A traffic cop pulls into a backwater town in rural America. By the side of the dusty road a weather beaten sign proclaims Norris, Population: 23. Norris could be any one of a thousand identical small communities across the US, but here this morning, an atrocity has occurred, sudden and indiscriminate. The abandoned doll of a small child gently swings in the breeze, while all around bodies are scattered. At a café, two men are slumped over their board of checkers. At the garage a mechanic has collapsed under the open bonnet of car. The cop rushes to a man lying in the street, but is suddenly overcome by searing pain. He drops to the ground with his hands clasped to his head, but manages to crawl back to his motorcycle. “Stay away from here!” he cries over the radio, “Stay away from this town!” The perpetrator, an ex high-level government scientist turned rogue, demands payment of a huge ransom or another town will suffer the same fate. The government needs a saviour. Fortunately, they have created one: Colonel Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Man.
Population: Zero is the first episode of season one, aired in the mid-seventies. Following the success of three made-for-TV movies, the programme was given a weekly slot, when it ran for five series up until 1978. Further TV movies followed, co-staring Austin’s female counterpart: The Bionic Woman, who had a series in her own right. I bought a box-set recently to watch with the kids. We had exhausted all episodes of Knight Rider, and their fixation with watching YouTubers videoing themselves playing games was starting to drive me nuts.
The opening titles of the programme provide a brief back story of our hero. Austin, a former astronaut, sufferers a horrendous crash during the test flight of an aircraft. Barely alive, he undergoes lifesaving surgery where key parts of his body are replaced with electrical and mechanical components. He fully recovers, and uses his new superhuman abilities to carry out missions both domestic and abroad, as a secret agent of Oscar Goldman of the Office of Scientific Intelligence. He does look remarkably good for a man who has survived such a traumatic ordeal, including the replacement of an eye. His bionic bits and pieces are a highly classified secret but invariably by the end of each episode, more members of the public are party to his workings, either through witnessing extraordinary physical ability or directly seeing exposed circuitry. Colonel Austin is a cyborg, a human with mechanical or electrical parts. Whereas other well-known cyborgs like Darth Vader and RoboCop are obviously enhanced, Steve Austin’s adaptions are entirely concealed. Like much of science fiction, it promises a glimpse into what could be possible in the future. Advances in prosthetics have been considerable since the show was aired forty years ago, not least in the field of military medicine. It is possible that soldiers today, who have received artificial limbs, may be able to return to active service. The most sophisticated research is striving to interface the prosthetic with the body’s nervous system which would provide sensory feedback, simulating touch.
In its day, the brand was heavily merchandised. Along with many of my school friends, I owned a Steve Austin action figure. His bionic vision was mimicked with a plastic lens set into the eye. A hole in the back of the head allowed you to see through the eye, giving a fish-bowl view of the world. Also present was a red button that protruded from Steve’s back. Included with the figure, a plastic engine block could be placed in the hand of his bionic arm, and pressing the button repeatedly would raise the arm in a series of jerky movements. Ironically, no batteries were required for this or many of the other Steve Austin toys, which meant I provided my own electronic sound effects for when Steve was doing his bionic stuff. Strict constraints were placed on his abilities in the series; he could jump two stories but not three, his top speed is generally reckoned to be around 60 mph. If he were created today, what would be different to the seventies original? He’d probably retain the bionic legs for running and leaping, a bionic arm for lifting and throwing and a bionic eye capable of picking out an evil scientist or killer robot at a thousand paces. One further development that a modern day cyborg would almost certainly have would be a hard wired internet connection. Gone would be the reliance on chunky telephones to give and receive orders. With a few clicks of a mouse, Oscar could simply email details of the latest enemy agent to be brought in together with a GPS reference on Google Maps, beamed via the net directly to the receiver in Steve’s brain. And on his days off, dependant on his mobile data limit, Steve could have his favourite Netflix or Amazon show transmitted straight into his head. He’d probably enjoy the latest series of Westworld or possibly a YouTube presenter playing Minecraft.
– Anthony Brum
Please check out my space adventure for middle-grade/ 9-12 year olds- “Imbrium City: Rise of the New Defenders,” available on Kindle now.
Cadet Kiera Austin, young and extraordinarily gifted, is a student of the Stellaris Academy, in the lunar city of Imbrium. Resentful at the choice of her new partner, android Leo Silver, the pair are called to an emergency on a remote outpost of the Moon: a fire, that Kiera suspects was deliberate and is somehow linked with Leo’s past. Driven by a desire to find the truth, Kiera’s investigations arouse the attention of some powerful and very dangerous forces, who will stop at nothing in their pursuit to hunt the cadets down…
I used to love this series! Like you, Anthony, my husband and I are keen watchers of old TV shows from that era. And I do think it can be useful to speculate what adaptations humans may make to themselves (perhaps circumventing evolution) in the future as an exercise in extrapolation. Good luck with the novel!
Hi Helen. I think those big shows of the 70’s have a style of their very own. Also, the suggestion of artificial body parts being linked to the internet was only partly tongue-in-cheek; I should thing there are people who are quite keen to have a computer fused to their brain, (and only a few short steps to becoming a Cyberman).
I remember those toys and the show. One of my favorites. You’re right – today would be super high tech. Might be a reboot in the making!
I had a Bionic Mission Vehicle. It was great! A bit like a scaled down Sinclair C5 with a wind screen.