Maximillion (fictional dog)

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Maximillion was a German Shepherd in the 3rd and final season of 1970s television series The Bionic Woman. He initially appeared in a two part episode entitled "The Bionic Dog". Subsequent appearances followed during the season, most notably an episode focusing on his kidnap, simply entitled 'Max'.

Max was an experiment to see if trained animals could benefit from bionics. The name Maximillion was coined as a result of a bionic project (legs and jaw) costing one million dollars. The legs enable Max to run at 90 MPH, making him the fastest legged being on the planet. He can also bite open a can of dog food and feed himself. Max's most famous feat of strength occurred when he witnessed an unpowered car uncontrollably rolling down a hill and prevented a predictable collision by biting on the rear bumper and bringing the vehicle to a stop.

Having suffered fire trauma as a pup, Maximillion had a fierce aversion to flames. Unfortunately, the OSI confused the dog's difficulty as an age related variant of bionic rejection. In a pivotal scene, Max appeared to reinforce that belief when he unexpectedly attacks a lab assistant that lights up a match in order to smoke a cigarette. This results in his schedule for termination, but he is saved by Jaime Sommers (the Bionic Woman). With her help, Max is able to overcome his pyrophobia, convince Oscar Goldman of his rehabilitation and become her loyal pet.

Maximillion subsequently became a recurring character during the final season of The Bionic Woman. ^[1] ^[2] ^[3] His fate is never revealed, but he did not appear in any of the Six Million Dollar Man/Bionic Woman reunion telefilms aired between 1987 and 1994, 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.^{[citation needed]}