettes dedicated to the fans of the show, and another series of “mission debriefings (the look at the season’s missions), this time with Richard Anderson, who played Oscar Goldman who uttered the famous opening lines and who oversaw most of Steve’s operations in the show.
Season 5: This featurettes highlights the series’ best choreographed fights and the few recurring villains that made the show what it is, along with more mission debriefings, this time with Martin E. Brooks who played Dr. Rudy Wells, the show’s equivalent of James Bond’s Q.
The Bonus Discs: The first three of the 5 bonus discs include the three Reunion Movies as well as the syndication versions of the original three movies, the original broadcast versions of which appear in the season 1 set. The final two bonus discs include the featurettes (on the fourth disc:) “TV Goes Bionic: The Origins of The Six Million Dollar Man”, “The Bionic Age of TV: The Success of The Six Million Dollar Man”, “Top Secret: OSI, NASA and Bionics”, “The Reunion Movies: Life After the Series” (on the fifth disc:) “The Pop Culture Effect”, “Bionic Action…Figures!!!”, and “The Stunts of the Bionic Age”, then moves on to an extensive collection of profile pieces (all on the fourth disc) on Lee Majors & Steve Austin, Lindsay Wagner & Jaime Sommers, Richard Anderson & Oscar Goldman, and then Dr. Rudy Wells. The set concludes with the mission debriefing segments featuring Lee Majors.
For all its extreme silliness, this is one of those rare, genuinely complete collections of a television show and it comes in a cool box with a holographic image and a light-sensor activated speaker that plays the “We can rebuild him…” line when opened. It’s a great set for those who have the show preserved as part of their younger years, but it may be a bit too campy for viewers raised from 1990 onward.
"The Six Million Dollar Man: The Complete Collection" is on sale November 23, 2010 and is not rated. Action, Adventure, Drama, Sci-Fi. Directed by Cliff Bole, Phil Bondelli, Richard Moder. Written by Martin Caidin (novel), Elroy Schwartz, Del Reisman, Kenneth Johnson, Gregory S. Dinallo, Steven E. de Souza, Michael Sloan. Starring Lindsay Wagner, Martin E Brooks, Richard Anderson.
