The Best and Worst of "The Bionic Woman"

Now that I’ve bought and watched all three seasons, I can rate them.  Of course, I never would have bought them had I not already been a fan.  Here, then, are my top 25, which is nearly half of the episodes made.  Some of them are two-parters, and one is even a three-parter, split up between The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman shows.  You’ll note that most of these favorites are weighted towards the first two seasons, and aside from the very last episode, my favorites from the third season (all three of them, ha!) center around Max, the bionic dog that was introduced.  That’s because it’s not such a bad idea, and had some potential.  You may also discover that, with just one exception, that the ten episodes I named as the worst are all from the third season!  This is why it was, by far, the worst season of the series, and why you can’t really blame it all on the bionic dog stories. 

1.      The Bionic Woman I & II

The episodes of The Six Million Dollar Man that started it all!  Bionic astronaut Steve Austin hooks up with an old flame, tennis star Jaime Sommers, rekindles his feelings for her, and then tragedy strikes when she’s in a skydiving accident!  Steve convinces his boss Oscar Goldman to spend the money to make her bionic as well.  Now he has someone to run with across the countryside at 60 mph!  However, tragedy strikes again when Jaime rejects her bionics and dies!  Well, this IS episodic television!  They can’t have a character like that messing up the format of the show!

2.      The Return of the Bionic Woman I & II

When “The Bionic Woman” episodes of The Six Million Dollar Man aired, the ratings went through the roof!  So the powers that be decided she needed to be resurrected.  Her last appearance ended with her death, so the writers had to start there!  Lo and behold, and unbeknownst to Steve and the viewing audience, shortly after she died, a brilliant specialist named Michael came up with a miracle cure.  It worked, and in this two-parter, Steve finds out about it.  Yet Jaime lost her memory and doesn’t remember him.  A trip to their old home town of Ojai, California does the trick, but then she starts to remember her bionic rejection and death.  After almost bungling an assignment with Steve, she decides it’s best if they part ways.

3.      Welcome Home Jaime I & II

Jaime gets her own series with this two-parter:  Oscar sets her up as a teacher at an Air Force base, and then sends her on her first mission investigating an old friend and businessman Carlton Harris, who might just be trading in government secrets!

4.      Angel of Mercy

The first actual episode of The Bionic Woman completely separate from The Six Million Dollar Man paved the way for many of the show’s strengths.  Jaime is sent on a mission to a South American country to rescue a U.S Ambassador and his family.  Guest star Andy Griffith, as gruff helicopter pilot Jack Starkey, doesn’t understand why this frail young woman is sent on such a dangerous assignment, and dogs her every step of the way.  Before the end, though, she shows him what she is really capable of, as not only a bionic OSI agent, but also a woman, and Starkey changes his tune by the end of the episode.  This was followed up with guest starring roles by Donald O’Conner in the light-hearted episode “A Thing of the Past” and Tippi Hedren showing up next in “Claws,” and in my opinion, loading their episodes down with some movie and TV stars was probably a great way to get the whole thing rolling!

5.      Bionic Beauty

This is a personal favorite.  When we were kids, we had a lot of fun with an old tape recorder, and my brother and I redid this episode on a cassette tape with lots of great jokes!  This was the first of a series of episodes where Jaime goes undercover.  Here, she is Ms. California in a beauty pageant, all to catch the MC trying to smuggle a computer chip.

6.      Jaime’s Mother

It’s soap opera territory when Jaime’s real mother shows up, and Jaime can’t resist showing off her bionics.  But is it really her mother, a former spy for the government, or an old imposter and look-alike?  Whoever she is, she’s on the run, and may just decide to sell Jaime and her bionics to the highest bidder!

7.      Fly Jaime

Jaime goes undercover as a stewardess to protect Dr. Rudy Wells, the medical genius who made both her and Steve bionic.  With renegade agents about, things only get worse when the plane crashes on an island!

8.      The Jailing of Jaime

More than any other, this just may be the definitive episode of the first season.  It is well written, with a lot of action, and a lot of chances for Jaime to use what Oscar and Rudy gave her when she is set up as a patsy after an item she delivered turns up missing.

9.      Mirror Image

A light-hearted, comedic episode that still packs a dramatic punch!  Wagner pulls double duty as Jaime, on vacation and abducted and left for dead so that her double, Lisa Galloway, can take her place.  Wagner does a tremendous job playing both Jaime and Lisa, including the tricky performance of Lisa pretending to be Jaime, and later Jaime attempts to get the bottom of it all by pretending to be Lisa.  When they both wind up in the same place, it’s both exciting and rather funny!

10.  The Ghost Hunter

Some of the first season episodes were okay, but rather forgettable, such as “The Deadly Missiles,” “Winning Is Everything,” and “Canyon of Death”.  This one is slightly more interesting.  In “The Ghost Hunter”, Jaime tries to get to the bottom of spooky occurrences surrounding an OSI scientist and his daughter Amanda, played by Kristy McNichol.  When the ghost is uncovered to be Amanda’s subconsciousness revealed through telekenesis, and she sees Jaime as a threat to her relationship with her father, Jaime must use all her bionic strength to combat Amanda’s powerful mind. 

11.  The Return of Bigfoot I & II

Season two began with this two-parter that was started on The Six Million Dollar Man.  Stephanie Powers and Sandy Duncan guest star as two aliens previously introduced on Lee Major’s show in which Bigfoot was revealed to be an alien robot, here played by Ted Cassidy of Addams Family fame (Lurch).  A splinter group from the alien camp is misusing the Sasquatch, and when Steve suffers from severe radiation poisoning, Jaime must go up against the large, shaggy automaton.  The whole thing is silly kid’s stuff, of course, but while Major’s plays it straight, Wagner’s more light-hearted, humorous touch suited the material much better! 

12.  In This Corner, Jaime Sommers

Jaime goes undercover as a female wrestler to catch a group of them dealing with foreign agents, including Mr. Roper from Three’s Company (Norman Fell)!

13.  Assault on the Princess

It’s danger on the high seas when Jaime goes undercover on a luxury cruise ship as a stowaway with mad card dealing skills.  There, she romances the captain, tries to find some missing, and very valuable and volatile, energy cells, and is humorously pursued amorously by Vito Scotti as Romero, a comical Italian character introduced in the episode “Fly Jaime”.

14.  Road to Nashville

Hoyt Axton guest stars as country singer Buck Buckley.  The OSI puts Jaime’s bionic hearing to good use as she goes undercover as an aspiring up and coming female country singer to find out how secret messages are being delivered to foreign agents through Buck’s music. 

15.  Kill Oscar I, II & III

This is the silly but fun three-parter that introduced the menacing Fembots, used years later by none other than Austin Powers!  John Houseman plays the insane Dr. Franklin, who begins infiltrating OSI headquarters with duplicates of Rudy’s and Oscar’s secretaries, Lynda Rosand and Peggy Callahan, all in order to get his hands on a weather control machine for world domination.  Dr. Evil would be so proud!  Jaime is severely injured when she fights the Fembots of Lynda and Callahan, and Steve Austin joins in during the second hour on his show, and has a big knock-down, drag-out with a robot made to look like Oscar.  In the end, Steve and Jaime risk life and limb at Franklin’s South American facility, fighting hurricane conditions and Fembots in order to save the captured Oscar, Lynda, and Callahan.

16.  Black Magic

Another funny episode, this one has an all star cast!  The inventor of a top secret formula dies, and one of his family members puts it on the black market.  While the family gathers at his remote island estate for the reading the will, Jaime goes undercover as a distant relative in order to get her hands on the formula.  The rest of the family members are a bunch of cutthroat goons, and the cast includes Vincent Price as both the deceased man and his loathsome brother, William Windom, Julie Newmar, Abe Vigoda, and Hermione Baddeley.

17.  Sister Jaime

In this satisfying episode, Jaime goes undercover in a convent in order to catch smugglers exchanging diamonds for heroin.  Once the Mother Superior and the rest of the nuns find out about what is going on right under their noses, they help Jaime carry out her mission. 

18.  Doomsday is Tomorrow I & II

Perhaps the best episode of the entire series, even if it is derivative of 2001: A Space Odyssey!  In order to force peace upon the world, a brilliant scientist develops a bomb that will destroy the world, and it will be deployed any time it detects evidence of nuclear testing.  Unperturbed by this threat, the Russians test a nuclear warhead, setting off a chain reaction.  When the scientist dies, Jaime must use all her bionic skill to battle the facility’s defenses, controlled by the calm and logical supercomputer ALEX7000, in order to stop the countdown to Armageddon!  This one is quite thrilling and thought provoking from beginning to end!

19.  Deadly Ringer I & II

Jaime finds herself in the middle of a total nightmare!  Not only is Jaime Sommers look-alike Lisa Galloway back, but Jaime is abducted, drugged, and put in Lisa’s cell.  Lisa and her benefactor, Dr. Courtney, believes that the source of Jaime’s strength is an unstable drug called Adrenalizine, and Lisa plays courier for Dr. Courtney, stealing more of this substance for him, and taking it herself.  While Lisa begins taking over Jaime’s life, Jaime can’t seem to convince anyone, not even Oscar, who she really is, and must attempt a prison break in a drugged state before a scheduled plastic surgery would give her Lisa’s old face.  Meanwhile, Lisa begins feeling the fatal side effects of the drug she is taking, and Jaime must eventually have a showdown with her to save them both!

20.  Jaime and the King

Many of the season two episodes were rather blasé or unremarkable, including “The Vega Influence” (which is merely one step away from being downright bad), the substandard and unexciting two-parter “Jaime’s Shield,” the heavy-handed “Biofeedback” that uses decidedly eastern spiritualistic ideas Lindsay Wagner is into, “Beyond the Call,” and “Iron Ships and Dead Men.”  This one, “Jaime and the King,” is only slightly better.  Jaime goes undercover as the private tutor of a young Prince from a Middle Eastern country, secretly hired to be his protector.  The boy, played by Lance Kerwin, seems smitten, yet both he and his father treat Jaime as a second class citizen since she is a woman.  In the end, she proves to them she is far more than just a woman!

21.  The DeJon Caper

This one and “Once a Thief” pair Jaime up with comedic con-men.  Of the two, I preferred this one a little bit more, probably due to the writing, the location in France, and René Auberjonois (Odo from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), who here plays art forger Pierre Lambert.  Sent to help Jaime capture the man paying Pierre to forge art for him, he amusingly tries to give Jaime the slip several times, but eventually comes to realize she is too smart, and fast, for him! 

22.  The Bionic Dog I & II

This two-parter that begins the third season introduces the bionic dog, Maxamillion, and it’s not an altogether bad concept, especially the way it is introduced.  Max is a prototype Rudy created, a German Shepherd who Rudy estimates is going through some weird new form of bionic rejection.  Playing the bad guy in this instance, he plans to euthanize Max and perform an autopsy to find out what the problem is.  Jaime develops an instant connection with Max, comes to realize he is merely depressed, and when neither Rudy nor Oscar is willing to listen, she goes on the run and takes Max with her.  Eventually, she discovers that his erratic behavior is caused by his dislike of fire, since it was a fire that injured him to begin with.  In the end, Max runs straight into a forest fire, and Jaime and her old flame Roger, now a Forest Ranger, go looking for him.  Max must eventually conquer his fear of fire to save Jaime and Roger before they die of smoke inhalation. 

23.  Max

This one shows what a whole series centered around Max might have been like.  Max is being cared for by Valerie, an OSI scientist, and her nephew Bobby, played by Christopher Knight (Peter from The Brady Bunch).  In order to learn the secret of stable bionics, foreign agents attempt to kidnap Max.  When Valerie and Bobby get in their way, the foreign agents plan to dispose of them.  Can Max use his bionics to save them all?

24.  Which One Is Jaime?

Another Max episode, this is the only other one to use this concept to positive effect, and this time, Jaime and Callahan are involved.  While Callahan is dog-sitting for Jaime, kidnappers mistake her for Jaime, thinking she is bionic and worth a fortune to foreign buyers.  Just when they begin to suspect they’ve got the wrong woman, Max shows up, displaying bionic skill, and giving them a new target.  Using Callahan as a lure, they manage to capture the real Jaime Sommers.  Now Max must save them all once again!

25.  On the Run

This was a great way to end the entire series, but it was, unfortunately, bungled, showing once and for all the low quality that had invaded the third season!  While on assignment to protect the daughter of a diplomat, Jaime’s bionic arm is injured with exposed wires, and scaring the little girl to tears.  When the little girl later calls Jaime “The Robot Lady,” Jaime decides it’s time for her to leave the OSI.  Oscar is more than willing to allow this, but the government then decides that Jaime can never leave: She knows too many government secrets, is herself government property, and as a civilian, would be in too much danger from government enemies intent on kidnapping a bionic agent.  When they come to put her into a special compound for retired agents, she makes a run for it and is branded a fugitive.  In the end, she caves and works out a deal.

The Bottom Ten:

1.      The Night Demon

Horribly bad special effects and Indian spiritual mumbo-jumbo severely mar this otherwise forgettable dud from the second season.  Jaime’s rancher friend, Thomas Bearclaw, is menaced by some half-animal demon after discovering some ancient carving on his property.  Effects like the one in this picture were used to obscure the bad projection of a guy in an animal costume.  Scooby Doo, Where Are You?

2.      Fembots In Las Vegas I & II

The last thing this series needed was to bring back the Fembots, especially with a plot like this, having to do with Fembot chorus girls negotiating with some scientist confined to  a sterile environment about some energy ray weapon he had developed.  Turns out the man behind the Fembots this time is the disgruntled son of John Houseman’s Franklin, and Jaime discovers in the end that he too was actually a Fembot… Robot… whatever!

3.      Motorcycle Boogie

An attempt at stunt casting in this one only managed to show how horrible of an actor Evel Knievel really is!  Wagner does what she cans to salvage this episode, and there’s some cute dialogue and okay bike stunts, but it’s not nearly enough. 

4.      Escape to Love

The writers and producers did a pretty good job at the beginning of the third season placing Jaime in some interesting hours of television.  These episodes are okay, but don’t really stand out either.  Episodes such as “Rodeo,” “African Connection,” “Brain Wash,” “Over the Hill Spy,” “All for One,” “Long Live the King,” and “Rancho Outcast” are neither great, nor horrible.  “Escape to Love” could have been just like them as Jaime goes behind the Iron Curtain to rescue the teenage son of a defector, except that the son, Sandor, played by Mitchell Laurance, is such a wishy-washy, love-struck, starry-eyed, brain-dead “damsel in distress,” the episode actually winds up at the top of the worst list for this pathetic character alone!  In at least three instances, he either spinelessly freezes or deliberately gives himself over to the Russians to be used as a pawn, making Jaime’s job almost impossible, despite her attempts at useless pep-talks.

5.      The Pyramid

Jaime and her new boyfriend Chris end up in some underground cavern where some ancient alien, who is actually an old man in a tunic using a small, brain-shaped crystal, is trying to contact his spaceship, and is telepathically commanding some sort of supernatural Inca Warrior to battle with the bionic babe.  Jinkies, it’s bad!  It looks like an episode of Land of the Lost!

6.      The Antidote

Although some of the best episodes of the third season may surprisingly center around the bionic dog, this one shows that this was also not a sure thing.  Jaime and a Russian diplomat are poisoned, and it’s up to new boyfriend Chris and Max to find an antidote, and expose and subdue the bad guys.  The writing and editing are atrocious!

7.      The Martians Are Coming, The Martians Are Coming

More excruciatingly awful special effects tarnish this episode that already had problems!  When Oscar sees Rudy abducted by a UFO, Jaime uncovers the truth.  It’s a holographic projection over a helicopter.  Aside from the horrible, unexciting storyline, just imagine how ridiculous this might look even if they had the money to afford some half-way decent effects.  Then consider that they didn’t!  It looks like Saturday morning television; remember Shazam and Isis?

8.      Sanctuary Earth

A young Helen Hunt – you heard that right, Helen Hunt, of Mad About You and As Good As It Gets – plays Princess Aura from the planet Zorla, who tries to hide from inter-galactic hunters by shrinking herself down to fit inside a small Earth space satellite.  Jaime is the first one at the crash site, and Princes Aura convinces Jaime of her story by shrinking down and standing next to the telephone receiver and waving to her.  Then mute, alien hunters show up, played by those identical twins from Hee-Haw, and capture them in a bionic-proof force field (darn!).  Then it’s Max to the rescue, using his bionic jaw to crush the device causing the force field, and helping Jaime get rid of the Hee-Haw twins and save alien Helen Hunt!  Need I say more as to why this is one of the worst?  

9.      Deadly Music

Right after the success of Jaws, I believe they had a meeting with the studio that went something like this:  “Yeah, yeah, well, did you see that killer shark picture?  That thing made a hundred million dollars!  People love killer shark stuff!  Do a story about killer sharks!  You can’t miss!”  So they stuck a few stunt people in scuba gear and shot them in some murky water, got a few close-ups of the divers with some sharks, cut in some more footage of sharks swimming around, included a close-up or two of a bionic punch to a shark head, and then dubbed in some ADR from Wagner and the other actors.  And voila!  A piece of crap!

10.  Out of Body

Did we really need even more Indian spiritual mumbo-jumbo?  When Tommy Littlehorse, a new Native American boyfriend of Jaime’s, is electrocuted and slips into a coma, his wandering spirit visits Jaime and helps her solve the mystery surrounding his electrocution.  Somehow, I get the feeling even Native American Indians would be appalled at the story-line.

     So, to sum up, the show had a pretty good run, especially in the first few seasons, and only failed when the third season started adding too many Native American legends, new age spiritualism, chorus girl Fembots, hokey aliens, and sharks.  Surprisingly, it wasn’t really the bionic dog that did it!  Not that the bionic dog episodes wound up in the top ten episodes for the entire series – in fact, none of the season 3 episodes would be in the top ten – but three of the episodes featuring Max were at least among the top 25!  Even the ones that didn’t make it into the top 25, such as “A Thing of the Past,” “Claws,” “Biofeedback,” and most of the season three episodes that weren’t in the bottom ten were still rather enjoyable hours of television.  I won’t be buying all the Six Million Dollar Man box sets because I was never really into that show over the years like I was The Bionic Woman.  But I’m glad I collected all The Bionic Woman shows on DVD – perhaps even season three; if nothing else, then at least for the episodes that weren’t the absolute worst!