Seriously, I think Deborski is mostly right about stereotyping of Soviets and Russians in American media, but there are a few notable exceptions.

The most surprising exception that I can recall from my own childhood is from a two-part episode of The Bionic Woman, in which the super-heroine Jaime Sommers (whose legs and right arm are robotic) teams with a Soviet spy to stop a planet-destroying "Doomsday Device" that is controlled by a super-intelligent talking computer called ALEX 7000. (Obviously, there was some ripping-off of Kubrick going on here!) Here's a six-minute summary of the 2-hour telefilm, which originally aired in 1977:



What's surprising is that even though The Bionic Woman was a rather silly sci-fi series that was popular with children and teenagers, the writers gave some dignity and complexity to the Soviet character, "Dmitri Muskov". Just like the American heroine Jaime Sommers, he loves his own country and basically believes in his country's system of government, while at the same time admitting that there are flaws in the system.

At the end of the story -- after the computer has been shut down -- Dmitri tells Jaime that he has a professional obligation to tell the Soviet government about her "bionic" super-abilities. And Jaime -- who works for a fictionalized version of the CIA -- lies to the US Army and CIA in order to give the Soviet agent time to escape.

In short, it presents a Soviet spy and an American spy who each recognize the other as "an honorable rival," not as a de-humanized villain. This was a bit unusual for American television, but all the more unusual, perhaps, because the show was certainly not aimed at a highly intellectual audience -- it was popular entertainment primarily for teenagers.

(It's also important to note the date of this made-for-TV movie -- 1977 came after the success of the SALT I / ОСВ-I talks, but before the Soviet movement into Afghanistan in December 1979.)