“We can rebuild her. We have the technology.We can make her better than she was before: better, stronger, faster.”
And so begins the career of Jaime Sommers, The Bionic Woman (1976-1978). A tennis pro nearly killed in a skydiving accident, she is rebuilt and becomes an agent for the Office of Scientific Intelligence a fictional and secret branch of the CIA and working for the fantastically bureaucratic Oscar Goldman.
(As a matter of note: this Agent actually had a Bionic Woman Halloween costume one year. Complete with blue jumpsuit, face mask and elastic armband to expose the arm’s “circuitry”)
Hmmm, so what is there to say about this show? That it was as silly and ridiculous as the “Six Million Dollar Man”? At least it had good company.
Mostly it was about Jaime poking around in a situation (which I suppose the writers would have you believe is investigating), getting drugged/knocked unconscious, kidnapped, and then using her super strength to escape. Oh! And there was the pop-culture rise of Jaime’s nemesis: The FEMBOTS! Truly, one could watch the show for nothing else if only to see the Fembots.
This blog tries to find even the smallest morsel of actual intelligence work in every fictional spy character out there, but this show? This show bothers me on so many levels but mostly for the fact that there’s just nothing there. No logic, methodology, research, analysis, mental exertion…this Agent has put more effort into writing this lone post than the writers of that show did in making it, oh say, realistic…
But nothing bothers me so much as to why The Bionic Woman was remade in 2007. Reasons I do not wish to venture a guess about. No new ground was covered. Ridiculous “covert ops” any sexed-up-killer-fembot could perform. Just more emotions and feelings about being “bionic” and “different”, sheesh…The Powers That Be over there at NBC really should have let that sleeping dog lie.
GiRl SpY 