Corrected entry: Questions of the era-appropriateness of the bionics technology aside, there's another problem with the use of the bionic arm. Even assuming it was capable of developing a ton of lift or more at the elbow and wrist joints, that still doesn't strengthen his shoulder and back similarly. In any of the type of situation where he used it to lift up the back of a vehicle or similar, all that would happen would be that the arm would draw his upper body down with bionic strength - quite possibly smacking his face into whatever it was he was attempting to lift.
The Six Million Dollar Man (1974)
1 corrected entry in show generally
Starring: Lee Majors, Richard Anderson, Martin E. Brooks
Factual error: There is no physical way that Steve Austin could perform most of his superhuman feats of strength in the ABC television series, due to the fact that they simply replaced his arm and legs, but didn't rebuild or reinforce the rest of his skeleton and muscles to handle the physical loads. Interestingly, author Martin Caidin (creator of Steve Austin in his novel, "Cyborg") actually did describe an incredibly complex whole-body rebuild that included vertebral reinforcement and ribcage and pelvis replacement, which was far more scientifically-accurate than the subsequent ABC television interpretation. ABC only accepted the series on the condition that it was less technical for their audience.
Trivia: Longtime TV actor Lee Majors was extremely influential in the overall development of the "Six Million Dollar Man" series. Although he had already appeared in the 3 successful made-for-TV pilot movies in 1973, Majors was very skeptical of entering into a weekly series, and he wanted a guarantee that the show would not devolve into a campy superhero series (like "Batman"). Majors further stipulated that there should be no blood and no violent death on the show. Executive producer Harve Bennett, producer Kenneth Johnson, and ABC Television immediately agreed. Majors also thought the original "Six Million Dollar Man" theme song (sung by Dusty Springfield) was embarrassingly bad, so composer Oliver Nelson wrote the iconic instrumental theme for the series. Two years into the hit show, Majors then became concerned that his character, Steve Austin, would be perceived as gay because he never had an onscreen love interest; so Majors essentially demanded that a female character be added to fill that role. The producers complied without question. According to Lee Majors: "People were really getting to the point where it was like, 'When's this guy [Steve Austin] going to come out of the closet here?' That's when we brought in Lindsay Wagner to be the first love interest."
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Correction: Hindsight being 20/20, the era-appropriateness of the bionics technology is an unfair question, as the show is a 'near-future' construct, and we can't know exactly what the future will bring. As for the bionics-vs-human stresses, its a well-known fact that the human body is often capable of feats not considered possible by rational explanations. The TV series 'the Hulk' used the premise of super-human strength under duress as the reason for Banner's experiments. Non-bionic real humans have overturned cars with their bare hands in emergency situations. It's entirely possible this 'near-fture' bionic technology included something that tapped into such natural reserves, allowing Austin to use the arm at will, as seen.
johnrosa