The Six Million Dollar Man/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Nightmare Fuel: Anytime a robot-disguised-as-a-human is unmasked.
    • Also, Bigfoot was known to scare more than a few kids.
  • Adaptation Displacement- Most people have never even heard of the "Cyborg" novel, or the fact Caidin wrote three sequels, none of which had any connection with the TV series.
    • And those who did read the novels after only being familiar with the series were often surprised at how violent Caidin's version of Steve Austin was. For example, his bionic arm was often referred to as a deadly bludgeon. And there was a poison dart gun in his bionic fingertip.
    • Also in the novels, Steve's artificial eye was merely a camera. Steve couldn't actually use it to see anything. Oscar Goldman even commented, "Only God can restore lost sight."
  • Crowning Moment of Awesome: For fans, too many to count, though many point to the ending of the first episode "Population Zero", in which Steve javelins a metal pole through a van, as one of the first examples.
  • Fridge Logic: Backstories for Steve or Jamie commonly proclaim that bionic implantation "saved their lives", yet none of their physically-enhanced body parts (limbs, eye, ear) are crucial to sustaining life.
    • However after the transplants many episodes depict how damage to bionic limbs can be life-threatening to Steve and Jamie.
    • In the novel Cyborg on which the TV series was based, Steve Austin not only lost 3 of his limbs and an eye in the crash, his heart was also badly damaged. His life was saved by a bionic heart valve.
  • Holy Shit Quotient: The crash footage in the opening credits is still disturbing after all these years.
    • Also, anytime a robot-disguised-as-a-human is unmasked.
  • Marty Stu - Col. Steve Austin. He's very different in the novel, and he and Goldman hated each other there.
  • Memetic Outfit - Steve's Captain Ersatzes that appeared on The Venture Bros and Duck Dodgers were both wearing the red tracksuit seen above. (They're also both on at least friendly terms with Bigfoot.)