History Series / TheSixMillionDollarMan

* {{Fanservice}}: The only possible reason to have Steve Austin and Dr. Leah Russell (both played by sex symbols of UsefulNotes/TheSeventies - in Dr. Russell's case Creator/JennyAgutter) meet for the first time half-naked in a sauna.

->''"Steve Austin, astronaut. A man barely alive. Gentlemen, WeCanRebuildHim. We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world's first bionic man. Steve Austin will be that man. Better than he was before. Better. Stronger. Faster."''

In a spring 1975 episode, Jaime Sommers (Lindsay Wagner), a tennis pro and Austin's love interest, is injured in a skydiving accident. Austin pleads with Goldman to save her life, and she too is fitted with bionic parts (legs, one arm, and an ear). Eventually her body rejects her implants, and she dies, at least as far as Austin is concerned. Fan outcry was so great, ABC demanded the series reorganize the start of the third season and run a two-parter bringing her back to life. So after Jaime is rescued by a radical medical procedure, she goes to work for the OSI in her own spinoff series, ''Series/TheBionicWoman'' (1976-1978), living undercover as a schoolteacher on an Air Force base when not on missions for the OSI. And Jaime herself became a recurring character on ''Six Mil'' during its third and fourth seasons, taking part in a number of crossover stories until ''Bionic Woman'' was cancelled by ABC in 1977 and moved to NBC, ending these crossovers for good.

''The Six Million Dollar Man'' was based upon the science fiction novel ''Cyborg'' by Creator/MartinCaidin, and the original pilot TV movie, aired in 1973, was written by Henri Simoun and an uncredited Creator/StevenBochco (''Series/NYPDBlue''). It was followed by two more TV movies produced by Glen Larson (''Series/BattlestarGalactica1978'') that unsuccessfully tried to turn Austin into a more Film/JamesBond-like character. When the series returned as a weekly hour-long show in January 1974, it was now produced by Harve Bennett (''Franchise/StarTrek''), who restored much of Caidin's original characterization to Austin (though Caidin's version of the character was rather different -- he was more of an assassin, carried a poison dart gun in a bionic finger, and his non-seeing bionic eye was a miniature camera). Later, Kenneth Johnson, who later went on to be involved with ''Series/TheIncredibleHulk1977'', ''Series/AlienNation,'' and ''Series/{{V 1983}}'', joined as a writer and went on to create the character of Jaime Sommers and produce the spin-off. Johnson advocated a somewhat "kindler, gentler" show, and it was in a two-parter he wrote that the show's most iconic recurring character, Bigfoot, first appeared.

* ComicBookAdaptation: Charlton Comics published both a color comic book and a black and white illustrated magazine aimed at adult readers during the run of the series. In the 2010s, Dynamite Comics launched ''The Bionic Man'', a reimagined version of the story based upon an unproduced Creator/KevinSmith script for an SMDM film. In 2014, Dynamite dropped the reimagined ''Bionic Man'' in favor of ''The Six Million Dollar Man Season 6'', a direct continuation of the TV series; it has since published several more titles set in the TV continuity, including a crossover with, of all things, Franchise/GIJoe. In the UK, the magazine ''Look-In'' published a weekly comic strip titled ''Bionic Action'' in the 1970s that featured both Steve and Jaime. In the mid-1990s a new US comic book series titled ''Bionix'' was announced, again to feature both Steve and Jaime, but it was cancelled despite being promoted in various magazines, though a few pages of sample art were published.

* SequelEpisode: Two in season two to season one episodes - "The Return Of The Robot Maker" followed up "Day Of The Robot", "Steve Austin, Fugitive" was a sequel to "Eyewitness To Murder".

* {{Fanservice}}: The only possible reason to have Steve and Dr. Leah Russell (both played by sex symbols of UsefulNotes/TheSeventies - in Dr. Russell's case Creator/JennyAgutter) meet for the first time half-naked in a sauna.