"The Six Million Dollar Man" Rescue of Athena One (1974)

User Rating:

6.5/10   

Director:

Lawrence Doheny

Writers:

D.C. Fontana (written by) &
Martin Caidin (novel)

TV Series:

"The Six Million Dollar Man" (1974)

Original Air Date:

15 March 1974 (Season 1, Episode 8)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Crime | Drama | Mystery | Sci-Fi

Plot:

Steve Austin has been assigned to train America's first female astronaut Major Kelly Wood. On her maiden-flight...

Plot Keywords:

Bionics | Spy | Cult TV | Cyborg | Number In Title

Cast

Lee Majors	...	Col. Steve Austin
Richard Anderson	...	Oscar Goldman
Farrah Fawcett	...	Major Kelly Wood (as Farrah Fawcett Majors)
Paul Kent	...	Flight Surgeon Wolf
John S. Ragin	...	Flight Director
Quinn K. Redeker	...	Capcom (as Quinn Rdeker)
Dean Smith	...	Major Osterman
Jules Bergman	...	Himself
Patsy Sublime	...	1st Secretary (as Patsy Sabline)
Toni Jannotta	...	2nd Secretary

Series Cast

These people are regular cast members. Were they in this episode?

Alan Oppenheimer

...

Dr. Rudy Wells

Runtime:

USA:48 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Company:

Silverton Productions

Quotes:

Major Kelly Wood: How are you?
Col. Steve Austin: [pause] I'm fine.
Major Kelly Wood: Lying to a nurse and a fellow pilot is a violation of the rules. But when you are fine, I know a place in Houston that serves a really fantastic diner. Reasonable too.
Col. Steve Austin: Where is this restaurant?
Major Kelly Wood: My place.

Beautiful Farrah Fawcett Majors

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

This is an excellent episode of the SMDM and this is in no small way because of the presence of Lee Majors' then wife Farrah Fawcett. My word - she is gorgeous. There are not too many starlets then or now who could come close to her beauty and lucky Lee is all I can say.

Now - enough fawning over Farrah and on with the episode.

Farrah Fawcett is Major Kelly Wood (I kid you not - Major Wood ???? - do you think the scriptwriter's were having a not too subtle laugh/dig here ???? I think so) who is to pilot the next expedition to space. Steve is her instructor. However, something goes wrong. An explosion on the journey upwards forces Wood to dock with the space station to try and provide medical support to her co-pilot injured in the accident. But problems still persist and she cannot open the hatch door to the space station. Steve and a doctor take off from NASA headquarters to the rescue. (Handy that they just happened to have another rocket standing by for just an eventuality !!).

Steve docks the ship to the space station, opens the hatch for Farrah and the doc tries to treat the co-pilot. However, not all is as it seems as Steve too, experiences some side-effects on his bionic parts. His vision becomes blurred, his arm effectively useless. It transpires that all 4 of them must come back to Earth immediately for the proper treatment of the co-pilot - and Farrah has to guide them back through the atmosphere. Something nobody has done before manually.

But with Steve by her side - Wood manages to get them all back safely. And Steve once again gets the girl.

Worth a watch just for Farrah alone. One word - beautiful.