By Melissa Voelker
Though the last round ended in a surprising tie, the 1976 Bionic Woman is leading the competition 3-2 and needs only to win this last round in order to take the crown as the Ultimate Bionic victor. To give the 2007 show a bit more of a chance they will start off this last battle by presenting their cast of characters. This time around they won’t be judged by the acting cred of the real person that plays them. Instead they will have to be able to stand alone on their own fictional feet.
In this show Jaime Sommers is a feisty, young, ex-bartender who is also (theoretically) super intelligent. She was scheduled to go off to Harvard for her wacky college adventures, but took a bit of a detour when she became guardian to her younger sister, Becca. She isn’t the best government agent around, tending to let her emotions get the better of her good sense, which is admirable in a human being but not so much in a super soldier. And Becca, who could be full of depth as a character, what with her shady hacker background and constant – yet random – discipline problems, is utilized so little in the show that her potential is pretty unrealized.
As for love interests, new Jaime has had two so far. The first, Will Anthros, turned out to be not just the handsome professor she thought she knew, but also a surgeon who specialized in bionic parts. He was working for Berkhut the whole time they were together, and while he seemed awfully sweet at first, it is looking like (or being made to look like) he had ulterior dirty motives the entire time they were an item. Her second boy toy is CIA agent Tom, who she met while on undercover detail. He has been much more upfront about himself since they met than Will was (well, once they found out that they were working for rival undercover agencies) but he has very different ideas about being a spy than Jaime does and it is already causing some problems.
[nms:bionic woman,4,0]
Old Jaime Sommers wasn’t a bartender and didn’t have a younger sister to watch after because of absentee parents. Instead she was a promising young tennis pro who just happened to fall in love with and get into a life-threatening accident with the Six Million Dollar Man. This led to her becoming a secret agent for the Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI) as well as serving as a schoolteacher as her cover job. Her closest companion (after a time) was the bionic dog, Max. He wasn’t a juvenile delinquent hacker, but he did get his own storylines. Every once in a while Jim and Helen Elgin, Jaime’s mother and stepfather, would pop into the show for some reason, but they didn’t stick around much and were rather flat as characters.
Though there were a few guys that came and went in old Jaime’s life, the one that really lasted was sometime fiancé, sometime friend, sometime partner, and sometime enemy, Steve Austin. Steve was also the recipient of bionic limbs and could understand what Jaime was going through with her own cyborg parts. He had his own life to lead, his own show to carry, and yet he stuck it out and waited for her to come around and finally marry him. He obviously believed Jaime was his one true soul mate and was worth the wait (or else he was just too lazy to try and find a regular girl to hook up with.)
Steve Austin was the one to first introduce Jaime to the wonderful world of secret government agencies and bionic parts, and he was the one that introduced her to Oscar Goldman, head of OSI and Steve’s friend. Oscar was warm-hearted and fatherly, a real pal and mentor to old Jaime. Yet he was also a good leader who knew when to play the game politically and when to break the rules. New Jaime’s Berkhut team is lead by Jonas Bledsoe, a gruff and surly fellow who almost lets his heart peek out once in a while but tends to yank it back in pretty quickly. She also has the help and sort-of friendship of Nathan the tech/agent, who is a new kind of smart ass genius that is also kinda hot, and the mentorship of Jae Kim, a great trainer for the physical stuff though not so great with the emotional things after his bad previous experience with the bionic lass before Jaime. Old Jaime has her own agency pals to back her up once in a while, though their appearances are brief and their personal backgrounds slim. Dr. Rudy Wells was the scientist who outfitted Jaime with her bionics, and Peggy Callahan served as Oscar’s secretary.
Throughout the run of her show, old Jaime fought many different villains with only a handful lasting more than one episode and almost none showing up as recurring characters. New Jaime, however, has two baddies that like to cause havoc on multiple occasions – Sarah Corvus and Anthony Anthros. Sarah was the first bionic woman in the world of this series, created before Jaime with earlier technology that has since driven her crazy. She caused the accident that almost killed Jaime, did manage to kill Will, and took Becca hostage just to hurt Jaime. She does switch from totally evil to not so bad rather frequently and has some serious issues regarding her own sister (who died in a car accident years ago) and so far is one of the most well-rounded and believable characters on this show. Now Anthony Anthros, the original creator of the bionics, hasn’t been fleshed out so much yet. He was Will’s daddy and did something very bad that caused him to be locked away in a maximum-security prison, before Sarah and some brief minor characters helped him escape.
Well the 2007 show certainly has more regular characters than the original did, but that doesn’t mean they are better characters. Sometimes it seems like the new show is trying for an ensemble feel, but as they rarely give anyone else more than a few minutes screen time, and no one has much of their own storyline, it isn’t working out as an ensemble piece at all. There have been hints at back-story for almost everyone, from Jonas to Anthony Anthros to Becca, and yet none of it has been explored or revealed to give those people dimension. Even Jae, who has had more of his own storyline due to the disastrous relationship with Sarah, hasn’t been given much more than that to work with.
The 1976 show had only two real characters that were fleshed out and given depth – Jaime and Oscar. They didn’t always hold the episodes well with just their own shoulders to carry it on, but you knew everything about them from what they mixed in their coffee to what time they went to bed. They were completely realized as individual people, not just fictional entities. So far on the new show the most fully realized character is Sarah Corvus. She is crazy and sick and sad and mean and lonely and you know where she is coming from and probably where she is going. Even new Jaime’s motivations and feelings aren’t always clear, because she tends to be whatever she needs to be to go along with the night’s episode. Old Jaime may not have had the most serious story lines to work with, but she was the same person no matter what. If something made her angry it always made her angry. If it made her smile it always did so. New Jaime just doesn’t have that kind of solidity. No one on her show does. One week Becca can’t stand lies, and the next she is doing the lying. First Jae wants them to put Jaime down because she could turn just like Sarah, and the next he is serving as her Yoda. It is too touch and go with this crew.
So in the end, after weeks of research and comparisons, and watching these shows really battle it out point by point, I am going to have to give this round to the original Bionic Woman show. This means the score is 4-2 and the 1976 show is declared the ULTIMATE BIONIC WOMAN!!!
Congratulations Lindsey Wagner, your camptastic 70′s adventure holds up even today and managed to smack the young whippersnapper Michelle Ryan and her crew down down down.
Never miss an update. Subscribe to Pink Raygun by Email or subscribe via RSS
About Melissa: By day a mild-mannered tv station receptionist, by night a fighter of crime and corruption in the dirty streets of Spokane, WA . . . or maybe not so much. More like a hyperactive, anal-retentive daytime receptionist and a melodramatic, hyperactive nighttime fangirl who only wishes she could be a fighter of crime and champion of justice (except that would lead to getting my super costume all dirty and I hate doing laundry.) Though my intent has always been to write bestselling novels and live a life of wealth and luxury, putting my talents for snarkiness and word doodling together while letting my geek flag fly suits me just fine – for now.
Related Stuff:
By day a mild-mannered tv station receptionist, by night a fighter of crime and corruption in the dirty streets of Spokane, WA . . . or maybe not so much. More like a hyperactive, anal-retentive daytime receptionist and a melodramatic, hyperactive nighttime fangirl who only wishes she could be a fighter of crime and champion of justice (except that would lead to getting my super costume all dirty and I hate doing laundry.) Though my intent has always been to write bestselling novels and live a life of wealth and luxury, putting my talents for snarkiness and word doodling together while letting my geek flag fly suits me just fine - for now. 
