episode #44 - The Bionic Criminal

episode #9 of 3rd season / Air Date: 11/9/75 written by Richard Carr Directed by Peter Allan Fields

Stand back - it's the return of the Seven Million Dollar Man, Barney Hiller (formerly Miller, played by Monte Markham). Contrary to what was stated in the 2nd season episode about Hiller being permanently tuned down to normal levels, here Oscar Goldman and Dr. Rudy Wells (Alan Oppenheimer in his final take on the character) decide to temporarily tune Hiller back up to superhuman levels so they can run some tests for a couple of days. This actually returns to a premise touched upon way back in the first pilot telefilm, about keeping such bionic soldiers on ice (so to speak) until a dire need arises; then such soldiers would be reactivated like wind up robots and sent to do their thing. There's mention in this episode about the possibility of creating hundreds of such bionic men, a bionic army - this would have made for a fantastic premise in some future film, but the closest we got was the movie Universal Soldier in 1992, with Jean-Claude Van Damme.