The Six Million Dollar Man - Series 1 - Complete [DVD]

VHS tape #1 contains "Cy'borg" the Six Million Dollar Man (Pilot) which cuts out Steve Austin's first mission on the Moon and starts instead with animated text with the definition of what a "cy'borg" is. The opening credits are totally different. The pilot episode's original first 20 minutes are mostly butchered out on VHS. This tape also includes "Wine, Women and War" the second pilot move. Running time for both pilots in movie format on one tape are 2 hours 21 minutes. Two 90 minutes movies should add up to 3 hours but it doesn't.

Well the first DVD has "The Moon and The Desert Pt 1 & 2" correctly named instead of "Cy'borg" which makes so much more sense now because you didn't even see him on the "moon" in the butchered VHS version, it starts on the "desert" where he has his accident. Each pilot is in episodic format with the proper opening sequence and opening credits. Running time for both double length episodes on DVD are 3 hours and 7 minutes. If you do the math you'll see these are both 90 minute stories uncut. So the first DVD has an extra 46 minutes! Yes I was shocked when I watched all this new footage I had never seen before.

VHS tape #2 contains "Solid Gold Kidnapping Part 1 & 2" which runs for 1 hour 35 minutes unedited.

The second DVD has "The Solid Gold Kidnapping Pt 1 & 2" and Population Zero (the first episode) which adds up to 2 hours and 23 minutes. If you subtract 95 minutes, you have 48 minutes which is the standard length of a regular episode. So this story was uncut on both VHS and DVD.

The original pilot is a surprisingly dark character story with Steve Austin feeling so depressed and inhuman after the operation that he would rather die or commit suicide than live as part robot. I was very impressed to see Darren McGavin's performance especially after the original Night Stalker pilot but before he was given his own series as Kolchack: The Night Stalker. William Shatner (Star Trek), Farrah Fawcett (Charlie's Angels), Greg Morris (Mission Impossible), John Saxon (Nightmare on Elm Street films, various TV shows) and George Takei (Star Trek) all make guest appearances.

"Run, Steve Run!" features a return villain who makes the bionic robots first seen in "Day of the Robot" which are both good. Some of the episodes are little slow at times and they didn't use the now famous slow motion sounds for the bionic effects yet. Dr. Rudy Wells is played by a different actor and there are no DVD extras but the episodes look great, amazing amount of detail and color never seen before when compared to the VHS tapes.

Anyway since Amazon just dropped the price from £26 to only £13.97 now (almost half) I have to recommend it. 4 out of 5 stars only because there are no bonus features.

Universal digitally restored and cleaned up of dirt ALL the episodes in The Bionic Woman Season 1 DVD but why not for The Six Million Dollar Man Season 1 DVD ??