Episode Review: The Six Million Dollar Man - The Price of Liberty

Over the past year or so I've been watching The Six Million Dollar Man, starting with the original made-for-TV-movie, and progressing an episode at a time in order through the seasons. Yesterday I watched the 3rd season episode, "The Price of Liberty".

When I saw that the episode was written by Kenneth Johnson, I knew I was in for a treat. Johnson is responsible for some of the series' best episodes, as well as having created the character of Jamie Summers (the Bionic Woman), bringing The Incredible Hulk to television, creating the original "V" miniseries, and helming the TV version of Alien Nation.

Johnson excels in writing characters, and this episode is a prime example. The premise of the episode involves the heist of the Liberty Bell prior to its tour of the United States in celebration of the U.S. Bicentennial. Without giving away too much of the plot, Steve Austin must enlist the help of a convict (played, quite effectively, by Chuck Conners) in securing the bell.

Now, I love the 1970s. And I have a nostalgia for the U.S. Bicentennial, which I was too young to remember at the time. And, of course, I love classic television. So this episode appealed to me in many areas. The script is excellent, and Lee Majors and Richard Anderson are solid as Steve Austin and Oscar Goldman, respectively.

The episode does, however, have one comical shortcoming: even though it's supposed to take place in the Philadelphia area, it was obviously filmed in California. I'm very familiar with the Philadelphia area, and the the building they tried to pass off as Independence Hall looks nothing like the real thing, but much more amusing is their use of the dry, arid hills of California as a stand in for Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania isn't exactly known for dry areas of sand and brush -- its name means "Penn's Woods" after all. So I had to chuckle a few times during this episode when it came to the scenery. But hey, they couldn't exactly justify a location shoot on the opposite side of the country, could they?

A great episode, scenery shortcomings notwithstanding.

You can visit Kenneth Johnson's website here. At some point, I'm going to have to create the Classic TV World Hall of Fame, and Mr. Johnson will most likely be the first inductee.

The Original Star Trek

What list of classic TV shows would be complete without the original Star Trek series? And what could possibly be said about it that hasn't already been said?

Rather than go on and on about how culturally significant the show is, or how ground-breaking it was for its time, I'd like to just talk about what Star Trek is to me. Anything else, quite honestly, would just be a rehash of what many others have written before.

The show had already been canceled and was in syndication by the time I was born. I first saw it as a young kid, and I think the first episode I saw was one called "A Private Little War". It was early on a Saturday or Sunday, and I think we may have had people over. I didn't catch the whole episode, just a part of it where Captain Kirk is attacked by a giant white gorilla-like animal named a mugato. I was pretty young at the time, and the sight of this screaming ape-thing scared me. I think that was the first time I'd seen the show, and that was all I watched of that episode.

Sometime later, when I was still pretty young, I saw the show again. This time I caught the teaser opening. It was around 7pm on a Saturday evening, in the spring I think, and it was the episode "The Savage Curtain" (I didn't know these episode names at the time). The episode starts with the crew encountering Abraham Lincoln, sitting in a chair in space and speaking to them. It was such a strange opening, and I wanted to find out what happened, but my father, who was also in the room, said something about Star Trek being stupid and changed the channel. I left the living room and went into our rec room, where we had an older TV that didn't get good reception, but I tried to tune in the station so I could find out what happened next. I was unsuccessful.

Fast-forward another year, two, or maybe three. We moved to a new home, and one of the neighbors was a guy a few years older than me who was a big Star Trek fan. By this time I'd already seen The Motion Picture and Wrath of Khan (which I loved) but still wasn't too well-versed in the original series. I started learning more about the show from my neighbor, as well as watching the reruns in syndication every Saturday at 7pm.

Later, when I was about 14, I would record the episodes that aired at midnight on one of the New York stations we got with cable and would wake up early and eat breakfast while watching it.

So what did I like about the show? I wish I could say the oft-repeated line about the show's positive view of the future, but to be honest, as a kid I liked it just because it told good stories and told them well. As an adult, there's more to it than that: I still like the stories, but I also have more appreciation for the characters and how they interact, and (oddly enough) for the way the show is somewhat dated: I've also developed an appreciation of television shows from the '60s (as well as '70s) -- I have a certain nostalgia for the show, despite not being born when it first aired.

Star Trek is one of the shows I'll put on if I want to relax. Some people have "comfort foods", and for me, Star Trek is a "comfort show" -- it has its critics, and it's not perfect, but it's one of my guilty pleasures.