The Six Million Dollar Man 4.12 – The Ultimate Imposter

Flush with the success of their two bionic shows, the producers made two attempts in the fourth season of Six to expand the OSI’s roster with another spinoff. First up was “The Bionic Boy,” in which Vincent Van Patten became a teen bionic hero, and in January, they tried a backdoor pilot, with Steve Austin taking a two scene back seat to Joe Patten, a schoolteacher played by Stephen Macht, whose brain can be programmed for secret missions.

Using superspeed computer-learning that’s quite a lot like Gerry Anderson’s Joe 90, Patten can be primed with all the background, languages, chemistry, or blueprints necessary to complete any mission. When his girlfriend, an OSI agent played by Pamela Hensley (later Ardala on Buck Rogers), is captured on an undercover assignment, Joe gets to learn all about the world of counterfeiting to rescue her.

My son was a little disappointed with this one, because Joe’s chemistry wizardry is no match for bionic thrills. It’s not bad for what it is, and probably a shame that Joe was never seen again. Even without his own show, he could have been an interesting recurring character to provide some in-the-field help for Steve and Jaime. But another bionic action show certainly wasn’t in ABC’s plans, as I’ll mention in a couple of weeks.

The writers, Lionel E. Siegel and William Zacha, kept their programmed agent concept alive for one more try. After the bionic shows had ended, they wrote a movie-of-the-week for Universal, also called The Ultimate Imposter, in 1979, starring Joseph Hacker as the agent.

The Six Million Dollar Man 1.13 – Run, Steve, Run

Dr. Dolenz, the robot maker from “Day of the Robot,” returned in this end-of-season cheapie written by Lionel E. Siegel and mostly set on a Utah horse ranch. There are few speaking parts, and while Noah Beery Jr. – Jim Rockford’s dad! – enlivened things a little bit as an old pal of Steve’s, this is a dull story padded out with clips from previous episodes as Steve tries to figure out who is after him. Dr. Dolenz doesn’t have a robot this time out; he’s trying to engineer accidents so he can observe Steve’s bionic powers from a distance.

I thought this was as dull as could be, but perhaps because westerns are not part of any modern kid’s television diet, our son was surprisingly pleased by the bits with runaway horses and bucking broncos which I found tedious. He was really talkative this evening, but genuinely curious about how fast horses can run, and why Steve and his girlfriend-of-the-week had lassos with them while riding around the ranch.