So now with YouTube, we usually have the ability to watch (even more) TV than we otherwise would, because all those crazy people out there with too much time on their hands spend uncounted hours uploading classic (and lame, to be sure) TV shows up there.  I’d sure hate to see YT’s power bill to keep all that crap online 24-7.

Anyway, for whatever reason I was thinking about The Six Million Dollar Man a few days ago and did some searches, specifically for an episode where he meets Bigfoot.  Bigfoot turns out to be a sentry for space aliens who live in a cave in the California mountains and study the human race from this hidden vantage point.  Naturally they want to examine Steve Austin – so Bigfoot (and some weird spinning tunnel) captures him for their nefarious needs.

Who is The Six Million Dollar Man, you say?  Well, he’s Steve Austin, an astronaut who crashed very badly in the California (Nevada?) desert during a test flight and had to be ‘rebuilt’ as a cyborg (new eye, arm and legs) to survive – this is all explained in the show opening sequence.  Naturally Steve then becomes a government agent for an elusive agency (OSI) and has weekly adventures on TV as a result.  Kind of like an early 70s Knight Rider without the computerized Trans Am, KITT, and without the mulletized Hasselhoff in a leather jacket (this being the early 70s, Steve was more a leisure suit kinda guy).

So back to Bigfoot.  The nice thing about YouTube (and DVDs for that matter) is that it lets you zip past boring plot points and/or stupid stuff.  Since T.S.M.D.M. were hour-long shows, and this was a two-parter, it meant not having to watch two whole hours of it – meaning not having to watch Steve Austin’s lame battle against Bigfoot (Bigfoot was played by Andre the Giant – cool!) and, all the footage of SA running around the woods in slow motion (a regular staple of this series to give the impression of great speed) and using his other bionic abilities (eyesight, powerful arm) to the requisite repeated sound effects for each – if you’ve ever watched this show, you know what i’m talking about.

This show was out in the early ’70s, so the special effects are ok, but obviously way dated given their age.  Lee Majors was the breakout star here (he had been in some TV before but this was a major role and god knows they marketed the HELL out of it then – you could buy nearly any action figure, toy, lunchbox, you name it).  What’s also weird is that given the time period – the hairdos and clothing makes everyone look so much older, even given that Lee Majors was only early 30s at best?  Kind of like the original Captain Kirk looking a lot older than his recent movie replacement did?  Or that i’m now older than both so I don’t know what the (blank) I’m talking about? 🙂

Anyway, it was weird watching that show again, probably first time i’ve seen any of the episodes *since* the early 70s, as unlike say, Star Trek – I don’t remember that show really going into syndication?  There were weird miscues in the sound effects – Steve Austin throws a large tree branch at Bigfoot during one of their ‘melee’ scenes – and it makes a sound like an incoming air missile?  Huh?

Also, part of the plot involved some missing scientists who Bigfoot/the aliens ultimately kidnapped – those scientists were researching a big earthquake fault line, which in part two they set off a NUKE to keep it from causing an even bigger natural quake that would have killed thousands along the California coast otherwise.  Really, a nuke?  Funny how everyone is only a mile or two away (likely less) according to the plot, and they show no mushroom cloud, the nukes are only buried a few feet deep?  Come on, people – even a 10 year old knows what a nuclear explosion looks like (and that you have to be a bit farther away from it)?

Finally, there’s a token phone call scene with The Bionic Woman (Jamie Sommers, played by Lindsay Wagner) where she wants to come help find Steve Austin (cooling his bionic butt in the aliens’ cave at the time with Stefanie Powers, who plays one of the aliens) but their boss tells her to just stay at home (like a good bionic girl – it’s not stated but that’s sure what he was telling her).  So the US Govt. spends all this money to build TWO bionic people and then tells one to stay at home and mind her knitting?  Really?  I guess the episode budget was already too high (given Andre the Giant, aliens and ‘special’ effects) to afford more than one scene from Lindsay Wagner – why even bother?

Apparently there is a second two-part Bigfoot episode from the next season also on YT – don’t hold your breath for me to watch it, though.  Eventually i’ll watch the better one from The Bionic Woman where she battles a HAL-like killer computer; or when she takes on the ‘fem-bots’ made by some mad scientist (arguably the second coming of Westworld).  Far more interesting.

Ah, tv……

candybowl

Tags: 70's, fantasy, military, sci-fi, technology, TV

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 20th, 2012 at 10:39 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.