Streaming Sci Fi TV: Tracking down sci fi and fantasy shows of interest on the streaming services. Note that streaming availability can change with little to no notice.
What Is It?
The Six Million Dollar Man focuses on astronaut Steve Austin who is injured in a test flight and has parts of his body replaced with bionics. He receives a bionic arm, two bionic legs, and a bionic eye which give him heightened strength, super-speed, and enhanced vision. He goes to work for the government organization OSI (Office of Scientific Intelligence) where he works as a secret agent. In The Bionic Woman, a spin-off from The Six Million Dollar Man, Steve Austin’s fiance Jamie Sommers is in a life-threatening accident and Steve convinces the OSI to save her with bionics, after which she also becomes an agent of OSI.
Aired:
The Six Million Dollar Man: ABC, 1973-78, 5 Seasons Totaling 102 Episodes + 6 TV Movies
The Bionic Woman: ABC/NBC, 1976-78, 3 Seasons Totaling 58 Episodes
Starring: Lee Majors, Lindsay Wagner, Richard Anderson, Martin E. Brooks
Created By: Kenneth Johnson
Why Watch It?
The Six Million Dollar Man started out as a series of TV movies airing in 1973 that kicked off “bionic fever” on television in the ’70s and led to that show becoming a regular series while also spinning off The Bionic Woman (they also toyed with ideas for a bionic boy and bionic dog show). For much of the rest of the decade, the bionic shows were the most popular sci fi on television and among the only genre shows that survived past a season or two. These were essentially spy fi entries with more emphasis on action-adventure than sci fi concepts, but they were still a ton of fun and offered at least something for genre fans to tune into on the Prime Time schedule. The Six Million Dollar Man arguably counts as a classic because it was such an iconic series from its time and offered better-than-average genre fare. Less so for The Bionic Woman, but that one still had it moments and offered a strong female lead on a Prime Time series who was not required to sport cleavage (unlike say Charlie’s Angels and Wonder Woman).
They were created by Kenneth Johnson (based loosely on the Martin Caidin novel Cyborg), and he would go on to produce three more sci fi TV classics with The Incredible Hulk, V, and Alien Nation. Both The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman could be fun at times, and they have actually held up better than you would expect for genre entries from the 1970s. You might want to search out some best-episode lists on the internet because these two shows have over 150 episodes combined, but they are worth a look for some retro sci fi TV viewing.
Where Are They Streaming?
Both The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman are available for streaming on the Peacock service, though the TV movies are not there. The latter series is also streaming on Amazon’s Prime Video and The Roku Channel for free (with ads). Both shows have also been released on Blu-ray.
Keep up with the status updates of all the currently airing sci fi and fantasy shows with our Cancellation Watch posts. And be sure to follow us on social media for breaking news and updates: Twitter | Facebook | Mastodon | Blue Sky.
Follow our Sci Fi TV Schedule for all the currently airing and upcoming sci fi and fantasy television shows, and you can see the premieres for all the upcoming genre entries at this link.
I used to watch the shows they were entertaining didn’t they certainly went away didn’t know where they went.