Before Sandra Bullock Starred in 'Speed,' She Was the Swift 'Bionic Girl' in TV's 'Bionic Showdown'

A pre-"Speed" Sandra Bullock (far right) made her screen debut with Lee Majors (left) and Lindsay Wagner (middle) in "Bionic Showdown."Photo bymoviemeter.com

Before Sandra Bullock became a big-screen film star with movies like Speed (1994), she made her small screen debut as The Bionic Girl in the 1989 TV-movie, Bionic Showdown: The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman.

A Closer Look

Lee Majors and Lindsay Wagner created their respective Steve Austin and Jaime Sommer cybernetic superheroes in The Six Million Dollar Man (ABC) and The Bionic Woman (ABC/NBC) TV shows in the 1970s.

Following the cancelation of both Bionic series, Majors and Wagner reunited for a series of Bionic TV-reunion movies. The first, The Return of The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman, aired in 1987 on NBC. The final film that closed the trilogy, was Bionic Ever After?, which aired on CBS in 1994.

However, in between those two reunion films, Sandra Bullock made an appeared in NBC's Bionic Showdown, from 1989, in which she played Kate Mason, The Bionic Girl.

Sandra Bullock's Kate Mason, a.k.a. "The Bionic Girl," keeps a sharp eye in a scene from "Bionic Showdown."Photo byimdb.com

The Devious Plot

In Bionic Showdown, Steve and Jaime are stationed at the World Unity games, which takes place in Toronto, where Americans and the Russians are in competition. A diplomatic crisis arises after a Bionic infiltrator within the OSI, the U.S. governtment agency run by Oscar Goldman (Richard Anderson), Steve and Jaime's boss, threatens security at the Games.

Bullock's character, Kate Mason, is an athlete-turned-Bionic Girl who teams with The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman to thwart any potential evil threats at the Games.

While Steve has one bionic eye, and Jaime has one bionic ear, and they each have only one bionic arm, and two bionic legs, Kate Mason has a bionic implant that allows her all-encompassing bionic power throughout her entire body.

In Bionic Conclusion

It was Sandra Bullock's impression TV debut as Kate Mason, the Bionic Girl, that ultimately led to her superstardom on the big screen.