TVSquad

No need to adjust your glasses at the title of this post. What we're talking about here is the inflation-adjusted price of the Bionic Man in the year 2008. This is according to CNNMoney.com, which looked at a number of pop culture icons and programs to see what the costs for various things would be. Using tools from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, they were able to put estimates not only the inflation adjusted costs but the actual cost in today's world.

Take Steve Austin, for instance. The six million dollars that it cost to make the former astronaut stronger and faster in 1974 would actually be an inflation-adjusted $26 million dollars today. Factor in the actual cost of the bionic parts, more than $100 million, and Steve would probably be stronger, not faster.

When someone remakes a TV show or a movie, they often go more serious or darker. Is it because producers and directors feel they have to go "serious" to justify a remake? Do we live in more cynical times? Do the producers feel that they can't make a quality show that also happens to be light?

Kenneth Johnson, the creator of the original Bionic Woman series in the '70s (a spinoff of The Six Million Dollar Man), tells the L.A. Times that he's worried about the remake. I guess I would, too, if an NBC exec called my show "kind of cheesy." Although Johnson has been impressed with the work of producer David Eick on Battlestar Galactica, he's not so sure they're doing the right thing with the remake of his show.