Martin Caidin's 1972 book 'Cyborg' inspired the TV series, 'The Six Million Dollar Man', first went on air between 1973 and 1978. Of his character, Lee Majors maintained, "I want to stay away from anything deep. If it gets too talky you're going to lose the kids … I've heard a lot of comment that it's like 'Batman' but you really believe the guy. He still has feelings."
Richard Anderson as Oscar Goldman, head of the OSI government agency, remarked, "I handle Steve Austin in 'The Six Milion Dollar Man' differently than I do Jaime Sommers in 'The Bionic Woman'. Lee Majors is a right guy both in person and in character. You have to reach him simply and directly. Steve respects force, power, strength and he has to know you mean it. With Lindsay Wagner, you're working with the chemistry between two people. She has a delightful sense of humor so the approach there is much lighter and buoyant."
In 1977 the pilot movie, 'Exo-Man' went on air. Martin Caidin drafted the initial script. Writer and producer Lionel E. Siegel reasoned, "It's easy to say that this or 'The Six Million Dollar Man' is a comic strip. But I try to make you believe this is possible and the only way I know how is to try to make the man real and his motivations real." Harve Bennett of 'Star Trek' added, "I said the only way I'd do it was to make him credible within the incredibility of having bionic limbs. I had a clear cut image of Lee Majors in the year of Watergate as a bonafide American hero. He's the man in the white hat. It was a case of the actor and the role coming together, providing I thought of him as the traditional outdoors Western hero."
Of 'Exo-Man', Lionel Siegel insisted, "My personal fascination has to do with two things. First, my belief that machines can do anything. Second, my fear of machines. Machines – computers – could take over. It's fascinating and scary. We have a great dependence on machines but we don’t understand them … I think this show relieves our anxieties about machines … I think it makes the audience feel in control and the master of the machine." Lionel also made the comment, "I personally like to write about people who are vulnerable, to show and dramatize those scenes. What I did was work with the characters until I liked them and understood them and put them into situations that exposed their anxieties, their fears and their strengths."
"Speaking as a producer and a writer," Harve Bennett observed, "as long as you're doing an anthology, the fewer the restrictions the better... 'Rich Man, Poor Man' – call it soap opera, melodrama or high art, I don’t care, because that is spontaneous and surprising. Once they get into it, the audience is not sure how it will come out." Based on Irwin Shaw's 1970 novel, 'Rich Man, Poor Man' chronicled the lives of two men over a 20-year span (1945 to 1965).
"It is such a distinct form of television because it has two things not usually seen on television – growth of character and a continuing story," Brandon Stoddard expressed. The 12 hours mini-series went on air in 1976. Harve Bennett revealed, "I resolved the biggest problem by combining 3 of the major female roles into one character. That makes for a tighter story and the audience gets the chance to identify with one woman from the beginning." That one woman was played by Susan Blakely. Shown over 8 nights, 'Rich Man, Poor Man' attracted an average of 43% share audience.
Kenneth Johnson created the character of Jaime Sommers who after a near-fatal sky-diving accident, underwent bionic surgery. As a result, Jaime Sommers could run 60 miles an hour, could lift a ton using her right arm and could hear whispers from a mile away with her right ear. However "even the expanded reality of the bionic world had to have its own internal truth," Kenneth Johnson told fans in 2004.
"In an effort to make her ever more accessible and closer to the truth of the everyday life which audiences young and older were leading", Kenneth Johnson made Jaime Sommers a junior high school teacher, teaching a mixed class of 6th, 7th and 8th-graders at the Air Force Base school. "Few of us have ever known tennis stars, but we’ve all had teachers."
On 'The Bionic Woman', viewers followed Jaime Sommers as she tried to start a new life in the small town of Ojai, California, where she grew up. "If she rescues a child in a fire, the smoke would probably get in his eyes so that he would not see her bionic feats," Kenneth Johnson stated at the time, "and in many cases she prefers to foster the belief that someone else was the hero."
Lindsay Wagner noted, "She (Jaime Sommers) teaches a mixed class of 6th, 7th and 8th-graders as I had done in drama classes at a private church affiliated club in Los Angeles. The children I work with in the classroom set in the series are wonderful. In the series, Jaime, the teacher, arranges the class so that she is part of the student circle formation. From my own experience, I believe strongly in this for all the energy is focused within the circle so that all function as a unit and no one is left to hide in a back seat as a non-participant."
In September 2006, the world was introduced to the first woman with bionic arm using electrodes, then 26-year-old Claudia Mitchell, a former officer in the US Marine Corps. Following a motorcycle accident, the $60,000 woman had her left arm replaced with a computerised and motorised arm which worked the same as a normal human limb. The UK 'Telegraph' explained, "The bionic limb works by rerouting nerves from the brain that once terminated in the hand. These are redirected from the shoulder to the chest, where they grow into the muscle. From there, commands are directed to the bionic arm using electrodes. Doctors said the blend of surgery and engineering was in its early days, but future versions would provide a sense of touch."
Richard Anderson as Oscar Goldman, head of the OSI government agency, remarked, "I handle Steve Austin in 'The Six Milion Dollar Man' differently than I do Jaime Sommers in 'The Bionic Woman'. Lee Majors is a right guy both in person and in character. You have to reach him simply and directly. Steve respects force, power, strength and he has to know you mean it. With Lindsay Wagner, you're working with the chemistry between two people. She has a delightful sense of humor so the approach there is much lighter and buoyant."
In 1977 the pilot movie, 'Exo-Man' went on air. Martin Caidin drafted the initial script. Writer and producer Lionel E. Siegel reasoned, "It's easy to say that this or 'The Six Million Dollar Man' is a comic strip. But I try to make you believe this is possible and the only way I know how is to try to make the man real and his motivations real." Harve Bennett of 'Star Trek' added, "I said the only way I'd do it was to make him credible within the incredibility of having bionic limbs. I had a clear cut image of Lee Majors in the year of Watergate as a bonafide American hero. He's the man in the white hat. It was a case of the actor and the role coming together, providing I thought of him as the traditional outdoors Western hero."
Of 'Exo-Man', Lionel Siegel insisted, "My personal fascination has to do with two things. First, my belief that machines can do anything. Second, my fear of machines. Machines – computers – could take over. It's fascinating and scary. We have a great dependence on machines but we don’t understand them … I think this show relieves our anxieties about machines … I think it makes the audience feel in control and the master of the machine." Lionel also made the comment, "I personally like to write about people who are vulnerable, to show and dramatize those scenes. What I did was work with the characters until I liked them and understood them and put them into situations that exposed their anxieties, their fears and their strengths."
"Speaking as a producer and a writer," Harve Bennett observed, "as long as you're doing an anthology, the fewer the restrictions the better... 'Rich Man, Poor Man' – call it soap opera, melodrama or high art, I don’t care, because that is spontaneous and surprising. Once they get into it, the audience is not sure how it will come out." Based on Irwin Shaw's 1970 novel, 'Rich Man, Poor Man' chronicled the lives of two men over a 20-year span (1945 to 1965).
"It is such a distinct form of television because it has two things not usually seen on television – growth of character and a continuing story," Brandon Stoddard expressed. The 12 hours mini-series went on air in 1976. Harve Bennett revealed, "I resolved the biggest problem by combining 3 of the major female roles into one character. That makes for a tighter story and the audience gets the chance to identify with one woman from the beginning." That one woman was played by Susan Blakely. Shown over 8 nights, 'Rich Man, Poor Man' attracted an average of 43% share audience.
Kenneth Johnson created the character of Jaime Sommers who after a near-fatal sky-diving accident, underwent bionic surgery. As a result, Jaime Sommers could run 60 miles an hour, could lift a ton using her right arm and could hear whispers from a mile away with her right ear. However "even the expanded reality of the bionic world had to have its own internal truth," Kenneth Johnson told fans in 2004.
"In an effort to make her ever more accessible and closer to the truth of the everyday life which audiences young and older were leading", Kenneth Johnson made Jaime Sommers a junior high school teacher, teaching a mixed class of 6th, 7th and 8th-graders at the Air Force Base school. "Few of us have ever known tennis stars, but we’ve all had teachers."
On 'The Bionic Woman', viewers followed Jaime Sommers as she tried to start a new life in the small town of Ojai, California, where she grew up. "If she rescues a child in a fire, the smoke would probably get in his eyes so that he would not see her bionic feats," Kenneth Johnson stated at the time, "and in many cases she prefers to foster the belief that someone else was the hero."
Lindsay Wagner noted, "She (Jaime Sommers) teaches a mixed class of 6th, 7th and 8th-graders as I had done in drama classes at a private church affiliated club in Los Angeles. The children I work with in the classroom set in the series are wonderful. In the series, Jaime, the teacher, arranges the class so that she is part of the student circle formation. From my own experience, I believe strongly in this for all the energy is focused within the circle so that all function as a unit and no one is left to hide in a back seat as a non-participant."
In September 2006, the world was introduced to the first woman with bionic arm using electrodes, then 26-year-old Claudia Mitchell, a former officer in the US Marine Corps. Following a motorcycle accident, the $60,000 woman had her left arm replaced with a computerised and motorised arm which worked the same as a normal human limb. The UK 'Telegraph' explained, "The bionic limb works by rerouting nerves from the brain that once terminated in the hand. These are redirected from the shoulder to the chest, where they grow into the muscle. From there, commands are directed to the bionic arm using electrodes. Doctors said the blend of surgery and engineering was in its early days, but future versions would provide a sense of touch."
