The Six Million Dollar Man: The Complete Series (Blu-ray), Shout Factory, Action & Adventure

It's the best tv show of the 70s... starring Lee Majors, the epitome of cool (I realize now why my dad wore the same sunglasses!). It's the iconic story of an unwilling cyborg... better than he was before... and his government, navigating the post-1960s cold-war hippie era, bringing justice to leisure-suit clad evil archetypes everywhere. Seventies kids (like myself) on school playgrounds everywhere made the bionic eh-eh-eh-eh-eh sound as they ran across the field at 60 mph. The most intense start of a show ever created: the letters appearing one by one and the steady beat of the tympani drums as Steve Austin's test plane crashes and he is rebuilt better, stronger, faster. This blu-ray box set was an indulgence for me because it's one of my favorite shows, but it is on the expensive side ($133). For such a high price I would have hoped for a sturdier set, but the "box" is quite thin and the interior disc holders are the low-quality blue plastic swinging "pages" that are so common now in multi-disc sets. One of the pins holding it to the spine was broken on arrival. There are no interior pictures or extra brochures or anything to look at (like the UK version has). That said, the show is fantastic with great quality transfers. The first disc contains all three pilots; it's fascinating to see the progression of the producers' direction. I am glad they went with the sympathetic Richard Anderson as the Oscar Goldman character, turning the feds into good guys just in time for the 1976 bicentennial celebration, rather than going the route of the passé 1960s suspicious hippies of the Vietnam era. The idea of the hostile version of Oscar played by Darren McGavin in the first pilot would have changed the tenor too much for where the friendly seventies were headed. So, this set was what I was expecting (I watched the unboxings), and I really like it. It arrived in a timely manner. Would make a great Christmas gift for any man in his fifties... or younger fathers who want a great mild sci-fi show to share with his kids.