{"id":7065734,"date":"2026-09-24T13:49:49","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T13:49:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/american-history\/americanstudies-january-14-2026-the-boob-tube-in-the-60s-70s-the-bionic-woman\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T13:49:49","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T13:49:49","slug":"americanstudies-january-14-2026-the-boob-tube-in-the-60s-70s-the-bionic-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7065734","title":{"rendered":"AmericanStudies: January 14, 2026: The Boob Tube in the 60s & 70s: The Bionic Woman"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

[This week marks the 60th<\/sup> anniversary<\/a>
\nof the debut of the Batman<\/i> TV show & the 50th<\/sup><\/a> of The
\nBionic Woman<\/i>. So I\u2019ll AmericanStudy those shows & three others from the
\n60s & 70s, all of which happen to start with the letter \u2018B\u2019! I\u2019d love your
\nresponses and other TVStudying thoughts for a crowd-sourced weekend post that needs
\nno \u201cApplause\u201d sign.]<\/p>\n

On silly spinoffs that succeed, silly spinoffs that don\u2019t, and
\nwhat we can make of the difference.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Bionic
\nWoman<\/a><\/span><\/i>, which aired its first
\nepisode<\/a> on this date 50 years ago, was a spinoff from an existing hit show,
\nThe Six Million Dollar Man<\/i>. In April 1975, season 2 of that show had featured
\na two-part episode, \u201cThe
\nBionic Woman<\/a>,\u201d in which superpowered protagonist Steve Austin (Lee Majors)
\nreunites with his high school sweetheart Jaime Sommers (Lindsay Wagner<\/a>), almost
\nloses in her a tragic skydriving accident, and convinces his scientist handlers
\nto save her by turning her into a bionic woman with the same procedures that
\nthey had used on him. He does so by promising that she will work for the same
\nfictional top-secret office he does (the Office of Scientific Intelligence<\/a>),
\nand after some hemming and hawing on both their parts she obviously decides to
\ndo so. The new episode and character were thus as over-the-top and silly as the
\noriginal, and that\u2019s precisely the point\u2014Six Million<\/i> had been an instant
\nhit, and the producers decided, as is so often the case, to repeat the formula in
\na new show. \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In the fall of 1977, season 3 of The Bionic Woman <\/i>opened
\nwith a very similar two-part episode, \u201cThe Bionic Dog<\/a>.\u201d In it
\nSommers meets Max (short for Maximillion, named for how much his procedure cost),
\na German Shephard who she learns had been the first bionic test subject before
\nthe later procedures on Austin and Sommers; Max is experiencing some negative side
\neffects and is slated to be put down when they meet, but Sommers rescues him
\nand enjoys some quality
\ntime<\/a> with this appropriately powerful pet. The producers\u2019 intent was that
\nafter this two-part introduction, Max would likewise go on to headline his own spinoff
\nshow, presumably called The Bionic Dog<\/i>, in which he would live with Sommers\u2019s
\nforest ranger friend
\nRoger Grette<\/a> (also introduced in this two-part episode) and, I dunno, fight
\nforest fires alongside Smokey or some such. But the network rejected this second
\nspinoff and Max stayed with Sommers instead, periodically appearing on the show
\nto perform his own spectacular
\nand silly superpowered feats<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not in the heads of those network executives (and let\u2019s face
\nit, if I were I would have greenlit a show about a superpowered little friend
\nlike Max), but I would say there are a couple ways to analyze the difference
\nbetween these two cases. One is what I alluded to above: while of course there
\ncan be spinoffs that diverge from the original, it seems likely to me that when
\na spinoff is going to launch while the original show is still airing (and
\nindeed, still very early in its run), the goal would often be that it replicates
\nthe formula closely enough to guarantee (the network believes, anyway) success.
\nA superdog in the woods is different enough from these superhumans working for
\nthe OSI that it just wasn\u2019t as sure of a bet, I\u2019m saying. But I would also
\nhighlight a broader TV history context\u2014while the first couple decades of TV
\nwere rife with animal-centered shows, from Lassie<\/a><\/i>
\nto Mr. Ed<\/a>. <\/i>to The Adventures of Rin-Tin-Tin<\/a><\/i>,
\nthat trend had largely died off by the late 1970s; and perhaps the timing was
\nthus just wrong for a show entitled The Bionic Dog<\/i>. Ruff.<\/span><\/p>\n

Next TVStudying tomorrow,<\/span><\/p>\n

Ben<\/span><\/p>\n

PS. What do you think? Other 60s and\/or 70s TV you\u2019d highlight? <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[This week marks the 60th anniversary of the debut of the Batman TV show & the 50th of The Bionic Woman. So I\u2019ll AmericanStudy those shows & three others from the 60s & 70s, all of which happen to start with the letter \u2018B\u2019! I\u2019d love your responses and other TVStudying thoughts for a crowd-sourced […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12032],"tags":[9874,1851,13299,227112,194167,3805,2947,1620],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-7065734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-history","tag-60s","tag-70s","tag-americanstudies","tag-bionic","tag-boob","tag-january","tag-tube","tag-woman"],"yoast_head":"\nAmericanStudies: January 14, 2026: The Boob Tube in the 60s & 70s: The Bionic Woman - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7065734\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"AmericanStudies: January 14, 2026: The Boob Tube in the 60s & 70s: The Bionic Woman - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[This week marks the 60th anniversary of the debut of the Batman TV show & the 50th of The Bionic Woman. 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