Wednesday 7 March 2012

Introducing The Six Million Dollar Diary!

If there's one American series that defines growing up in the 1970s for me, then that series is surely The Six Million Dollar Man. Lee Majors was the ultimate action hero - and my Steve Austin 'bionic man' action figure (complete with rubber forearm skin, which could be rolled up to reveal its distinctly paper and perspex 'bionic' workings!) was my most prized possession (until the rubber went mouldy and started to smell funny). Many happy playground school hours would be spent striking slow-motion bionic poses ... for Steve Austin was surely the coolest man on the telly (or at least he was until Majors grew that bloody awful moustache in the final season). Given this fact, it's with great excitement that I can reveal the UK release of all five seasons of the series on DVD in one massive complete set! The full press release is below, but rest assured - this site's coverage of this momentous occasion will not be stopping there: over the coming weeks I will be partaking of a task that surely would have challenged the endurance of Steve Austin himself and watching all five series back-to-back while blogging about each one in my Six Million Dollar Diary. The set itself will also be reviewed for Horrorview closer to its release date (April 16th). For now, enjoy the details below of what promises to be a major encounter with childhood nostalgia. 


WE CAN REBUILD HIM… WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY… THE WORLDWIDE DEFINITIVE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN DVD COLLECTION.

For anyone growing up in the 1970s there were several TV series that could be described as “essential viewing”, but none were more deserving of that accolade than The Six Million Dollar Man, the TV series that mixed Bond-ian espionage action with sci-fi adventure and, along the way, became a pop culture institution. Now, The Six Million Dollar Man: The Complete Collection is coming to DVD as a 40-disc set (five of which are dedicated to extras and bonus features), featuring every episode from each of the show’s five seasons, plus the three original TV movies that started it all, along with the three further TV movies that followed in the late 1980s and early 90s. Additionally, this edition includes extensive stills galleries and episode guide booklets exclusive to the UK release, making this the world’s most definitive Six Million Dollar Man DVD collection.
Based on the novel “Cyborg” by Martin Caidin, and pre-dating the similarly cyborg-themed “The Terminator” and “Robocop” franchises by over a decade, The Six Million Dollar Man was one of the most popular and successful TV series of its era, propelling Lee Majors (already relatively well-known as a series regular in the Western series “The Big Valley” and “The Virginian”) into the realms of superstardom, becoming a merchandisers' dream and spawning an equally successful spin-off series in “The Bionic Woman”.
Majors stars as Colonel Steve Austin, a former astronaut who is seriously injured when the jet he is flying crashes. A man barely alive, Austin is “rebuilt” with bionic parts replacing his right arm, both legs and his left eye, enhancing his strength, speed and vision far beyond normal human capabilities. Following his recovery, he goes to work for the covert Office of Scientific Intelligence as a secret agent, where his regular missions involve not only bringing international criminals to justice but also investigating downed UFOs and taking on killer female androids and even the mythical creature, Bigfoot!
Co-starring Richard Anderson (The Fugitive; Perry Mason) as Austin’s supervisor Oscar Goldman and Martin E. Brooks (Dallas; McMillan & Wife) as scientist Dr. Rudy Wells, the series also features a host of guest stars including Lindsay Wagner, Farrah Fawcett-Majors, Kim Basinger, Martine Beswick, Sonny Bono, Louis Gossett, Jr., Erik Estrada, Stefanie Powers, John Saxon, William Shatner, George Takei, George Foreman, Donna Mills and Andre the Giant, amongst many others.


The 40-disc The Six Million Dollar Man: The Complete Collection (cert. PG) will be released on DVD (£199.99) by Fabulous Films on 16th April 2012.
Special Features include: 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; UK exclusive stills galleries; UK exclusive episode guide booklets.

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