Telly Thursday

This post was inspired by Aiz and KaZ, who led me down memory lane.
"Gold Leader, standing by."

UPDATE* Peter Sanderson has another article on comics to TV. Get it here.

Okay, so we had one confession yesterday. Here's another one: I am a TV freak. As far back as I can remember, besides books, I always relied on TV for visual stimulation. Interesting, since I never really gave up one for the other (what, give up books?? never!!) and I consider myself to be, erm, balanced. Growing up in the early '80s really gave me a lot of fodder for watching. So I thought, since it was a part of me I look back fondly at, I might as well share it here, since I know there are others out there who remember too (it's okay, I won't tell). For those of you born post-1980, I'll cover your programming in another column. Okay. Here goes.

Programming back then was divided into neat genres. You had the superhuman/paranormal shows, the science fiction/spy dramas, comedies, action blast-fests and also various types of cartoons. Here are some, according to each category, for this week, and there will be more to come (hopefully) in time. Till then, if you think you have a show you'd like me to showcase, drop a comment, or email me here. In the meantime, enjoy!

Superhuman/Paranormal

The Six-Million Dollar Man
Okay. Who remembers the Fall Guy? Yes, this is for all 3 of you. Lee Majors (heartthrob, back then) played Col. Steve Austin, astronaut extraordinaire. A crash in an experimental aircraft leaves him near death, but not before the guvmint takes this opportunity to replace his legs, right arm and left eye with cybernetic implants. As a result, he is recruited into the OSI (Office of Scientific Intelligence) and performs missions to save the free world from dastardly villains. The cost to make him was (yes, you're right, cyborgs were cheap back then) only 6 million dollars, hence the name. One of the earliest series on TV to prominently make use of cybernetics, the show was inspired by the novel Cyborg, written by Martin Caidin (thanks to The Bionic Woman FIles for the info). What started off as a sci-fi movie based on the book quickly evolved into a comic-book serial feel, as the fan base literally exploded across America. The show ran for about 5 years and managed to turn a particular sound (fans will know what I'm talking about) into a household trademark. The show also spawned several made-for TV movies (including one with a young Sandra Bullock).

The Cool:
Steve Austin could run and swim at 60mph, bend steel bars with his right hand and also see faraway objects with his right eye (yeah, I know you kids are thinking Arnie can do that, too! Well, tough luck, kids, these shows ran when Arnie was still Mr Protein Brain).

In the beginning, he is so shocked by the changes in his body (and life) and tries to commit suicide (how's that for character development in the 80s?)

Steve routinely enlists the help of his school sweetheart turned bionic superwoman, The Bionic Woman

The Not-So-Cool
Steve insists on wearing the same track suit for every action scene (okay, this is just me griping)

The episodes started getting sillier and sillier, as viewers demanded more and the writers shelled out half-baked scripts as fast as they could.

The Bionic Woman
Ahh. How easy it was back then. Get into an accident, survive long enough for a super-top secret government agency to rescue you and outfit you with several bionic implants, and voila! Instant hero (or heroine, in this case). First apprearing as a guest in an early Six Million Dollar Man episode, tennis pro Jaime Sommers (Lindsay Wagner, it's okay, ask your parents) was Col. Steve Austin's sweetheart and was about to marry him, when she was involved in a nasty parachute accident. This resulted in similar injuries to our astronaut hero (although instead of an eye, Jaime got a bionic ear) and soon, she was also recruited into the OSI. A major (pun intended) story arc was that due to the accident, she had no recollection of her past with Steve, which proved difficult on our erstwhile hero (for more complete details on Jaime's trials and tribulations, check out this site). However, in the course of the show, she recovered some of her memories, and the duo helped stopped many a wannabe villain from disrupting the peace. As the series wound to a close, she became closer to Steve, and though she resigned from the OSI to become a counsellor, they returned from time to time to stop international crises. She was also featured in all of the Bionic movies, with the final movie, Bionic Ever After seeing them both finally tie the knot.

Awwww.

The Cool:
She could hear footsteps from a mile away, also run at more than 60mph (actually the value was closer to 67) and could jump (fans will remember her bionic jump fondly) to the roof of a 12 story building.
Oh, and she can bend steel, too.

She was one of the first female superheroes to ever grace the small screen with her own show. Cool.

Jaime's show (either intentionally or not) proved to be an interesting study in gender relations back in the 70s. See here.

The Not-So-Cool
The show quickly became rehashes of earlier Six Mill Man episodes, which also got sillier as time went by.

Viewers desperately wanted to see the Bionic Woman and Steve Austin hitched, which probably pushed the writers to sometimes bend too far.

Final Thoughts:
The Bionic Woman and Six Million Dollar Man will always be two shows I can look back fondly on. I remember coming back from kindergarten, breathlessly slamming the door and the gate to plonk myself down with a cool glass of Ribena and watch as Steve or Jaime kick butt on screen. Nobody really died in the series (as most deaths occured off-screen) and all in all, it was good, campy fun for a kid growing up with his nose mostly in books. The movies were a mixed bag, but I kinda agree that they provided closure for the series, and allowed Col Austin and Jaime Sommers to exit gracefully from our cold war era minds. If you're interested in checking out the movies, go here and type "six million dollar man" (without quotes, of course). Thanks for reading, and have a good day, folks!

Next Week: Will it be Battlestar Galactica or Shazam? Tune in, action lovers, for the next exciting episode of....Telly Thursdayyy!