The Six Million Dollar Man is an American science fiction and action television series, running on ABC from March 7, 1973, to March 6, 1978, about a former astronaut, USAF Colonel Steve Austin, portrayed by Lee Majors. After being seriously injured in a NASA test flight crash, Austin is rebuilt (at considerable expense, hence the title of the series) with bionic implants that give him superhuman strength, speed and vision. Austin is then employed as a secret agent by a fictional U.S. government office titled OSI. The series was based on Martin Caidin's 1972 novel Cyborg, which was the working title of the series during pre-production.
Following three television films intended as pilots, which all aired in 1973, The Six Million Dollar Man television series aired on ABC as a regular episodic series for five seasons from 1974 to 1978. Steve Austin became a pop culture icon of the 1970s. A spin-off television series, The Bionic Woman, featuring the lead female character Jaime Sommers, ran from 1976 to 1978. During this time, several crossover episodes were produced. Three television movies featuring both bionic characters were also produced from 1987 to 1994.
Plot
Original series When NASA astronaut USAF Colonel Steve Austin is severely injured in the crash of an experimental lifting body aircraft, he is "rebuilt" in an operation that costs $6 million (equivalent to $44 million in 2026). His right arm, both legs and left eye are replaced with "bionic" implants that enhance his strength, speed and vision far above human norms: he can run at speeds of over , and his eye has a 20:1 zoom lens and infrared capabilities, while his bionic limbs all have the equivalent power of a bulldozer. He uses his enhanced abilities to work for the OSI (Office of Scientific Intelligence) as a secret agent.
Television movie reunions Steve Austin and Jaime Sommers returned in three subsequent made-for-television movies: The Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman (1987), Bionic Showdown: The Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman (1989) which featured Sandra Bullock in an early role as a new bionic woman; and Bionic Ever After? (1994) in which Austin and Sommers finally marry. Majors reprised the role of Steve Austin in all three productions, which also featured Richard Anderson and Martin E. Brooks, and Lindsay Wagner reprising the role of Jaime Sommers. The reunion films addressed the partial amnesia Sommers had suffered during the original series, and all three featured Majors's son, Lee Majors II, as OSI agent Jim Castillian. The first two movies were written in the anticipation of creating new bionic characters in their own series, but nothing further was seen of the new characters introduced in those produced. The third TV movie was intended as a finale.
Cast
Steve Austin (played by Lee Majors), the lead character Oscar Goldman (played by Richard Anderson), Director of the OSI Rudy Wells (played by Martin Balsam, 1st pilot episode; Alan Oppenheimer, 2nd and 3rd pilot episodes, seasons 1 & 2 and 1 episode in season 3; Martin E. Brooks, seasons 3–5, as well as on The Bionic Woman and in three movies), Austin's physician and primary overseer of the medical aspects of bionic technology Jaime Sommers (played by Lindsay Wagner—recurring) Peggy Callahan (played by Jennifer Darling—recurring), secretary to Oscar Goldman Oliver Spencer (played by Darren McGavin), director of the OSO in the pilot
Production
Caidin's novel Cyborg was a best-seller when it was published in 1972. He followed it up with three sequels, Operation Nuke, High Crystal, and Cyborg IV, respectively about a black market in nuclear weapons, a Chariots of the Gods? scenario, and fusing Austin's bionic hardware to a spaceplane.
In March 1973, Cyborg was loosely adapted as a made-for-TV movie titled The Six Million Dollar Man starring Majors as Austin. The producers' first choice was Monte Markham. (When re-edited for the later series, it was re-titled "The Moon and the Desert, Parts I and II".) The adaptation was done by writer Howard Rodman, working under the pseudonym of Henri Simoun. The film, which was nominated for a Hugo Award, modified Caidin's plot and notably made Austin a civilian astronaut rather than a colonel in the United States Air Force. Absent were some of the standard features of the later series: the electronic sound effects, the slow-motion running, and the character of Oscar Goldman. Instead, another character named Oliver Spencer, played by Darren McGavin, was Austin's supervisor, of an organization here called the Office of Strategic Operations, or "OSO". (In the novels, "OSO" stood for Office of Special Operations. The CIA did have an Office of Scientific Intelligence in the 1970s.) The lead scientist involved in implanting Austin's bionic hardware, Rudy Wells, was played in the pilot by Martin Balsam, then on an occasional basis in the series by Alan Oppenheimer, and, finally, as a series regular, by Martin E. Brooks. Austin did not use the enhanced capabilities of his bionic eye during the first TV movie.
The first movie was a major ratings success and was followed by two more made-for-TV movies in October and November 1973 as part of ABC's rotating Movie of the Week series. The first was titled The Six Million Dollar Man: "Wine, Women and War", and the second was titled The Six Million Dollar Man: "The Solid Gold Kidnapping". The first of these two bore strong resemblances to Caidin's second Cyborg novel, Operation Nuke; the second, however, was an original story. This was followed in January 1974 by the debut of The Six Million Dollar Man as a weekly hour-long series. The latter two movies, produced by Glen A. Larson, notably introduced a James Bond flavor to the series and reinstated Austin's status from the novels as an Air Force colonel; the hour-long series, produced by Harve Bennett, dispensed with the James Bond–gloss of the movies, and portrayed a more down-to-earth Austin. (Majors said of Austin, "[He] hates...the whole idea of spying. He finds it repugnant, degrading. If he's a James Bond, he's the most reluctant one we've ever had.") Use of deadly force by Austin–frequent in Caidin's novels and employed occasionally in the movies and early episodes—also decreased as the series progressed.
The show was very popular during its run and introduced several pop culture elements of the 1970s, such as the show's opening catchphrase ("We can rebuild him; we have the technology", voiced over by Richard Anderson in his role of Oscar Goldman), the slow motion action sequences, and the accompanying "electronic" sound effects. The slow motion action sequences were originally referred to as "Kung Fu slow motion" in popular culture (due to its use in that 1970s martial arts television series), although according to The Bionic Book by Herbie J. Pilato, the use of slow motion on the series was inspired by its use by NFL Films.
In 1975, a two-part episode titled "The Bionic Woman", written for television by Kenneth Johnson, introduced the lead character Jaime Sommers (played by Lindsay Wagner), a professional tennis player who rekindled an old romance with Austin, only to experience a parachuting accident that resulted in her being given bionic parts similar to Austin. Ultimately, her body "rejected" her bionic hardware and she died. The character was very popular, however, and the following season it was revealed that she had survived, having been saved by an experimental cryogenic procedure, and she was given her own spin-off series, The Bionic Woman. This spin-off ran until 1978 when both it and The Six Million Dollar Man were simultaneously cancelled, though the two series were on different networks when their final seasons aired.
Opening sequence The images of the accident during the opening credits are real, taken from an M2-F2 crash that occurred on May 10, 1967. Test pilot Bruce Peterson's lifting body aircraft hit the ground at approximately and tumbled six times, but Peterson survived what appeared to be a fatal accident, though he later lost an eye to infection. In the episode "The Deadly Replay", Oscar Goldman refers to the lifting body aircraft in which Austin crashed as the HL-10, stating, "We've rebuilt the HL-10." The HL-10 is the aircraft first seen in the original pilot movie before the accident flight. In the 1987 TV film The Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman, Austin refers to the craft as the "M3-F5", which was the name used for the aircraft that crashed in the original Cyborg novel.
In the opening sequence, a narrator (series producer Harve Bennett) identifies the protagonist, "Steve Austin, astronaut. A man barely alive." Richard Anderson, in character as Oscar Goldman, then intones off-camera, "Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world's first bionic man. Steve Austin will be that man. Better than he was before. Better . . . stronger . . . faster." During the first season, beginning with "Population: Zero", Anderson, as Goldman, intoned more simply, "We can rebuild him. We have the technology. We can make him better than he was. Better . . . stronger . . . faster." During the operation, as his bionics are being fitted, a list of items and numbers is displayed and lists his power plant as "atomic".
Theme music The opening and closing credits of the Wine, Women & War and The Solid Gold Kidnapping telefilms used a theme song written by Glen A. Larson, and sung by Dusty Springfield, backed by Ron "Escalade" Piscina. This song was also used in the initial promotion of the series.
However, when the weekly series began, the song was replaced by an instrumental theme by Oliver Nelson. The first regular episode, "Population: Zero", introduced a new element to the opening sequence: a voiceover by Oscar Goldman stating the rationale behind creating a bionic man. The first season narration and opening credits arrangement of Nelson's theme were shorter than that used in the second and subsequent seasons.
Steve Austin's bionics
To maintain the show's plausibility, producer Kenneth Johnson set very specific limits on Steve Austin's abilities. He elaborated, "When you're dealing with the area of fantasy, if you say, 'Well, they're bionic so they can do whatever they want,' then it gets out of hand, so you've got to have really, really tight rules. [Steve and Jaime] can jump up two stories but not three. They can jump down three stories but not four."
Austin's superhuman enhancements are:
A bionic left eye: It has a 20.2:1 zoom lens along with a night vision function (as well as the restoration of normal vision). The figure of 20.2:1 is taken from the faux computer graphics in the opening credits, and the rounded figure "20:1" is mentioned twice in the series, specifically in episodes "Population: Zero" and "Secret of Bigfoot". Austin's bionic eye also has other features, such as an infrared filter used frequently to see in the dark and also to detect heat (as in the episode "The Pioneers"), and the ability to view humanoid beings moving too fast for a normal eye to see (as in the story arc "The Secret of Bigfoot"). One early episode shows the eye as a deadly accurate targeting device for his throwing arm. In Caidin's original novels, Austin's eye was depicted as simply a camera (which had to be physically removed after use) and Austin remained blind in the eye. Later, Austin gained the ability to shoot a laser from the eye. The Charlton Comics comic book spin-off from the series also established that Austin's bionic eye could shoot a laser beam (as demonstrated in the first issues of the color comic), but neither function was shown on television.
Bionic legs: