Pratically any topic which appeared on In Search Of… in the '70s was excellent script fodder for shows like The Six Million Dollar Man. 
That kind of stuff was everywhere. You could get an issue of Popular Science and it would be looking into Kirlian photography and using Pyramid power to sharpen razor blades. Most of it faded rapidly, but the remnants are still with us in the form of New Age beliefs in crystals and what-not. Or as Penn and Teller call it, Newage.
“To be faiiirrrr”…
Both Oscar and Steve were skeptical, and the ‘psychic’ herself admitted she just had ‘feelings’ and they wern’t reliable or something she could call on demand.
They all say that after you’ve paid.
But alien robot bigfoots and rogue killer Venus probes and Fembots and alien spacemen and robot dopplegangers and people who can talk to dolphins after exposure to “space radiation” and cryogenically-preserved humans and that TV staple “bonk on the head amnesia” and computer-brain interface learning and the moon’s orbit being shifted by mad scientists on asteroids and alien invisible islands - those don’t bother you?
Spoilers!!!
I never said which episodes! 
They also had an episode with the 70s trope “Japanese solider that doesn’t know the war is over”. I think everyone did that episode. Wonder if any are still alive…
One of my ex girlfriend’s stepfather was Steve Austin. I met him maybe twelve years ago but he was in his 20s when the show was on.
Even Gilligan’s Island!
Oscar Goldman was dramatically removing his glasses decades before that newcomer Grissom!
I went to college with a guy named Steve Austen (note the difference in spelling). We called him “a man barely alive.”
The weird thing is that a Japanese soldier still fighting the war was found almost a decade after the Gilligan’s Island episode.
(Original quote about relatively slow pacing for shows back then)
OMG OMG OMG…thank you all for the memories. I too loved The Six Million Dollar Man and Emergency!. These definitely stand out as things I thought were really cool when I was a kid, but to me as an adult look…considerably less than cool. Might as well add “Baa Baa Black Sheep” to the list.
FWIW one of my most important (sad) memories of my life is forever fused with watching Six Million Dollar Man, as my dad chose that time (I think it was a Sunday evening) to announce that he was divorcing my mom. Yep, another 1970’s staple: the D word. At least he waited until a commercial break to get our attention. Also IIRC we turned the TV back on after he was finished, and I watched the rest of the episode.
When the show was on, my dad told me that creator Glen Larson was travelling through our hometown of Austin, Texas, when he was considering the name of the hero for his new show. Thus, the Steve Austin was born.
As a ten year old kid, that was a really cool connection to the coolest show on TV.
The last Japanese soldier to finally surrender held out until 1974, so, as you note, it was still a trope-y thing into the '70s, for certain.
I read at some point that they intended the show to be more serious like James Bond. But they found the audience trended towards young boys, so it shifted to be more kid friendly. That was one reason for the stuff like Bigfoot, UFO’s, corny special effects, etc.
Lots of shows from this eras are shown on the TV channels broadcast over the air. If you hook up a regular antenna to your TV, you can likely catch this show and a bunch of others like Bionic Woman, Columbo, Wonder Woman, Emergency, etc.
Just remembered the always great Simon Oakland was a recurring ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ character, so I’ll look into that next.
What do you mean “doot doot doot”? Everyone knows that the slow-motion super-strength is “yang ang ang ang”.
If there’s one thing I learned from Caddyshack, it’s that the official pronunciation is “Na na na na”.
No no no. That’s the music for when Steve is doing something epic. “Yang ang ang ang” is the sound for when he is picking up a heavy object or running really fast. Feats of super strength, in other words. The rapid “doot” sound comes when he is using his bionic eye.
I think Jamie Summers had the same sounds for her super strength, but I don’t remember the sound for her super hearing.
Of course the woman would have the super hearing.
Jamie: Honey, please take out the trash.
Mr. Summers: [sotto voce] (grumble grumble)
Jamie: I heard that!