Steve Austin was a man barely alive. If you grew up in the seventies, that phrase probably just triggered a very specific sound effect in your head—that metallic, grinding ch-ch-ch-ch noise that accompanied every slow-motion run. It’s funny how a show built on the "future" of 1974 feels so inextricably linked to the wood-paneled aesthetic of its era, yet The Six Million Dollar Man remains the definitive blueprint for every cinematic universe we obsess over today.
Most people remember Lee Majors in a red tracksuit. They remember the bionic eye and the super-strength. But if you actually sit down and watch the original pilot movies, you realize it wasn't supposed to be a superhero romp. It was a cold-war spy thriller with a heavy dose of body horror. Steve Austin wasn't a caped crusader; he was a broken astronaut who was literally rebuilt by the government without his consent. That's heavy stuff for a Sunday night.
The Science of Bionics: More Than Just Cool Gadgets
The show was based on the 1972 novel Cyborg by Martin Caidin. Caidin was obsessed with aeronautics and real-world engineering. He didn't just want a guy who could jump high; he wanted to explore what happens when you marry flesh with titanium. In the show, Oscar Goldman (played by the legendary Richard Anderson) famously says they have the technology. They did. Sorta.
Adjusted for inflation, $6 million in 1973 is worth about $43 million today. Honestly? That's a bargain for a nuclear-powered eye, two legs that can hit 60 mph, and an arm that can crush a limousine. But the real "science" of the show was how it handled the psychological trauma of becoming a machine.
💡 You might also like: On the Way Jhene Aiko: The Real Story Behind the Song
Lee Majors played Austin with a certain stoic melancholy. He wasn't cracking jokes like Tony Stark. He was dealing with the fact that he was basically property of the O.S.I. (Office of Strategic Intelligence). It’s this specific dynamic—the soldier who owes his life to the military-industrial complex—that influenced everything from RoboCop to the Winter Soldier in the Marvel movies.
The Bionic Eye and the Zoom Lens
We have to talk about that eye. The 20:1 zoom ratio. The infrared night vision. For a kid in 1975, that was peak technology. Today, your iPhone has better zoom capabilities than Steve Austin’s left eye. But the visual language of that eye—the crosshair overlay, the digital-looking (but actually analog) readout—became the universal shorthand for "robot vision."
Why the Slow Motion Actually Worked
It’s one of the great ironies of television history. To show Steve Austin running at superhuman speeds, they filmed him... running very slowly.
Director of photography Herb Wallerstein and the editing team realized that if they just sped up the film, it looked like a Keystone Cops routine. It was goofy. It lacked weight. By slowing the film down and adding that iconic sound effect, they gave the audience a sense of the immense power behind every stride. It felt "heavy."
It also saved the budget. You didn't need expensive practical effects to show a man outrunning a car if you just used a high-frame-rate camera and a tight lens. This choice created a visual trope that stayed with the franchise (and its spin-off, The Bionic Woman) for its entire run. It’s a classic example of creative problem-solving under the constraints of 1970s network TV budgets.
The Bigfoot Factor and the Weirdness of the Seventies
You can’t talk about The Six Million Dollar Man without talking about Sasquatch.
Look, the show started as a relatively grounded spy drama. Then, by season three, things got weird. We got "The Secret of Bigfoot," featuring Andre the Giant as a bionic Sasquatch created by aliens. It sounds ridiculous. It is ridiculous. But it was also the highest-rated episode of the series.
This was the era of the "Urban Legend" craze. People were genuinely fascinated by the Bermuda Triangle, UFOs, and cryptozoology. By leaning into these themes, the show pivoted from a hard sci-fi premise into a full-blown "weird menace" procedural. It worked because Lee Majors sold it. He took the fight with a giant hairy robot-alien as seriously as he took a mission to stop a nuclear silos from melting down.
The Bionic Woman: A Legacy of Its Own
Lindsay Wagner’s Jaime Sommers was originally meant to die. She was a tragic love interest in a two-part episode. But the audience reaction was so intense—people were genuinely devastated—that the network forced the writers to "un-die" her.
This led to The Bionic Woman, which in many ways was more sophisticated than the original. While Steve was a soldier, Jaime was often portrayed with more empathy and a focus on the ethical implications of her powers. The crossover episodes between the two shows were arguably the first "shared universe" events on television, long before the Arrowverse or the MCU were a glimmer in a producer's eye.
The Cultural Footprint: Merchandising the Man
If you were a kid in the mid-seventies, you wanted the Kenner action figure.
This wasn't just a doll. It had a hole in the back of the head so you could "see" through the bionic eye. It had rubber skin on the arm that you could roll up to reveal bionic modules. It was a masterpiece of toy engineering. The success of the Six Million Dollar Man toy line proved to Hollywood that a hit TV show could be a massive revenue stream through licensing.
George Lucas was paying attention.
Without the success of Steve Austin's action figures, the way Star Wars was marketed might have looked very different. It proved that sci-fi wasn't just a niche genre; it was a lifestyle brand.
The Failed Reboots and the Curse of the $6 Billion Man
For decades, Hollywood has tried to bring Steve Austin back. There was a time in the 90s when Kevin Smith was writing a script. Then there was the infamous comedic version that supposedly had Jim Carrey attached (thankfully, that didn't happen).
Most recently, Mark Wahlberg has been linked to a project titled The Six Billion Dollar Man. The title change reflects inflation, obviously, but the project has been stuck in "development hell" for years, moving from studio to studio.
The problem is that the original show's charm is so specific to the 1970s. It was a world of bulky computers, analog switches, and a very clear-cut sense of Cold War morality. In an age of actual AI and neural links, the idea of a bionic man isn't "science fiction" anymore—it's just a Tuesday at a biotech startup. To make it work today, you'd have to lean into either the nostalgia or the terrifying reality of what it means to be a "corporate-owned human."
Essential Episodes for the Modern Viewer
If you want to understand the hype without sitting through all 100+ episodes, you have to be selective.
- The Moon and the Desert: The original pilot. It's darker than you remember. It focuses heavily on Steve's depression and his refusal to be a "lab rat."
- The Day of the Dolphin: No, not the movie. This episode shows the range of the O.S.I. missions and the bizarre intersection of animal intelligence and bionics.
- The Secret of Bigfoot: It’s a two-part event. It’s Andre the Giant. It’s aliens. It’s peak 70s TV.
- The Seven Million Dollar Man: This introduces Barney Miller (not the cop), a man who was given bionics but couldn't handle the psychological strain. It’s a great "mirror" episode that explores why Steve Austin is special.
Practical Takeaways for Fans and Collectors
If you're looking to dive back into the world of Steve Austin, you've got some surprisingly good options today.
- The Blu-ray Sets: Shout! Factory released a massive collection that looks significantly better than the grainy reruns you remember. The colors pop, and you can actually see the wires in the stunts—which honestly adds to the charm.
- The Comics: Dynamite Entertainment released a series called The Bionic Man based on Kevin Smith’s unproduced screenplay. It’s much more violent and modern, but it respects the source material.
- The Philosophy of the Bionic Man: Read Cyborg by Martin Caidin. It’s a tech-heavy thriller that feels more like a Tom Clancy novel than a superhero comic. It gives you a much deeper appreciation for the character's origins.
The Six Million Dollar Man wasn't just about a guy who was faster and stronger. It was about the anxiety of a world where technology was moving faster than our ability to control it. We're still living in that world. Maybe that's why, when we hear that ch-ch-ch-ch sound, we still stop and look.
To really appreciate the legacy, start by watching the original three television movies rather than jumping straight into the weekly series. They set a much more serious tone that provides the necessary weight for the "superhero" antics that follow. Once you see the "broken" Steve Austin, his transformation into the world's first bionic hero feels earned rather than just a gimmick.