Maximillian
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- You may also be looking for the episode, Max
| Played by Bracken | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
| Maximillian/Maximillion | ||
| Family | Jaime Sommers, owner | |
| Appearances | ||
| SMDM | none | |
| BW | "The Bionic Dog" "The Bionic Dog (Part II)" "Escape to Love" "Max" "The Pyramid" "The Antidote" "The Martians Are Coming, the Martians Are Coming" "Sanctuary Earth" "Which One Is Jaime?" "On The Run" | |
| Reunion | Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman (mentioned) | |
Maximillian or Maximillion — often called simply "Max" — is a dog equipped with bionic legs and a bionic jaw. Max was donated for laboratory use at the age of four months, and was critically injured in a chemical lab fire. At a time when Dr. Rudy Wells needed to test his bionic prototype, Max was the strong-willed animal that the OSI was looking for. The bionic implantation procedure for the dog cost one million dollars, but made him the fastest animal alive, running at 90mph. He was also equipped with a bionic jaw that could tear through metal if necessary.
Having been confined to the West Coast Lab Kennel for observation for four years, Max appeared to experience a new kind of bionic rejection that comes with age. As such, Max was scheduled for dissection to research this serious potential health threat to the OSI's human cyborgs. However, Jaime Sommers discovered the problem was actually latent mental trauma from being endangered in a fire as a puppy, giving him pyrophobia fierce enough to have him lash out at anyone handling any kind of flame. Eventually, Sommers was able to help Max conquer his psychological difficulty, then convince Oscar Goldman of Max's true state of health and she adopted the dog after their first mission together; he subsequently became a recurring character during the third and final season of The Bionic Woman, including an appearance in the final episode.
Even before the mental health issue was resolved, Max was still a dog ready to perform heroic deeds when needed. His most famous feat was when he saw an unpowered car with a child inside rolling down a hill, set to inevitably collide with something with deadly force. Max immediatley pursued the car, grabbed the rear bumper with his jaws and used his legs' considerable strength to bring the vehicle to a stop. He also was unusually intelligent, considering he was able to feed himself by simply finding available dog food cans at his home and bite them open for the contents with his jaw.
His fate after the end of the series has never been revealed, however Rudy Wells did make a reference to the German Shephard to Steve Austin in his lab in Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman stating that after Max, he went back to the drawing board and made quite a few break-throughs in bionics since Steve's day. Though he is not present, Max is presumably deceased by the time of the reunion films a decade later. If still alive, Max would be at or near 15 years old, an unusually long life span for a German Shepherd.
