I remember when this aired on TV back in the late 1970's. There must have been something special about this show for me to remember it all this time. As I remember, the pilot movie was the only thing shown on TV and it never went farther than that.
The story line was good, a collage professor, crippled by bad guys, develops a device to allow him to walk again and possibly help others. Then he designs this device in to an Exoskeleton suite of armor that encases him and he turns in to a crime fighter.
Yes, for the time the special effects were a bit cheesy and could have been done better. But it did give the look that the guy used what was available to him and had a bit of a blue collar feel to it.
Not like Iron Man who has a huge corporation with the newest and greatest top secret stuff he could use, that the military can't get it's hands on. I'm sure it could have been developed a bit more had it got to be a TV series. Being a pilot, I think people should cut it a little slack. With a pilot budget you work with what you've got.
The Star Trek pilot episode, the cage, wasn't all that good either and was never shown in it's entirety on TV until 1988. It was woven in to one of the series as the menagerie and a lot had changed from the pilot when it became a TV series.
I'm sure this would have happened to Exo-Man had it gone in to a series. Also for the time it came out, it was something new from what was on TV.
But Fate killed Exo-Man.
Exo-Man came out in 1977, the same year Star Wars came out.
Star Wars was such a hit and had so much excitement with both children and adults it changed everything. Seeing what was happening the TV networks wanted some of that action too and cash in on that excitement. I'm sure many TV projects got shelved in favor of shows like Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.
If Star Wars didn't happen, Exo-Man may have turned out to be a decant TV series. With an ordinary man, crippled by crime, becoming a crime fighting superhero type by building an Exoskeleton suite.
Maybe Stan Lee should have come up with this one or help turn it in to a comic
book superhero.
