Sandra Bullock Made Her TV Debut In An Awesome Sci-Fi Crossover Movie

Sandra Bullock spent most of her childhood on an army base in Germany, but didn't become interested in acting until she started attending high school in Virginia. The acting bug bit her hard, though, and she made it her passion, attending college to study the craft and getting a BFA in Drama. Like so many actors before her (and since), she moved to New York to follow her passions and worked as a bartender and a cocktail waitress while waiting for acting gigs to manifest. If you're ever in New York, be sure to bless your waiter or waitress with good luck; chances are, they have an audition that week. 

Bullock studied with Sanford Meisner and appeared in a few off-Broadway productions before landing her first major screen gig in 1987 at the age of 23. She played a supporting role in a little-seen actioner called "Hangmen," starring Rick Washburn. "Hangmen" is unremarkable, but it did lead to more film and TV jobs for Bullock, including the 1989 DTV movies "A Fool and His Money" and the class drama "Who Shot Pat?" That same year, Bullock also made her TV debut playing Kate Mason, a supporting player in "Bionic Showdown: The Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman." Kate Mason was bound to a wheelchair after an accident, and receives bionic implants that don't just allow her to walk, but run at superhuman speeds. 

"Bionic Showdown," of course, was a giant crossover/reunion event between "The Six Million Dollar Man" (1973-1978) and its own spin-off, "The Bionic Woman" (1976-1977), two of the more notable sci-fi shows of the decade. Lee Majors and Lindsay Wagner returned to play their respective bionic characters, Steve Austin and Jamie Sommers. For '80s kids who were raised on reruns of "Million" and "Bionic," the 1989 TV movie was a big deal. 

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.