The Six Million Dollar Man: Carnival of Spies


episode number: season 4, episode 19 (1977)
viewing setting: home DVD, 7/13/12

episode synopsis: Steve tracks a German scientist who fakes a heart attack at a conference, which leads to a traveling carnival set up near the testing area for a new bomber.

impressions: Overall, I found this one kind of lame. A big part of that was the character of the blond woman whose father owned the carnival; this woman was just plain stupid. After promising to be discreet, she isn't. After Steve tells her to keep lookout, she fails. Nearly everything she says comes out in an astonished tone, as if what she's saying is the biggest and most amazing surprise ever. What a ditz. Okay, enough about her. The plot was just hokey - if you want to shoot down an experimental plane, there has got to be a better way than sneaking a foreign scientist into your carnival full of bad guys. Of note: this episode was one of the first with the fade-outs for commercials, most of which were mini-cliffhangers. Also, Oscar displays early videoconferencing technology in his office (though it was probably just supposed to be a direct video feed, as opposed to something that ran over an IP network.)

notable guest stars: Cheryl Miller is Kim, the blonde idiot. Stuntman Bob Minor (who's been the double for a fairly large number of action-movie actors) is the carnival's Hercules.

significant bionic antics: Steve rips a sign apart to make a bionic-leg-powered boat, breaks the carnival hammer game, chases down a van, bends a pistol barrel, breaks open a lockbox, snaps some ropes, kicks a bad guy away, hurls a strongman into a cage, lifts the cage into the air, leaps up onto a platform, and rips apart the missile control system.

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