SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN: STRAIGHT ON 'TIL MORNING (TV)
Summary
One in this series of dramas about Steve Austin, an astronaut who was bionically reconstructed after a near-fatal crash and now possesses superhuman powers. In this episode, fifteen hours before a satellite launch, Steve spots a strange "blaze of lights" in the sky, similar to those he saw in space three years earlier. Four humanoid aliens crash in the ocean and swim to shore, but when they encounter a man, Ed Hermon, he receives painful radiation burns from a mere touch. Oscar doubts Steve's claims that a UFO has crashed in the ocean, but Steve heads to Denbow, Texas, where the sheriff explains that he too received many phone calls from scared citizens, adding that Ed was hospitalized with strange burns. The four aliens, revealed to be parents and their two children, are confused by their strange new settings, but when the police arrive and ignore their warnings to keep away, they are forced to flee into the desert. The father "protects" the family by projecting a mirage of the four of them running in the other direction, but Steve's bionic eye sees through the trick and he pursues the real family alone.
The police are baffled by the aliens' disappearance, but Steve continues to use his bionic abilities to evade the family's deterrents and finally locates them in a cave. The daughter, Minonee, uses her telepathy and realizes that Steve is "not like other humans," and she sadly tells him that her brother and parents are dying, having been sickened by their physical contact with humans. She explains that the ship he saw three years ago was a drone scout from "the second star to the right" and that she and her family, all of whom have different abilities, have come to find out if Earth is indeed habitable for her kind, which it clearly is not. Steve offers to help as Minonee frets that she cannot contact her people, sure that they will unwittingly send more of her kind to their deaths, and Sheriff Kemp is stunned when the telekinetic brother, Eymon, dies and vanishes into nothing before his eyes. With the parents also dead, Steve vows to help send Minonee back to her people in the satellite, which will launch in five hours.
Steve sneaks Minonee onto the base and tells her to use their lasers to communicate with her people and instruct them to intercept the satellite as it "disappears" around the dark side of the moon, but Oscar catches them and tells Steve that they must keep Minonee on Earth to study her. Steve protests that she has lost her entire family and will surely die if kept with humans, and he persuades Oscar to put aside his financial concerns and allow her to return home. Minonee expresses regret that her people cannot make a home on Earth, and Steve "makes room" in the capsule, aware that she has "a million to one chance" of making it safely back to her ship. She sincerely thanks him for his help, and the satellite blasts off on schedule, with the scientists noting that it is "lighter than expected." Later, the satellite mysteriously disappears as it passes around the moon, and it sends back a strange phrase, "straight on 'til morning," that only Steve recognizes as a message from the grateful Minonee. Commercials deleted.
Details
- NETWORK: ABC
- DATE: November 8, 1974 9:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:52:02
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: B:89348
- GENRE: Drama, fantasy/science fiction
- SUBJECT HEADING: Drama, fantasy/science fiction; Drama, action/adventure; Space aliens
- SERIES RUN: ABC - TV series, 1974-1978
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Harve Bennett … Executive Producer
- Joe L. Cramer … Producer
- Lionel E. Siegel … Producer
- Arnold F. Turner … Associate Producer
- Lawrence Doheny … Director
- D.C. Fontana … Writer
- Martin Caidin … Based on the novel by
- Oliver Nelson … Music by
- Lee Majors … Cast, Steve Austin
- Richard Anderson … Cast, Oscar Goldman
- Meg Foster … Cast, Minonee
- Cliff Osmond … Cast, Sheriff Bob Kemp
- Don Billett … Cast, Deputy Lohrman
- Kurt Grayson … Cast, Deputy Cockrell
- Lucas White … Cast, Deputy Packer
- Jimmy Lydon … Cast, Dr. Waters
- Robert Bruce Lang … Cast, 1st Technician
- John Clavin … Cast, Project Director
- Al Dunlap … Cast, Ed Hermon
- Christopher Mears … Cast, Eymon