Bionic Nostalgia - The Legacy

Fairly quickly after the television debut of "The Six Million Dollar Man" the word 'bionic' entered the lexicon permanently, going from a science fiction term to a science fact in recent years.  While no one has been granted super-strength, speed, or senses from their bionics (that we know of), cybernetic replacement of limbs, as well as things like cochlear implants are almost everyday things. 

As we've seen, the television universe was too big to have just one bionic man.  Soon Steve Austin was joined by the Seven Million Dollar Man, the Bionic Woman, and Maximilian the Bionic Dog.  In 1976, during Lee Majors' bad mustache phase, Vincent Van Patten became the Bionic Boy in a backdoor pilot that failed to go to series.  Both series, "The Six Million Dollar Man" and "The Bionic Woman," left the air in 1978, but would return in just under a decade. 

Three TV movies would follow starting in 1987.  The first, simply and awkwardly called The Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman, was similar to the Bionic Boy in two ways - it was a failed pilot and involved a young man getting bionics, in this case, Austin's illegitimate son. The last two, coming in 1989 and 1994, were Bionic Showdown and Bionic Ever After?. 

The legacy of Martin Caidin's Cyborg novel, and the "Six Million Dollar Man" television series that was based on it continues to today. There are novels, comic books, jigsaw puzzles, the "Bionic Six" animated series (among dozens that feature bionics within them), a new, if short-lived, "Bionic Woman" show, and of course the always-threatened-but-never-announced theatrical film. Bionics remains a part of our lives and pop culture decades later.

Check out the rest of my posts in this series here.

Bionic Nostalgia - Bigfoot

Much like the Bionic Woman episodes of "The Six Million Dollar Man," I don't think I had seen "The Secret of Bigfoot" since it originally aired back in 1976.  This two-part episode, at the height of Steve Austin's bionic popularity, hit on so many power spikes of pop culture at the time, making it classic 1970s television. 

For all of you fans of "Ancient Aliens" or the real Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell who don't know, that whole cycle of strange phenomena began back in the 1970s.  From Erich Von Daniken's Chariots of the Gods? to the movie documentary The Mysterious Monsters, it was all hot at that time.  The commercial for the latter, which featured a Bigfoot's arm crashing through a window to grab its victim was pulled from television by parents' groups for scaring young children. 



That one struck a chord close to home for me, living so close to the Pine Barrens.  We didn't believe in the Jersey Devil, but we also weren't stupid enough to go in the woods at night, or sit on the couch with a window behind it.  Bigfoot was hot, aliens were hot, and so were earthquakes after the big disaster film.  A pop culture fuse had been lit and the folks behind "The Six Million Dollar Man" were going to get on board. 

"The Secret of Bigfoot" two-parter had it all - two geologists investigating the San Andreas fault, an ancient alien base, and Bigfoot, played by Andre the Giant himself.  It could only get better as Steve went to save the couple, and came face to face with Bigfoot, or as the badly stereotyped Native Americans called it, Sasquatch.  Only the stereotypes that date these episodes mar it.  Watching it again on Esquire recently, I found my childhood again. 

We were a little under a year away from the wave of jiggle shows of which Lee Majors' wife Farrah Fawcett was a big part of, and I hadn't discovered girls yet, so watching Steve Austin trade blows with the Sasquatch was a dream come true.  There is a good and lengthy fight with voiceover narrative by the aliens watching, until Steve pulls off Bigfoot's arm. 

The aliens have been there in the mountain for generations, guarded by the robotic Sasquatch.  Filmed in weird soft focus, they dress in leisure jumpsuits and a young Stephanie Powers is very interested in what makes Steve tick.  Bigfoot, while having some very cool facial make-up has an even worse wardrobe problem as he looks as if he's wearing pilly wool dreadlocked brown pajamas.  Sasquatch makes friends with Steve, maybe just to get fashion tips.  Throw in a massive Cailfornian earthquake and a nuclear bomb, and you've got a nail-biter.

In the original two-parter we get a few cameos of Jaime Sommers, a reminder of how closely linked the two series were.  As with anything so popular in pop culture, the Sasquatch kept coming back, but not always played by Andre the Giant. Ted Cassidy filled in a few times, and not as satisfactorily in my expert opinion.

The last time we see the creature, it's in the season five episode titled appropriately and simply enough, "Bigfoot V."  There's been a Bigfoot sighting and everyone is after him - anthropologists, hunters, opportunists, Rudy Wells, and Steve Austin and the OSI.  Other than some silly talk about the difference between space Bigfoots and Earth Bigfoots, this is pretty pedestrian stuff for the show, which had become mostly for the kids by this time. 

Of course, the show had such an effect on our culture that when many people think of Bigfoot, they see in their minds Andre the Giant rather than the ape-like beast from the famous Patterson-Gimlin film, and that's saying something.

Bionic Nostalgia - The Bionic Woman

Esquire (formerly G4TV, which I wish they'd bring back) has been showing old reruns of "The Six Million Dollar Man," a show I loved as a kid, along with most of my generation probably. Recently I got a chance to see the two two-part episodes "The Bionic Woman" and "The Return of the Bionic Woman," the precursors and eventual backdoor pilot to the spin-off series with Lindsey Wagner - "The Bionic Woman." I don't think I've seen these since they aired in 1975.

Toward the end of the second season of "The Six Million Dollar Man," as it was enjoying amazing popularity, the showrunners decided to do something different, and not only give some much needed background on astronaut Steve Austin, but also introduce a new character that eventually would prove more popular than the bionic man himself, Jamie Sommers. We got to visit Steve's hometown and meet his parents as he was getting tired of the spy game and needed a break. While there, the other famous citizen of Ojai was also in town, tennis pro Jaime Sommers, played by Lindsay Wagner.

The two had enjoyed a relationship in their younger years, which they rekindled rather quickly within the space of one one-hour episode. So hot was this rekindling that Steve popped the question and the two were engaged. Then, when Jaime was nearly killed in a skydiving accident, Steve, who knows that bionics can save her, begs Oscar Goldman and Rudy Wells to do what they do so well. Soon, Jaime recovers with a bionic arm, two bionic legs, and a bionic ear - price tag classified.

Tragedy strikes when Jaime's body begins to reject the bionics, and she dies. This eleven year old remembers shedding a tear then. It was one of the saddest moments of the series so far, and for kids all over America when the bionic woman died. And to cap it off, the second episode even ended with Lee Majors singing the mournful "Sweet Jaime" song. The showrunners had created a monster, one that would not die - ratings were through the roof.

When "The Six Million Dollar Man" came back for its third season, it was with a much-anticipated two-parter called "The Return of the Bionic Woman." Jaime wasn't dead, but did die on the table the year before, but was saved by an 'experimental biochemical cryosurgery.' Neither Oscar nor Rudy told Steve until he came across her himself, but sadly she had no memory of what went before, no memory of a relationship with Steve. Talk about heartbreaking. Remembering her life before causes Jaime pain, so Steve stays away, letting her move on, so she won't be in pain. Wow.

From there, "The Bionic Woman" television series spins off on its own, running two seasons on ABC and a third on NBC, becoming a unique item in TV history - one of two shows on two different networks to share the same cast as Oscar and Rudy appeared on both. Often on "The Six Million Dollar Man," Oscar was shown as Steve's buddy, but at this point, even as a child I realized he really wasn't. This was a business arrangement. Oscar was Steve and Jaime's boss, but he was friend to neither. Friends don't keep secrets like that.

Jaime abandoned the tennis pro career and settled in Ojai as a teacher. One of her kids was even Oliver from "The Brady Bunch!" From this home base she went on missions for the OSI. She would fight the Fembots, female robots from the mad scientist who sicced John Saxon on Steve Austin in his first season. And at NBC, she would gain a canine comrade in Max the Bionic Dog. One of her most dangerous missions was against a sentient doomsday machine whose inspiration was obviously Hal from 2001 A Space Odyssey.

Occasionally Steve and Jaime would cross paths with comic book-like crossover events, where part one would be on one show and part two on the other - making syndication very difficult. One such occasion dealt with the return of Bigfoot and another when Oscar had been kidnapped. Although both series were canceled in 1978, "The Bionic Woman" had proved more popular than the series she spun off from.

Three reunion movies aired years after the shows ended, as always with series in mind, but nothing ever came of it. A few years back in 2007 Kenneth Johnson tried to reboot "The Bionic Woman" for NBC with a grittier, darker version. It lasted eight episodes. More to come.

Bionic Nostalgia - The Six Million Dollar Man

Esquire TV (formerly the much missed G4 channel) has been showing old reruns of "The Six Million Dollar Man" and "The Bionic Woman," shows that while I haven't seen since the 1970s, were huge parts of my childhood, like Evel Knievel, Planet of the Apes, or SSP Racers.

Begun as three made for TV movies of the week, "The Six Million Dollar Man" was very loosely based on the book Cyborg by Martin Caidin. The book and its three sequels were much more serious, adult, and more science fiction-oriented. Much had been changed, but when I read the book sometime in the mid-seventies as a pre-teen I still enjoyed it. The telemovies were wildly successful leading almost immediately into the TV series, which ran for five years, with one spin-off, "The Bionic Woman," and at least three other attempted spin-offs. There were toys, lunchboxes, and all the other paraphernalia one might expect a phenomenon.

The premise was pretty simple. Lee Majors played Colonel Steve Austin, an astronaut and test pilot who was involved in a body crushing accident that left him without the use of an eye, an arm and both legs. Secret government organization OSI offered to rebuild him, "make him better than he was before," with bionics. Now, it's real and is something that happens (although sans super strength and telescopic vision), but then this kind of technology was pure science fiction. In exchange for saving his life, Steve agrees to go on missions for the ominous Office of Scientific Intelligence. It was average spy fare for the most part, and invariably you waited through the boring stuff to see Austin kick some butt at the end, just like "Kung Fu."

Looking back, I remember Kenneth Johnson's ("Incredible Hulk," "V," "Alien Nation") name on the series, but I had forgotten that Glen A. Larsen ("Battlestar Galactica") and Harve Bennett (responsible for the best of the "Star Trek" films Wrath of Khan) were involved as well. The show had a very small cast, usually only Majors, Richard Anderson as Oscar Goldman, sometimes Dr. Rudy Wells (played by various actors), and dozens of nameless bad guys who Austin would throw around during fight scenes. Yep, keep it simple.

In hindsight, it is only just okay television, with only the big event episodes standing out. When Steve faced the Robot, played by John Saxon, made by the scientist who would later create the Fembots who pestered the Bionic Woman, was one big event. Or when it was discovered there was another bionic man, a Seven Million Dollar Man, who turned out to be not just a jerk, but later a criminal. Or, at the height of 1970s Bigfoot and Alien fever, the appearance of Sasquatch, played by wrestler Andre the Giant, and later Ted Cassidy. There was even a renegade Venus Probe that fought our hero more than once.

The Robot (weirdly called Maskatron), Sasquatch, and the Venus Probe from above all got action figures in the playsets, it should be noted. Both the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman had action figures from Kenner. There also had the Fembots, Oscar Goldman, vehicles, and lots of mission or fashion outfits. Like Evel Knievel, these were toys that kids of a certain age had to have. I never did though. Evel was my jam.

The episodes I've seen on Esquire are, as I said, only ordinary, but full of nostalgia. I remember "The Six Million Dollar Man" fondly though, despite the season Majors sported a bad mustache. It was the first thing I watched on my first TV, a tiny black and white set, and watching the show that Sunday night was just the best. Simple things are good. More to come.

Apollo 18

Apollo 18 ~ Much like my earlier review of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, this movie pulls at my nostalgic heartstrings. NASA, the Apollo program, the moon landings, Skylab, Tang, all that stuff is a part of my childhood, and monumental to the 1970s. It's worth noting that even Steve Austin was an astronaut, that's how tied together this all is. And a movie about a mysterious Apollo 18 mission fits right in with my recent flights of nostalgia.

From the opening moments of Apollo 18 where it portends to be a found footage film, my heart sank. This type of filmmaking rarely works, and if it does, it usually falls apart at the end. Blair Witch and Chronicle are the rare exceptions to the rule. I hoped this would be as well. Just don't think about how it is you're watching this film. It's apparently edited together after the fact, takes advantage of the poor video quality of the missions, and also spotlights bits of film the viewer is supposed to pay attention to. For me, that kind of ruins it. Don't oversell, and don't underestimate your audience.

We see lots of the cast, but sadly the film doesn't give us enough of the astronauts for us to care about them. This probably remains the biggest fault of the film. That said, once into the premise and watching the movie, you can't take your eyes off it. So settle in, dim the lights, and add some vodka to your Tang, you're in for an intriguing and startling ride. Not what I expected at all. Relax and enjoy.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Rise of the Planet of the Apes ~ As a kid growing up in the 1970s, Planet of the Apes was very important to me, and probably to most kids of my generation. I remember asking to stay up to watch the movies on CBS, and their creaky continuity. I remember the lame TV show. I remember the girl across the street who got the Mego PotA treehouse for a gift. It's instilled in my childhood, like the "Brady Bunch," Marathon bars, and the "Six Million Dollar Man," PotA was the 1970s.

All that said, you can imagine my disappointment with the Tim Burton remake, and especially that effed up ending swiped from a bad Kevin Smith comic book. When I heard they were making a prequel to it, my heart sank. A prequel to a bad movie is never a good idea, and besides, let's get real, the original prequels to PotA weren't that great either.

In truth, prequels rarely work, especially when we already know the story. Viewers might just give a pass to a prequel because it's not going to tell them anything they didn't already know. I already know the origins of Batman, Superman, and Spider-Man, you don't need to tell me again. In most cases they aren't even needed, and sometimes even hurt the property. Case in point - Star Wars.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes surprised me though. It hooked me first with an intriguing trailer before throwing the title at me. I wanted to see it before I even knew it was PotA. Finally, I've got hold of it on DVD. Let's see if my instincts were right.

From the start, there are homages , both verbal and visual, to the original series of movies. Much like the preview, the movie itself grabbed me right away. James Franco, in less than annoying mode, is a geneticist searching for a cure to Alzheimer's, testing on apes, and inadvertently succeeds with a chimp named Caesar that he raises himself. John Lithgow gives a wonderful performance as Franco's afflicted father as well. Andy Serkis does his usual as does Tom (Draco Malfoy) Felton, so much for typecasting.

If you know the mythos, you can connect the dots, but there is still a strong emotional story here, not just a this-is-how-we-got-here vibe. The CGI effects make for the needed realism of the tale. While the ape masks and make-up of the original PotA were state of the art for the time, sadly now, they are just, well, ape masks and make-up. These apes look real and emote real, it's very stunning. In fact it's a tribute to the power of CGI done well that the scenes of Caesar and other apes are so hypnotic.

I really dug this flick. When all hell really breaks loose, and the apes begin their 'rise,' I was ten years old again. Yeah, it's that good.

The Evils of Evel Knievel

As I turn forty-five today I’m thinking of a birthday exactly thirty-five years earlier, when all I wanted in the whole wide world was the Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle Set. I even remember that tongue-twister name to this day, probably from saying it so much in the weeks before my tenth birthday.

I think it was one of the few times as a kid that I was obsessed with a toy that much. Evel Knievel in the 1970s was a larger than life figure. I remember watching his jumps on ABC’s "Wide World of Sports," and even listening to my AM transistor radio that Sunday afternoon for news of how his Snake River Canyon jump went. He was like a superhero, even dressed like one, but he was real. Maybe that’s where it came from.

The toy itself was pretty simple, a motorcycle, an action figure of Evel himself, and the 'gyro-rev-booster' that made the cycle go. It was magic in a box. The problem was, it was a 'doll.' And my father was dead set against me having 'dolls.' It was a dead stop point.

I had no dolls. Hell, I had no action figures, even though that term to my father meant doll, no matter what you called it. This was something that separated me from my friends. I couldn’t play equally with the other boys with their G.I. Joes, their Six Million Dollar Men, or ~ drool ~ their Mego Super-Heroes. It didn’t even matter that my cousin, who I was always being negatively compared to, had all those toys.

My father eventually gave in, and my tenth birthday was filled with an afternoon of enjoyment racing that stunt cycle up and down my front porch and making him jump the ramps from my SSP Demolition Derby Set. I was in heaven! My sister and her husband got me Evel’s Scramble Van that birthday, but as much as I loved them, it just wasn’t me. The van and its camping accessories were just a bit too much Barbie Dream House for me. So I guess my father really didn't have that much to worry about.

Eventually the magic wore off. The handlebars of the stunt cycle broke off, and Evel’s hands broke off as well. Still, that was one of the best birthdays I ever had.

The Other Side of the New Bionic Woman

I promised more on the new Bionic Woman, or more specifically on the crap going on behind the scenes. Here we go.

It's not just a matter of a show that worked before but the new innovators choosing to ignore what made the original successful. Not that that helps. No matter how you slice it, the original series was very successful, some say better than "The Six Million Dollar Man" from which it spun off from. Not only did it outlast it but in my opinion had more memorable episodes. Remember the fembots? How about the Alex 7000? The show even won an Emmy, where her male counterpart never did. And of course it never had the controversy this new version has had.

Let's start easy. There have been at least three pilots. One is good. Two is not bad, if the network has decided that changes in cast or plot should be made. But three? That's a bit odd, especially considering rumor stated that this series which was developed for the SciFi Channel was so good it should be kicked upstairs to NBC. If it was sooo good, why change it?

Now let's get deeper. The character of the Bionic Woman is iconic, especially in the gay community. It would seem, that along with fans of the original series this makes for a large starting fanbase, something needed if the series is indeed as different as it is. Why then, would you try to alienate that community?

Enter Isiah Washington:

http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=621886

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/07/AR2007090700719.html

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2007/09/will_the_gays_love_bionic_woma.html

And that's just the tip of that iceberg. Suffice it to say that all of these elements plus what I consider to be a crappy pilot that I saw add up to a big zero for this one. I might be proved wrong, but I won't be watching.