By Witney Seibold

Copyright slashfilm

Ambitiously, “Showdown” was also meant to serve as a backdoor pilot for Bullock’s character, Kate. Over the course of the movie, Kate becomes the fourth person alive to receive bionic implants. For those unfamiliar with “The Six Million Dollar Man” and “The Bionic Woman,” it began when Steve Austin was grievously injured in an airship crash and had multiple body parts replaced by ultra-powered robotic prosthetics. The six-million-dollar price tag was considered quite hefty at the time. “The Bionic Woman” was similar, seeing Jamie Sommers injured in a skydiving accident and revived with bionic body parts. Both of them essentially had superpowers, allowing them to run fast, lift heavy things, and either see or hear with astonishing accuracy. They both work for a secret government agency called OSI. The shows were incredibly silly, but golly, were they fun.

In “Bionic Showdown,” Kate receives implants and is immediately enlisted by OSI to investigate a mysterious Soviet plot. They put Kate undercover in an Olympics-like international sporting event, hoping to uncover what the bad guys might be up to. It all revolves around the Soviets trying to recruit bionic commandos of their own. Also, there’s an assassination plot against the (fictional) Soviet Foreign Minister.

Bullock gets to be the hero at the end of the movie, running at super speeds, hucking a shotput like a baseball, and throwing the film’s main villain off of a roof. These are all fun and impressive things for an actor this early in their career.

As we now know, Bullock didn’t get her own “Bionic Woman” series and moved on to other projects. In 1990, she landed the lead role in the short-lived “Working Girl” TV series instead. 1993 was a banner year for Bullock, as she starred in six feature films, including “Demolition Man” opposite Sylvester Stallone. The following year, she was in “Speed.” The rest of her career is very well known.