This month our blog theme is “Expensive Parts.” We are taking a look at The Bionic Woman and The Six Milion Dollar Man and the stars who were behind the characters.

We are beginning with The Bionic Woman. This show was a science fiction adventure series that debuted in 1976. Created by Kenneth Johnson, it was based on a 1972 novel, Cyborg by Martin Caldin.

Lindsay Wagner starred in the show as Jaime Sommers. Sommers has superhuman bionic powers and uses them to help the government on secret missions.  Both Sally Field and Stefanie Powers were considered for the role. Field was bypassed because she was too identified with Gidget and The Flying Nun. I have a hard time picturing Field in the role, but I can see Powers.

The backstory was that Sommers was a tennis player who was injured while sky diving. Two doctors manage to save her life with bionic surgical implants. After the surgery, Sommers had a bionic ear that allowed her to hear low volumes over long distances. She also has extraordinary strength in her right arm and both legs which allow her to jump great distances and run at high speed (60 mph).

The Bionic Woman was a spinoff of The Six Million Dollar Man. Steve Austin (Lee Majors) travels to his hometown and reconnects with Sommers, his high school sweetheart. When she has her accident, he advocates for her with his boss who agrees to save her life if she also becomes a government operative. Steve tries to talk them out of using her in high-risk missions after her surgery; however, she agrees to do it and during her first mission, she gets sick when her body rejects her parts and Steve thinks she is dead.

The character was so popular that The Bionic Woman became a series of its own. Eventually Steve finds out she is alive and realizes she has lost her memories of their relationship and her accident, so they start over as friends. In the series, Jaime quits tennis and teaches at an Air Force base in Ojai, living in an apartment on the ranch owned by Steve’s parents who are clued in to the fact that Steve and Jaime have bionic parts and do special work for the government. On this show, Jaime comes into contact with a bionic dog named Max and when he survives, he becomes her pet and helps her with some of her adventures. The original plot was to spin Max off on his own series which seems a bit too over the top for me.

It was important to creator Ken Johnson that limits be set on what Jaime could do. He said, “When you’re dealing with the area of fantasy, if you say ‘Well, they’re bionic so they can do whatever they want,’ then it gets out of hand, so you’ve got to have really, really tight rules. . . . They can jump three stories, but they can’t jump four . . . Jaime can’t turn over a truck, but she can turn over a car.”

The types of missions she was involved with were less realistic than Scorpion episodes and more science fiction. She fights Fembots, powerful female robots in several episodes. She also stymies a scientist’s plan to destroy all life on Earth with a nuclear weapon. Some of them remind me of plots that could have been on The Wild Wild West.

The series began in January of 1976 with fourteen episodes airing that season. It was the number five show that year, ahead of The Six Million Dollar Man. The second season, it was down to fourteenth. Even though it was still very popular and Wagner won an Emmy for her work on the show, ABC decided not to renew it because it felt it wasn’t getting the demographics that the network was hoping for. NBC picked it up for a third season. Because it could no longer “work” with The Six Million Dollar Man, a new character named Chris (Christopher Stone) was developed as a love interest for Jaime.

In 1978 both The Bionic Woman and The Six Million Dollar Man were cancelled. However, that was not the end of the characters. Three made-for-tv movies were produced between 1989 and 1994, and in the final one, the couple marries.

Jaime Sommers’ stunts were performed by Rita Egleston. She also performed as a stunt double for Connie Sellecca and Farrah Fawcett, as well as performing in Tron and Blade Runner.

Jerry Fielding was the composer for the series. He wrote the opening and closing themes as well. During season two, his friend Joe Harnell took over the regular music duties and wrote a new opening and closing. When Field mentioned he felt bad his music was no longer being used, the network compromised by using Fielding’s opening and Harnell’s closing.

As you might imagine, this show produced a lot of merchandise during the three years it was on the air. Kenner produced a Bionic Woman doll as well as stickers and tattoos. A lunchbox was available as was a board game by Parker Brothers. In addition, several comic books were published some featuring a partnership between The Bionic Woman and Lynda Carter’s Wonder Woman and one with Charlie’s Angels.

Like so many older shows, a reboot for this one was planned for 2002 that never got off the ground. It was released in 2006 starring Michelle Ryan but was a much darker version of the character and only lasted for nine episodes.

I admit, I never got into this show or The Six Million Dollar Man, perhaps because I was in high school at the time and busy with a lot of other things. Many people remember it fondly and it was notable for the first time that a woman was the science fiction star of a television series.