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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 258660" data-attributes="member: 23">The Deadly Missiles / Bionic Beauty <img src="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZTkwZDk5NDUtNTYxZS00YWY4LWFlZDItYzIzMTg4NDc0NDc2XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjA5MzIxNjQ@._V1_.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="width: 692px" /> It’s with some interest that I’ve clocked the juxtaposition between the pseudo-feminism of Jaime’s go-getting, kick-arse bravery and her interactions with men. These two episodes have seen her kissed, pawed and at times downright patronised by a series of men ranging from Oscar and Steve to her old tennis sponsor and various nasties. To be expected, perhaps. But it’s easy to imagine feminist hackles rising as Jaime’s reactions are frequently somewhere between tolerance and enjoyment. What’s more, as Oscar arrives to plant a big smacker on Jaime’s face, she’s using her bionic arm to aid in whipping up a lemon meringue pie, which is perhaps a delicately ladylike demonstration of pocket bionics in the series. These are also two consecutive episodes in which Jaime has been drugged. Not only do we see her chloroformed and then injected with sedative by the beauty pageant crooks (the latter of which was unsuccessful due to being administered to Jaime’s bionic arm), she was also given a Mickey Finn by her old friend and sponsor, J.T. Connors, who stood over her as she drank it while on her bed. Connors proved to be a very watchable character. A powerful Texan who Jaime is persuaded to check out when missiles are thought to have launched from his expansive estate. He seems like someone with very dark secrets, as shown by the secret base he refuses to let Jaime see, in which she later finds jamming technology. Forrest Tucker makes J.T. an imposing presence, and also - against the odds - a charismatic and likeable one. He’s like the Bioniverse’s very own Paul Galveston, complete with his own Empire Valley. J.T.’s son is said to have been killed a year earlier in an accident in an aviation accident about which J.T. is clearly furious. Could this be his motive?It’s also worth noting that J.T.’s political leanings are made explicit - Jaime comments that he’s “about this far to the right of Attila the Hun”, and J.T. agrees, responding that he doesn’t even put out his arm to signal a left turn. And he makes a comment about the current (Republican) government being too left wing. All of which serves to make him seem more threatening. Almost universally, “far right” is code for “dangerous”. And perhaps nowhere more than in Hollywood. Can Jaime save the world from such a threat?Well, no, as it turns out. She doesn’t need to. Because J.T. isn’t the threat. His second-in-command is ole Walt Driscoll from Dallas. Ben Piazza’s fairly low key presence was a bit of a red flag to me, and rightly so since he ended up putting not only J.T.’s and Jaime’s lives in jeopardy, but also Steve’s. Threatening the whole bionic franchise this way is the only thing that could possibly be more terrifying than a right wing Texan. It’s to the series’ credit that neither J.T.’s son’s death nor his political leanings are Chekhov’s gun elements. I was awaiting the revelation that J.T.’s son wasn’t dead after all, but simply dead in the same way as Jaime. By episode’s end, I expected him to appear, having been missing or hidden somewhere on J.T.’s estate or on a secret mission somewhere. But no. The story would work fine without these two elements. They add substance and flesh out the character. They tell us a little about his motives. And then they play against expectations. continued... </blockquote>

Verification: Who played Sue Ellen in Dallas?