“Aim high and serve nothing but aces”: (Re)-watching The Bionic Woman

[Barbara Fan]

I never watched The Bionic Woman @Mel O'Drama - it was deeemd "American rubbish" at home when i was younger so a no go!

But - in 2007 I did get the meet Lindsay Wagner and her lovely mum - and Linda Gray and Della Reece at the unveling of a Star to Linda Ex, Ed Thrasher on the Palm Springs walk of fame and got an invite to the after show party by the comittee! She was lovely, posed for photos, and signed autographs - I always said i would buy the box set when i got home - but never did! She had aged well and looked natural, her mum was lovely also.

 

[J. R.'s Piece]

Wow. That's a little mind-blowing. But I love that there are these hidden treasures and alternative versions.

I wonder which version will appear in my set.

The Bionic Woman syndicated versions of Kill Oscar part 2 also remove the second part of the closing end captions on, which says that the story is to be continued “On The Bionic Woman”. Plus the syndicated version of part 1 has it’s continuation “On The Six Million Dollar Man” caption removed.

The same thing happened with The Return of Bigfoot, where the second part, which started the second season of The Bionic Woman, was in syndication given to The Six Million Dollar Man series. And given SMDM titles. So in part 2, Lee Majors gets a starring and Special Appearance credit on The Bionic Woman and Lindsay Wagner doesn’t get a credit at all. Although the part 1 end caption that the story is continuing on The Bionic Woman is intact.

By the way, Lee Majors is said to have almost not done season five of The Six Million Dollar Man. Although he was reported to have a salary increase for the last season. Gil Gerard was under consideration. Another actor was turned on the basis of him not being considered to be able to play a believable action hero. He was Harrison Ford.

 

[J. R.'s Piece]

I never watched The Bionic Woman @Mel O'Drama - it was deeemd "American rubbish" at home when i was younger so a no go!

But - in 2007 I did get the meet Lindsay Wagner and her lovely mum - and Linda Gray and Della Reece at the unveling of a Star to Linda Ex, Ed Thrasher on the Palm Springs walk of fame and got an invite to the after show party by the comittee! She was lovely, posed for photos, and signed autographs - I always said i would buy the box set when i got home - but never did! She had aged well and looked natural, her mum was lovely also.

Steve Kanaly appeared in it. That name seems familiar.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

I never watched The Bionic Woman @Mel O'Drama - it was deeemd "American rubbish" at home when i was younger so a no go!

Ha ha. I don't suppose you told Lindsay that, did you?!

But - in 2007 I did get the meet Lindsay Wagner and her lovely mum - and Linda Gray and Della Reece at the unveling of a Star to Linda Ex, Ed Thrasher on the Palm Springs walk of fame and got an invite to the after show party by the comittee! She was lovely, posed for photos, and signed autographs

Oh, of course. Linda was Lindsay's aunt by marriage.

It's always good to hear that a celebrity is nice in person.

I always said i would buy the box set when i got home - but never did!

It's worth a look, BF. You might recognise a few faces.

​

 

[Mel O'Drama]

The Bionic Woman syndicated versions of Kill Oscar part 2 also remove the second part of the closing end captions on, which says that the story is to be continued “On The Bionic Woman”. Plus the syndicated version of part 1 has it’s continuation “On The Six Million Dollar Man” caption removed.

Oh, shame. I love anything that gets across the excitement of a crossover. It sounds like the differences between the syndicated vs. original transmission versions deserve their own documentary or bonus feature exploring them in more depth.

By the way, Lee Majors is said to have almost not done season five of The Six Million Dollar Man. Although he was reported to have a salary increase for the last season. Gil Gerard was under consideration.

What was the reasoning behind this? Had Lee had enough of the role?

Another actor was turned on the basis of him not being considered to be able to play a believable action hero. He was Harrison Ford.

Now there's a Universal memo that deserves to be framed and mounted.

 

[J. R.'s Piece]

It also explains why I felt a little thrill watching Dallas 2012 and seeing Lee Majors and Linda Gray together, seeing as Martha Scott had played their mother’s.

Lee Majors was said to be wanting to move on. Until he got a salary hike. Of course, he and Lindsay Wagner were also reunited on The Fall Guy.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Winning Is Everything

This is the third Bionic Woman episode written by James D. Parriott. In common with the earlier two - Angel Of Mercy and Bionic Beauty - he presents us with something of a stock episodic TV story. Following the obligatory South American escapade and the obligatory beauty pageant, Winning Is Everything is the obligatory Wacky Races episode.

As always, there’s a depth to the story that stops it from feeling too generic. Like Jack Starkey in Angel Of Mercy, racing driver Tim Sanders is cocky and blustery and not thrilled to have Jaime along for the ride at first. The chemistry between Jaime and Tim is almost as much fun as with Jack.

Tim’s arc of getting back on the circuit after a previous accident on the track left him gun-shy is what gives this episode most appeal. It’s not gripping, but there are enough layers to make this feel worth the investment. It’s implied that his arrogance is a front to mask his fear and Jaime is able to recognise this and highlight it (in overused-to-the-point-of-meaninglessness twenty-first century parlance, she “calls him out”). It’s fitting to the series’ themes that she does this. Jaime is no stranger to trauma, after all. But what I enjoyed was that she did this as one sports competitor to another. She recognises his “self psyche out” as a tennis player, not as a bionic super heroine who has returned from the dead. All of which makes this feel more human and accessible.

With Tim being younger than Jack Starkey, there’s also a hint of romance this time round. Whether this is an improvement is debatable. Personally, I don’t think it needed it. But John Elerick does have an attractive blend of rugged prettiness, so who can blame her.

Tim also got in on the bionic secret, so Jaime’s true to her track record of blowing her secret identity left, right and centre. Here Tim clocks her keeping ahead of a car shown to be doing 100mph while being shot at. Is this a bionic record? I seem to remember something about 60mph being the top speed, but it seems Jaime’s broken that by a considerable margin.

As far as other characters go, it possibly speaks volumes that most other competitors and figures with whom the couple come into contact aren’t given names, other than “Russian Woman”; “Bartender”; “Attendant” and so on. It could even be argued that there’s a thinly veiled hint of racism to the fact that the more foreign a person seems the greater the threat they present. However, such is the nature of such sporting events, and of espionage. And since this episode is based around both, it’s perhaps to be expected.

It’s tough to know how to sum this one up. I thoroughly enjoyed it while watching, but even as I watched I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was disposable, has little bearing on series continuity and it wouldn’t make a difference if I’d skipped it. I still feel that way- and the same can probably be said for many episodes in a series without heavy serialisation. But it also had a certain special something that made it worth the pit stop. Sometimes a piece of TV is best enjoyed for what it is: a fun way to pass fifty minutes. Winning Is Everything falls into that category, and is no worse for it.

 

[johnnybear]

The US Six Million Dollar Man season 4 set I have has part two of the Return of Big Foot (The premiere of the second season of The Bionic Woman) as an extra Or so I've read on the back of the box as I've not got around to watching it yet! Got half way through season two and decided to have a break and then my son wanted to watch The Incredible Hulk instead!
JB

 

[johnnybear]

I have The Six Million Dollar Man DVDs on the Region one releases but The Bionic Woman on the region 2 sets! The third season I have as a German release in a very big compact box and all you have to do is reset the language to English plus it is the best quality picture for the series or so I've read!
JB

 

[J. R.'s Piece]

Oh - I missed this before. It looks like my BW boxset has different packaging from yours. Mine has three chunky amaray cases (one per season) within a cardboard slipcase, like a smaller version of your SMDM set.

I think you may have the better deal there. The Bionic Woman complete collection doesn’t have any booklets and the packaging stacks multiple discs on top of each other. So sometimes to get to a particular episode, you may have to move three or four discs. Am thinking of getting the individual releases within the next few days. Update: Just ordered seasons 2 and 3 and they are arriving tomorrow.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Got half way through season two and decided to have a break and then my son wanted to watch The Incredible Hulk instead!

Another Kenneth Johnson series I've had sitting on my shelf for many years but haven't got round to watching in full.

The Bionic Woman complete collection doesn’t have any booklets and the packaging stacks multiple discs on top of each other. So sometimes to get to a particular episode, you may have to move three or four discs.

Even though I'm watching the set for the first time, I actually bought it back in 2015, so I must have been lucky to order it before the complete series boxset was repackaged.

Do you happen to know if The Six Million Dollar Man was also repackaged?

Am thinking of getting the individual releases within the next few days. Update: Just ordered seasons 2 and 3 and they are arriving tomorrow.

Assuming they're the same as the ones in my boxset, it's well worth it. The booklets are great, and the cases are very solidly made.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Canyon Of Death

​

Well, the men in silver spacesuits with bacofoil accessories had me a bit worried. Thank goodness it was quickly given a sensible real-world explanation.

The struggle between tradition and technology learning to live together seems most appropriate for a series about a schoolteacher with bionic implants. And what better way to juxtapose the clash between the new and the old than to have the airbase and its testing ground for space suits surrounded by Native American burial grounds.

And in a timely move, Jaime’s new student is a Native American keen to follow traditional ways. Paco is openly derided by Jaime’s students, with the most aggressive casual racism coming from the smallest, fairest - and perhaps whitest - kid in the class, Andrew: who happens to resemble the Milky Bar Kid. Far from the stereotypical image of a class bully, Andrew actually looks like the kind of kid who would be the target of bullies. Which perhaps gives a more nuanced picture. It’s also interesting to note that Andrew’s behaviour isn’t explicitly shown to be negative. His smart-mouthed quips are presented as some of the episode’s lighter moments, with no real repercussions for the persecutor. Which, again, is perhaps more truthful than another approach.

There are also solid elements of The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Paco is a compulsive liar, as his aunt discusses with Jaime (his aunt is none other than Cha-Cha from Grease. Though I convinced myself she was P. K. Kelly from Knots Landing). So when Paco sees genuine suspicious activity it naturally takes some convincing for people to believe him. Which is an opportunity to show Oscar and Jaime for the wise souls they are. They see the truth when not even Jaime’s nice co-worker Karen Stone would.

Paco becomes the latest addition to the lengthy list of people who know Jaime’s secret. In fact she performs bionic feats in front of numerous people here, not least the bad guys. And since their raison d’être during the whole episode is to sell secrets about technology to some very dodgy people, I can’t help wondering why nobody was more concerned.

As far as long-lasting effects from the episode: I don’t believe Paco will be seen again, which is a bit of a shame. The premise feels very much intended for a young audience to enjoy. Despite some welcome layers that keep it the right side of watchable, it doesn’t really rise above that. And for all its good intentions, any attempt to explore the complexities of Native American heritage in a fifty minute action show is going to be found wanting, particularly when episodic television demands a resolution. It’s not a failure, though. When it comes to the question of living in harmony, things are left decidedly open-ended. Which is certainly preferable to being spoon-fed answers.

As for the battle between tradition and technology. Well, the scoundrel in the spacesuit is brought down. But only due to Jaime’s bionics. Perhaps the message is one of compromise: that technology can only be a good thing when tempered by human wisdom and understanding.

 

[J. R.'s Piece]

I did buy the (was it Playback?) DVD releases years ago. They released seasons 1 and 2 of both The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman. The SMDM pilot episodes were the syndicated two part versions, complete with Rudy number three on the opening titles in adventures with Rudys number 1 and 2. Plus the episodes were expanded to the correct running time with footage pulled from other episodes. The Bionic Woman two parter was edited into one double-length episode. The Bionic Woman season 2 DVD set was missing The Return of Bigfoot. And the SMDM: Kill Oscar part 2 was given opening and closing titles from The Bionic Woman and Lee Majors was credited as being a guest star.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

I did buy the (was it Playback?) DVD releases years ago. They released seasons 1 and 2 of both The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman.

Thanks for this. I too used to own the Playback DVDs, but couldn't remember much about which versions they used, apart from The Bionic Woman episodes of SMDM, which I remember being one feature-length episode. It was a novelty to see the recaps this time round.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Fly Jaime / The Jailing Of Jaime

​

After a couple of workaday episodes, these two feel a little more expansive and high stakes. They’re almost cinematic in scope - if not budget.

Fly Jaime is apparently an almost shot-by-shot remake of an early SMDM episode, Survival Of The Fittest, with Jaime and Rudy standing in for Steve and Oscar respectively. Those similarities don’t leap out to the uninitiated (or those of us who haven’t watched the SMDM episode for many years). What’s more noticeable is the inspiration from another Universal property: the Airport films. And no doubt this episode made good use of Universal’s aeroplane interior sets from the films.

Many of the stock characters are there on board the plane: the missionary; the alcoholic who has turned his back on his calling; the passenger with the secret; the anxious one…

Here, as there, things start going wrong with bad weather, turbulence, lighting strikes and unconscious crew.

Perhaps more than even Airport, these stereotypes and situations conjure up images of the Zucker brothers spoof Airplane!, which mocked these familiar tropes to the point that it’s impossible to take the original material as seriously as intended.

Coming between Airport 1975 and Airport ’77, and some years before Airplane!, Fly Jaime mostly plays it closer to the source material’s earnestness (which serves to make scenes such as the passengers leaning left to right in their seats as the plane suddenly moves seem even funnier). However, it does contain perhaps the series’ broadest comic relief character yet in Vito Scotti as inept Latin lover Romero, who lusts after Jaime at every opportunity. There’s also an Airplane!-worthy scene in which turbulence knocks Jaime into Romero’s lap as she is serving packed lunches. He gropes her leg, asking if there’s something he can do for her. Smacking his hand she tells him he can “get your hands off my ham and cheese”. It’s a funny moment, nicely played and made me think that Avengers-type innuendo is quite a good fit in moderation.

The second half of the episode switched hats to the “stranded on a desert island” scenario. I find there to be an inherent cosiness to this situation, with the campfire crackling and a sense of camaraderie as the well muck in to help the injured, retrieve firewood, and so on.

There’s a welcome callback to the similarly “stranded in the wild” episode Angel Of Mercy where Jaime once again gave a snake the bionic heave-ho, even down to a reprisal of her “I hate snakes” mantra. It’s a nice bit of character continuity.

continued...​

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Fly Jaime / The Jailing Of Jaime​

(continued)​

In common with The Jailing, Fly Jaime had a tangible undercurrent of not being sure who to trust. There was a nice reveal of a co-conspirator as the sweet little old missionary turned out to be not so sweet. Jaded twenty-first century viewers might be a little less surprised at this turn of events, but I greatly appreciated this attempt to play against the obvious. The sense of the characters’ isolation and vulnerability came across strongly.

Fly Jaime’s “in on the secret” character was Marlowe, the alcoholic doctor who came through and helped save Rudy’s life with the help of Jaime’s bionic soldering finger. The connection between the characters felt appropriate as it seems to foreshadow Christopher Stone’s later appearances in the series in a different role.

The Jailing Of Jaime meanwhile got across that sense of the walls closing in as Jaime is falsely accused. It helps that we’ve accompanied Jaime on her routine assignment to meet a General friend of Oscar’s and witnessed everything she has. So we’re in on the sense of confusion that comes when accusations start to fly the next day. It sets wheels turning about who can and who cannot be trusted. It even crossed my mind - even though there’s no indication that Jaime is thinking it - that we don’t really even know Oscar too well.

It’s an interesting experience to see Jaime becoming a pawn of a larger game, not knowing why or who is behind it, much less able to prove her innocence. There’s a scene in which she’s brought before an official, and the dynamics of power through withheld information are tangible. As Jaime is questioned, with Oscar alongside her, a uniformed officer comes in and whispers to another. It could be innocuous, but in this situation everything is fraught with meaning.

More than Fly Jaime, The Jailing is filled with twist after twist as more people are revealed to be in on the conspiracy. One red flag for me was the General Jaime met, since I mistook actor Philip Abbott for Sandy Ward, who I associate with sinister roles (Dallas’s Jeb Ames not least).

Even as Jaime broke out of her cell, I knew objectively it could go very badly for her case. But what’s a bionic woman to do? There was a nice edge to her character here, as she spoke back to the guard who initially refused her request for food. This was carried over into the final act as she locked herself and the person she’d found to be behind it all in a safe rigged with explosives, threatening him with certain death unless he gave her the evidence she needed. It’s an extreme, but it felt right here.

For all its faults - which are common to most episodes and are down to production aspects such as clearly recycled footage of bionic hearing not matching up, or Jaime’s visible stunt double - The Jailing Of Jaime is a well-structured intelligently written piece that engages the audience. There are no liberties taken in resolving the situation. The “t”s are crossed and the “i”s dotted.

Not only does the situation feel genuinely challenging for Jaime, once she escapes and becomes a fugitive we see how resourceful she genuinely is. She takes it upon herself to tackle head-on a situation which looks impossible. The outcome may be inevitable with episodic Seventies sci-fi, but it feels as though Jaime has genuinely earned her happy denouement and that slightly cheeky phone call with Henry Kissinger.

 

[johnnybear]

I have both the UK version and US region one sets of The Six Million Dollar Man and I noticed an oddity on Day of The Robot. The US disc is better quality and the colour is better while the UK is grainier and the opening credits are in a different position! I can't recall which is which but one has the credits after the initial teaser and the other before!!!
JB

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Mirror Image

Let’s see: the blonde heroine is kidnapped and replaced by a Southern woman who’s had plastic surgery to become an exact double. It’s your basic precursor to Krystle in the attic.

Except Jaime isn’t locked in an attic. She’s drugged, put into a large wooden crate attached to an anchor and thrown into the Atlantic. These guys don’t mess around.

The Frankenstein who created Jaime II is Dr Courtney, AKA Dallas's Matt Devlin. There’s something about Don Porter that I find unsettling in a way I can't quite pinpoint. But then I always feel bad for feeling that way as he (Don) seems so nice. All of which means I’m conflicted. It’s ideal casting, really.

A blessing of this story is that it moves quickly. It could have been padded out to two or even three stories. Instead it’s condensed goodness as the conventions of the doppelgänger story are quickly ticked off one by one: the unravelling of the bandages from the face; the reveal in the hand held mirror; the dialect coaching… and so on.

I’d assumed most of the episode would be Lisa impersonating Jaime at OSI but was pleasantly surprised when she was caught out quite early on in the piece and the story became about the turnaround, with Jaime pretending to be Lisa in order to smoke out her contacts. Only for another twist on the story to come when Lisa escapes and two identically-dressed Jaimes are running round the same building, eventually coming face-to-face.

As Lisa, Lindsay’s Georgia accent sounds delightfully iffy, but at least it makes sense when Jaime attempts the accent and it’s even more iffy, but nobody notices.

Lindsay does nice work though. Her frosty smirks and overconfidence as Lisa-doing-Jaime are subtle, but just enough to create a different energy. There are times when some of her little mannerisms could have been more different - some of the small moments of Lisa-doing-Jaime were a bit too natural and accurate, especially the interactions with Oscar.

The real fun came for me in the Jaime-doing-Lisa scenes. Smoking cigarettes badly; being shocked when Lisa’s boyfriend passionately kissed her; trying to work out what Lisa’s natural accent was; bluffing her way round a strange building with which she was supposed to be familiar. There’s something about them that helped me appreciate Jaime - and Lindsay - even more. The writing was good, and these moments ticked all the boxes of enjoyment that a doppelgänger story should tick.

It’s a nice touch that Lisa Galloway smokes, even if it partially spoilt Lindsay’s wholesome image for me (I assume she smoked in real life to be able to smoke naturally on-screen). It’s also a pretty bold move considering how verboten it seemed to be during this era, and I suppose the series got to have its cake and smoke it by associating nicotine use with villainy.

That’s far from the most boldest aspect here though. There’s a scene in a bar where Jaime is approached by a patron who buys her a drink and asks if she’s in business, to which she naïvely answers in the affirmative, not quite getting the implication at first, only for him to become handsy, and then annoyed when she bionically rebuffs him. I’ve long thought of the series as one aimed at children, so having the lead mistaken for a sex worker seems that much more edgy.

The devil’s in the detail, as always, and I loved the little touch of Jaime sunbathing on holiday only to discover that her bionic skin doesn’t tan.

 

[johnnybear]

Everybody smoked back in the day sadly! It was the in thing to do and was even encouraged!
JB

 

[J. R.'s Piece]

I have both the UK version and US region one sets of The Six Million Dollar Man and I noticed an oddity on Day of The Robot. The US disc is better quality and the colour is better while the UK is grainier and the opening credits are in a different position! I can't recall which is which but one has the credits after the initial teaser and the other before!!!
JB

Ah! Lloyd Bochner is Special Guest Star in that. With John Saxon. And it was the first of the Robot Maker episodes. Loved those three episodes, with Henry Jones. UK release has teaser, then credits. I’ve had that sort of thing happen for the US Universal and UK ITC co-production, Court Martial, starring Bradford Dillman and Peter Graves. Started life as a colour Kraft Theater presentation with Lee Marvin. Then a series at Pinewood Studios. Some copies of the same episode have a teaser pre-credits and others have the titles before the teaser.