The set includes all 22 episodes of the Fourth Season, along with three crossover episodes of The Bionic Woman. Episodes include: "The Return of Bigfoot," "Kill Oscar," "Death Probe," and "The Bionic Boy." Guest stars include Lindsay Wagner, John Saxon (Planet Earth), Stefanie Powers, Ted Cassidy (as Bigfoot!), Sandy Duncan, Farrah Fawcett (Logan's Run), Elke Sommer, John Houseman, Jennifer Darling, Carol Jones, Dick Van Patten, Joan Van Ark, Bernie Kopell, Robert Loggia, Ray Walston, Kim Basinger, Pamela Hensley (Buck Rogers), John de Lancie, Nehemiah Persoff, John Hoyt, Heather Menzies (Logan's Run TV), and Yvonne Craig, among others.
As noted above, this penultimate season not only featured the return of the alien Bionic Bigfoot (with Ted Cassidy replacing Andre the Giant in the role) but the inexplicably popular Venus Probe - a Soviet robot tank that accidentally lands on U.S. soil and goes on a rampage of destruction. Considering that the "Death Probe" was nothing but a malfunctioning machine with no personality, it's weird how excited I - and a couple million other kids - were by the damned thing. The "Death Probe" episodes were so highly-rated that the producers even had to bring it back for a rematch with Steve Austin in Season 5!
You can pre-order Season 4 now from Amazon: The Six Million Dollar Man: Season 4
I wasn't a regular viewer of the show, in part because I couldn't get past the way they slowed down Steve Austin to depict him moving at super-speed.
ReplyDeleteBut I deliberately tuned in for both parts of "Death Probe." Slow-motion bionic men? Bleah. Killer tank from Venus? Oh, yeah.
On the fence on whether I'll get this one. To me, the series really peaked in the third season. While the last two years had some good episodes, it was obvious the show was running out of gas.
ReplyDeleteAnd that mustache... egad.
The Death Probe was probably my favorite episode of the series as a kid. Why was it so exciting? It was an unstoppable force of planet exploring technology like something out of Star Trek. I also thought the Doomsday Machine episode of that series was the greatest thing since sliced bread.
ReplyDeleteIt must be the same instinct that makes dinosaurs so popular with little kids. Big and powerful equal cool is the basic equation.
In addition to the 3 Bionic Woman crossover episodes ("The Return of Bigfoot Part II," "Kill Oscar," "Kill Oscar Part 3"), this set also presents "The Bionic Boy" and "The Thunderbird Connection" in their original 2-hour format. And "Vulture of the Andes" contains an audio commentary by director Cliff Bole.
ReplyDeleteAs anticipated, this is an eight (8) disc set; it will NOT contain the 9th disc of bonus features included in the Time-Life release. The missing 9th disc contained:
• The Six Million Dollar Fans (14 minutes)
• Season 4 VIPs: A Celebration of Six Million Dollar Man Guest Stars (17 minutes)
• OSI Mission Briefing: Richard Anderson (53 minutes)
Ahhhh, the beloved cheesy mustache.., added to most major television stars to signify 'shark jumping' status.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, BJ on MASH, Hutch on S&H, Richie Cunningham on Happy Days (when he returned to visit...) Steve Austin here.., not sure how many more to count, but it became the '70s symbol of 'Let's now look more distinquished and (exception being MASH) this may be one of our last years..'.
I'm pretty sure that's called a molester-mustache now. Ha ha. Yeah, I remember this season and have fond memories of the episodes mentioned.
ReplyDeleteCol. Steve Austin, astronaut. A man barely alive.
DeleteI recently caught up with the series and saw that first Death Probe adventure. It held up well, and the big finale stunt sequence with Lee Majors on the helicopter was impressive.
ReplyDeleteJust my opinion, but I think "Kill Oscar" was the absolute highlight of both SMDM and BW. They are the episodes I would recommend to someone unfamiliar with the two shows who wanted to check them out. You've got solo Jaime, solo Steve, Jaime/Steve team-up, lots of Oscar (real and robot), Dr. Franklin (Bond-type mad scientist villain), good use of the supporting cast (Callahan, Linda & Rudy), tropical island location and of course, the absolute best villains in the entire series... the Fembots!!! Neither series ever got better than that!
ReplyDelete