The Bionic Woman (1976): Episode 12 Review

A collaborative assignment between the OSI and the United States military goes awry for Jaime Sommers, in The Bionic Woman episode 12. 

Now, this Dr. Hatch, over the past few years, and with a large government stipend, has invented a gizmo that can crack any code in the world. And with the work on it only recently completed, the gadget is set to be shipped for military testing. The OSI assignment is, then, that whilst a big decoy army convoy is supposedly delivering the gizmo, Jaime will really be the one playing postal worker, travelling via helicopter, to place the decoder directly in the hands of a General Partridge (Ross Elliott). 

“The courier just left – it’s a woman. Yeah, mid 20s, pretty. Too bad it’s the last delivery she’ll ever make” – a line then spoken by another stranger at the end of episode 12’s cold open. Which does sometimes happen, doesn’t it? “I’m a bad guy on the telephone and now that the audience has been informed of this week’s plot by those other characters, here’s my declaration that Jaime is in grave danger”. Right, thanks for that pal. You’re doing great work. 

But the delivery goes off without a hitch. Jaime meets the pilot. They touch down at a secret army base. Jaime trades the doo-dah for General Partridge’s signature. Jaime and the pilot head for home, and she rings Oscar to tell him that this was the easiest mission yet. So what’s the catch? Well, in the morning, it turns out that the decoder was never delivered, the pilot is missing and, now under suspicion, Jaime is detained. 

Rather than this be a shock, a surprise, something to be open-mouthed about, I was instead thinking: “hey, if they hurry up with this bit, we might get to spend the rest of the episode in a new location (albeit prison), meeting new characters (even if they are convicts), and the show’ll get another chance to unearth it’s more drama-driven roots!”. An example of wishful thinking if there ever was one.

What actually happens is as so: Jaime lies about in a holding cell, and just when I’m starting to suspect that The Bionic Woman episode 12 is going to try and make that seem interesting for the next thirty minutes, Jaime kicks a hole in the wall and scarpers. Making the episode’s title redundant in the doing so, and perhaps undermining its shot at originality too. 

However, we then receive an extended suburb-set, hide-and-seek sequence – which is nice. I’ve not seen Jaime out for a stroll across U.S. soil since “Jaime’s Mother” – the only time before that during her first promising appearance in The Six Million Dollar Man (1973) – and although she is being actively pursued here, the environs (at least) remind me of the slow-going, character-focused, summertime show I thought I was getting into when I first started watching The Bionic Woman. 

So, Jaime’s running from local police, and from employees of the “National Security Bureau”, going from payphone to payphone to speak with Oscar, and have you noticed that Oscar’s suddenly started using the word “babe”? He’s not done that before, has he? I’m not entirely against the word, but when somebody adopts it without warning, without previous discussion, without any indication of self-awareness at all, it is a bit jarring. Especially when considering the agent/spymaster relationship Jaime and Oscar ought to have. Imagine if, twelve movies into the series, and without a whisper of acknowledgement from anyone, M started calling James Bond “babe”. Wouldn’t you be beside yourself? Wouldn’t there be riots in the streets? Wouldn’t the ground split open and hell bubble out? 

Anyway, The Bionic Woman episode 12 goes on to also involve the pilot’s girlfriend, a fake general, this big conspiracy, and it’s all about money of course, and… did you know there’s another forty-six episodes after this one? That seems an awful lot to me at the moment. I wonder if ‘70s Americans were just more patient with, and more forgiving of their telly shows than I am? Watching week by week, a season at a time as they were. Or perhaps I simply am a product of my generation: shortened attention span, spoilt for choice, engaged more with escapism than with reality. Now that would be heartbreaking, wouldn’t it? To find out I wasn’t unique amongst an entire generation of people. How would my ego survive such a blow? 

Episode 12 of The Bionic Woman is now available to watch on digital and on demand.