For fans of Steve Austin, the long wait is over.
On Tuesday, the 1970s favorite The Six Million Dollar Man will come to DVD in a massive and mind-bogglingly thorough set. Though it was a popular series, rights issues have kept it from coming to home video in the United States until now, though it was available in Europe.
The series, which ran from 1974 to 1978, featured Lee Majors as the title character, an astronaut who was critically injured during a test flight. He was rebuilt using cybernetic parts that let him lift heavy objects, run up to 60 mph, see great distances with telescopic vision and so on. He was a 1970s Superman — with a sheen of scientific plausibility, such as it was, added. The show followed the bionic hero as he battled spies, supervillains, fembots, aliens and even Bigfoot.
The Six Million Dollar Man: The Complete Collection from Time-Life is a 40-DVD set with: all 100 episodes; the three TV movies that introduced the character; three reunion movies; 17 features about the making of the show; six audio commentaries; new interviews with cast and crew members; and booklets for each season.
The series spawned a slew of toys, including action figures and accessories — I still have the toy rocket — lunch boxes, comics and much more. As a child of the ’70s, I was a huge fan of the show. Based on samples sent out by Time-Life, the show holds up surprisingly well, though that Bigfoot storyline is silly and the mustache that Austin sports in season four is, ahem, unfortunate.
Like Time-Life’s previous sets of 1960s favorites Get Smart and The Man From U.N.C.L.E., this will be an online exclusive the first year, available at www.6MDM.com for five payments (one per season) of $47.99, or a lump sum of $239.95. It won’t be sold in stores until October.
How have favorite shows from your childhood fared when you revisited them on DVD? Some seem to hold up well, while others don’t, such as Land of the Lost, a childhood favorite that had lost some of its luster when I saw it again last year. Drop me a line at my e-mail address below, post a comment at facebook.com/tclodfelterWSJ or send a tweet @tclodfelterWSJ.
Comedy Central’s successful revival of Futurama — an animated sci-fi parody that previously aired on Fox — continues at 10 p.m. today with a new holiday episode. The Futurama Holiday Spectacular is broken into three segments. The first pits the crew against Robot Santa, who tries to kill anyone he deems “naughty;” the second is about a robot holiday; and the third is about how Kwanzaa is celebrated in the 31st century. Al Gore and Coolio — a rapper, musician and actor — are among the guest voices.
Also new on DVD Tuesday: The first season of BBC’s crime drama Luther, with Idris Elba of The Wire as a troubled but brilliant police detective; the 11th and final season of the family drama 7th Heaven; the 12th season of Murder, She Wrote; and Batman Beyond: The Complete Series, a nine-DVD boxed set of the stylish, futuristic animated series about an elderly Batman training a teen successor to the cowl, with an exclusive bonus disc.
tclodfelter@wsjournal.com.
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