The Bionic Woman

Cult Spinoff from the 6 Million Dollar Man.

The Bionic Woman was a spin off from The Six Million Dollar Man. It starred Lindsay Wagner as Jaime Sommers, a tennis professional who was nearly killed in a skydiving accident, and was rebuilt by the same team that rebuilt Steve Austin. As the result of her surgery she has a greatly strengthened right arm, legs which allow her to outrun a fast car, and incredibly enhanced hearing.

The series ran on ABC for 2 seasons, from 1976 to 1977, and then it was picked-up for airing on NBC from 1977 to 1978, for just one season.

Jaime Sommers first appears in a two-part episode of The Six Million Dollar Man in 1975 entitled "The Bionic Woman." In this episode, Steve travels to his old hometown of Ojai, California, to visit his mother and step-father and take a vacation from his work. During his visit, he rekindles his old relationship with Jaime Sommers, now one of America's top tennis players. Their relationship progresses rapidly to the point where Steve proposes marriage. During an outing, Steve and Jaime take part in some skydiving. Jaime's parachute fails and she to the ground, suffering traumatic injuries to her legs, right arm, and head. Steve Austin makes an emotional plea to his boss, Oscar Goldman, even going so far as to commit Jaime to become an operative of the Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI), a branch of the CIA. Goldman agrees to assign Dr. Rudy Wells and the bionics team to rebuild her. Unfortunately she rejects the bionic implants and at the end of the second episodes apparently dies. The character was so popular that ABC asked the writers to find a way to bring her back.

It appears that Jaime did not in fact die but having had long and complicated surgery survives but with the side-effect of the procedure being amnesia and she forgets her relationship with Steve; any attempt to make her remember her life with Steve causes her headaches and pain. Steve reluctantly lets her go on to live her own life as an agent for the OSI.

Jaime, now retired as a tennis player, takes a job as a schoolteacher in Ojai. She lives in a converted farmhouse rented from Steve's mother and stepfather, who were aware of her and Steve's bionic nature and their double lives as secret agents.

In later episodes, Jaime adopts Maximillion, a German shepherd that had been given a bionic jaw and legs. He was an experiment to see if trained animals could benefit from bionics and was named Maximillion because the cost of his bionics was one million dollars. When he was introduced, he started experiencing symptoms that suggested an age-related variant of bionic rejection and was due to be dissected, but it was discovered the condition was actually psychological owing to resurfaced memories of a traumatic fire that threatened Max in his youth. As such, the dog was allowed to live and become Jaime's companion.

Jaime also worked frequently with Steve Austin on missions, and the two re-established their friendship, although no romance resulted initially. Jaime's most noted enemies were the Fembots, a line of powerful androids that she fought twice in the series. Arguably her most vital mission was the thwarting of an insane government scientist's plan to destroy the Earth using a doomsday device. Jaime's mission's frequently involved undercover work in which she takes on a number of roles, such as a nun, a police officer, a college student, an air-steward, a singer, and a professional wrestler. Her tennis background also came into play occasionally, and she was also from time to time seen having adventures with some of her students in Ojai.

Great guest stars who appeared on the show include, Lee Majors, Vincent Price, Evel Knievel, Tippi Hedren and Forrest Tucker,

Both The Bionic Woman and The Six Million Dollar Man were simultaneously cancelled in the spring of 1978. Three made-for-TV reunion movies were produced between 1987 and 1994 that expanded the "bionic family", and explored the love between Jaime and Steve.