Tuesday, January 20, 2026

Take it supersonic, eh, I'm bionic....

 So anyone who's followed the Palace for a while should know how much I love the 70s TV show The Bionic Woman!  I was fanatical about watching it as a kid, and then, when the reruns played in the afternoons in the early 80s, I rewatched as many as I could.  Again and again and again. 

There were 58 episodes made.  Some totally sucked (most of the third season falls into this category).  Most were entertaining in their own way.  And there were several who were just incredible.  Loved em. 

So today I'm gonna give you my Top Ten Favorite Episodes of  The Bionic Woman 
(listed in order of airing)

Season 1, Episode 7 Bionic Beauty


Jaime enters a beauty pageant to find a high tech device someone in the pageant is trying to give to a foreign enemy power.  Despite hearing her 'sing' during the talent portion (and while Lindsay Wagner doesn't have a terrible voice, it's not really all that great either). 

Season 1, Episode 11  Fly Jaime


Jaime becomes a stewardess on a small airplane transporting her bionic doctor Rudy Wells who's transporting a top secret formula somewhere, and the plane crashes.  Most of the passengers (there's not a huge amount of them) survive and make their way to a nearby island.  And there are conspirators among the survivors who want that formula!

Season 2, Episode 2 In The Corner, Jaime Summers


An OSI agent disappears while working undercover as a professional wrestler, and Jaime has to join the female league to find him, and discovers there's a ring behind the scenes dealing with foreign agents.  Yeah, the female wrestling is pretty cheesy, but still, it's fun despite being silly. 

Season 2, Episodes 5 & 6 (and episode of the Six Million Dollar Man inbetween) Kill Oscar


This is the only three parter in the series and introduces the Fembots!  This is without a doubt the pinnacle of the Bionic TV stories!  OSI personnel (Rudy's assistant Linda, Oscar's secretary Callahan, and later Oscar himself!) are kidnapped and replaced by android Fembots.  They're strong and fast like the Bionic Woman, but they don't have her bionic ear, and they can't jump like her bionic legs allow her to do.  But in the trilogy, both she and Steve Austin have to fight various fembots and rescue Oscar and the others. 

These episode also start a string of great episodes. 

Season 2, Episode 7 Black Magic


Jamie plays the grown up Carstairs niece to try to find a top secret documents someone in the family wants to give to foreign enemy nations.   A brother has died with the documents hidden somewhere and the family comes to island to find the documents and to try not to be killed by their other family members in the process.  It stars Vincent Price, Julie Newmar, Hermoine Baddeley, William Windom, and Abe Vigoda.  It's played for a lot of comedy and that's what makes it fun!

Season 2, Episode 8 Sister Jaime



Jaime has to play a nun to enter a convent where diamonds are smuggled in and exchanged for heroin, and find out who's doing it and stop them. 

Season 2, Episode 9 The Vega Influence


Jaime ends up in military base up North in Alaska or Greenland somewhere and finds the place deserted and the men who arrived with her disappearing.  Jaime hears a high pinched whine in her bionic ear and it's painful.  And only she and a deaf girl are left to figure out what's going on. 

Season 2 Episodes 13 & 14 Doomsday Is Tomorrow


A dying scientist threatens the world with a doomsday device unless all nations stop their war making, but of course, rogue nations dont believe him and so, the doomsday device is activated.  And Jaime must take on the supercomputer Alex7000 (think HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey) and fight through all he various defensive systems it has to try to reach and shut down the doomsday device.

Season 2 Episodes 15 & 16 Deadly Ringer


Lisa Garrett is some chick who, in an earlier episode, had plastic surgery to look like Jaime and take her place in the OSI.  She was ultimately defeated cause she couldn't do the feats of strength and jumping that Jaime's bionics allowed her to do.  Well in this two parter, Lisa's back, and she has some sort of pink gum she can chew and swallow to give her temporary strength and speed.   And Jaime is kidnapped and wakes up in jail with everyone there thinking she's Lisa Garrett.  Jaime must escape, try to convince her friends she's who she says she is and get her identity back from Lisa.

Season 3, Episodes 3 & 4: Fembots In Vegas


Yes the Fembots are back and they're in Vegas.  I mean, these episodes are not as great as the original ones, but it's still Fembots, and you can't go wrong with them. 

POLT

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