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Cyborgs-A Bionic Podcast: "The Coward"

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July 23, 2012 - 11:55am — John S. Drew

Steve travels to China's border to recover top secret documents from a plane that was downed during World War II.  This is a personal mission for Steve as the leader of the mission back then was his own father, Carl Austin, and the government's position is that Carl abandoned his crew as the plane went down.  John and Paul are joined by writer/publisher/critic Dr. Arnold T. Blumberg as they look at this first episode that establishes Steve's family.

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BionicWiki entry on the episode.

Entry from the6milliondollarblog.com

 

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Arnold T. Blumberg is an author, editor, book designer, and educator. He is the co-author of the Howe’s Transcendental Toybox series of Doctor Who merchandise guides from Telos Publishing, the designer of other Telos books including The Target Book, the author of “Stolen Days” in Short Trips: How the Doctor Changed My Life and “Mardi Gras Massacre” in Short Trips: Indefinable Magic, and the Doctor Who DVD reviewer for IGN.com. He co-wrote an exhaustive guide to zombie cinema, Zombiemania, contributed to Time, Unincorporated 3 for Mad Norwegian, and is launching his own small press, ATB Publishing, with the forthcoming Red White and Who: The Story of Doctor Who in America and Outside In: 160 New Perspectives on 160 Classic Doctor Who Stories from 160 Writers. He teaches courses in zombies in popular media and science fiction media at the University of Baltimore and a course in comic book literature at the University of Maryland. He also has a book on sword and sorcery movies in the works with co-author Scott Alan Woodard. You can find him online at atbpublishing.com.

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July 25, 2012 - 3:27am — Arnold T. Blumberg

Harve and Rewriting

Weird, I had written a whole comment here about how I understand folks could think I was potentially overthinking it, but everything in me - and a lifetime watching TV and movies and just having that feel we all have for how stories play out - was just screaming that this wasn't a theory, that that *was* Carl Austin but something was changed at the last minute.

Anyway, I had that comment on here, but it didn't seem to post, so this version isn't nearly as eloquent and amazing. Oh well. But John's comments here in this thread just make me feel even more that this notion is a solid one. :)

And considering this was that writer's last gig on the series, and he had potentially left due to friction with Harve Bennett - as Paul points out in the show - well, it just seems like a lot of stuff is there for us to look at and wonder: "Was the possible rewriting of this episode the straw that broke the camel's back?"

Bionically, of course, and in slow motion. :)

July 25, 2012 - 4:27am — Pinkhamster
Pinkhamster's picture

clever!

"Anyway, I had that comment on here, but it didn't seem to post, so this version isn't nearly as eloquent and amazing."

The same thing that happened to this episode of "Six Million Dollar Man!"  Harve's Curse is afoot!

Thanks for addressing my comments with humor and intelligence, Arnold!

July 25, 2012 - 8:25am — John S. Drew
John S. Drew's picture

Harve's Curse!

LOL!  (And I don't do that very often, not online anyway.)

—

John
Creator, Producer, All Around God-Like Being
"What?  Too much?"

July 24, 2012 - 8:54am — John S. Drew
John S. Drew's picture

Hidden Story

I don't think Arnold's argument was that it was a secret story, but rather, as Paul went on to explain, we were led to believe that the father really was the pilot who bailed, but Harve Bennet, who had a habit of rewriting stories, much to the frustration of Elroy Schwartz, fixed the story so that Steve was spared that pain.

I didn't mention this at the time we recorded as I hadn't watched the DVD bonus features for the first season at that time.  There is a one hour interview with Harve Bennet shortly before he passed away.  From the way he speaks about the character of the Steve Austin and the actor Lee Majors, he is very enamored of the two.  It wouldn't surprise me that the original story was that Carl Austin was meant to be "The Coward" and Harve wasn't going to let someone from Steve's stock be seen as weak.

—

John
Creator, Producer, All Around God-Like Being
"What?  Too much?"

July 24, 2012 - 9:03am — Pinkhamster
Pinkhamster's picture

I guess my main problem was

I guess my main problem was that it was just speculation without any way to verify the theory.  Arnold sounded too sure that he was right and that the fans had been robbed of the better version of the script based on what didn't sound like enough evidence that this alternate version actually existed.  But as someone who hasn't actually seen the episode, my perspective is pretty narrow.

July 24, 2012 - 7:17am — Pinkhamster
Pinkhamster's picture

sounded like Arnold was overthinking it

His theory about Carl Austin sounded like the way he wished the plot of the episode had been rather than what the plot of the episode actually was.  If the show says that it was the co-pilot rather than his dad, that's who it was.  Doesn't make sense to me that the screenwriter would hide a secret opposite story (that it was really Steve's dad) within an action TV show plot of this era.

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