The Six Million Dollar Man on DVD

They have finally re-built him!

Time-Life has just announced that The Six-Million Dollar Man: The Complete Series DVD collection is now available for pre-order. 

I must confess, I've been waiting years for this particular DVD release.  When I was seven or eight, The Six-Million Dollar Man was one of my favorite weekly programs.  I still proudly own (and display in my home office) some of the great Kenner toys from the series. 

So if the name Maskatron doesn't ring any bells for you, you might as well just skip to another post...

The Six-Million Dollar Man ran from 1973-1978 (five seasons), on ABC and followed the adventures of Colonel Steve Austin (Lee Majors), an astronaut who was badly injured in a test flight for a new NASA spacecraft. 

After the crash, Austin underwent emergency surgery to save his life, and received fully functional bionic replacements (two legs and an arm) for his crushed limbs.  Also, he received a bionic eye that allow him to see over vast distances.

Once he became bionic (at a price tag of...well, you know...), Austin became an agent for the OSI (Office of Scientific Investigation), working for Oscar Goldman (Richard Anderson). 

Famously, slow-motion photography was utilized extensively during the series'  ubiquitous action sequences, so when Steve was to run or leap at bionic velocities, he actually ran very, very slowly instead, all to a distinctive "ch-ch-ch-ch-ch" sound-effect that became a trademark of the 1970s pop culture.

The legendary bionic-smackdown episodes of The Six Million Dollar Man-- with Colonel Steve Austin (Lee Majors) battling super-powered nemeses like the alien robot Sasquatch (!), malevolent space probes,  female robots called fembots, and a crazy astronaut played by William Shatner -- are among my earliest, fondest and most nostalgic "media memories." 

I can't say how well the show holds up today; I last watched episodes of The Six Million Dollar Man something like eight years ago on VHS, when I was preparing the first edition of my Encyclopedia of Superheroes on Film and Television.

The only downside (and it is indeed considerable) to this new DVD set: you have to shell out a whopping 240.00 dollars (plus shipping) to own all five seasons of the series.  I don't know that I can responsibly make such a bionic financial leap at this point, especially after ordering Thriller, Space Precinct, and Space: 1999 on blu-ray

But if you decide you're in a place to plunk down the cash, here's some of what you get in addition to the five televised seasons, the Bionic Woman cross-over episodes, and the reunion movies of the 1980s:

The Six Million Dollar Man: The Complete Collection is housed in a 40-DVD Collector’s Box that includes a bionic sound chip and a special 3D lenticular design of Steve Austin. But hurry, this exclusive collection is not available in stores!

•Exclusive new interviews with Lee Majors and Lindsay Wagner


•All three pilot movies of The Six Million Dollar Man


•All three reunion movies of The Six Million Dollar Man


•All crossover episodes of The Bionic Woman


•17 exclusive featurettes


•Audio commentaries and other interactive features


•All five seasons uncut


•Collector's box