Welcome Home, Jaime

Infobox Television episode
Title=Welcome Home, Jaime
Series=The Bionic Woman


Season=1
Episode=01, 02
Airdate=January 11, 1976, January 21, 1976
Production=
Filming Date=
Writer= Kenneth Johnson
Director=Alan Crosland
Guests=Richard Anderson
(Oscar Goldman)
Nick Pellegrino
(Bailey)
Prev= none
Next= Angel of Mercy
Episode list=List of The Bionic Woman episodes

"Welcome Home Jaime" is the first episode in the television series The Bionic Woman.

Overview

Recovering from a near-death accident, Jaime Sommers returns to the town of Ojai to live with her stepparents. Settling down, Jaime gets a job as a school teacher.Meanwhile, a millionaire criminal, Carlton has been observing Jaime and contacts her with a view to buying her services for a large sum. In co-operation with her boss at the OSI, Oscar Goldman, Jaime goes in with Carlton and performs a series of robberies. Carlton however has another plan for Jaime and sets about selling her to foreign agents.Jaime manages to discover what's going on and locks Carlton along with his buyers in a safe. Carlton is arrested and Jaime returns to her job as a teacher.

Following on from the two pilot stories in its parent series, "Welcome Home Jaime" gets The Bionic Woman off to a great start with this two part story (the only one of this Season). Of course, it's only a two-parter for the purposes of carrying it over from The Six Million Dollar Man, but this at least gives us time to get to know Jaime without an actual adventure getting in the way. The adventure which does later transpire begins in the first episode, but only in a very minor way, making this virtually two different stories.

Plot

Episode 1

The first episode sets up Jaime with her new life - giving her a home in Ojai and also a job - schoolteaching.The scenes of her bionically cleaning out the old apartment and later of opening a can of tuna with her fingernail are obvious gimmicks, but are also justified in that - if you have bionic abilities, you're going to use them!

The school scenes are more interesting, and it is here that probably the most famous scene of the entire series occurs - the tearing of the phonebook. However, while this is indeed novel, it is also wrong for two reasons. Firstly, Jaime is gaining respect through physical strength rather than any strength of character (and certainly it's foolish of Jaime to display this ability to so many people), and secondly, it is inaccurate bionically. She only has one bionic arm - and although it does show her tearing the book with one arm, the other wouldn't be strong enough to hold the book down. It would be possible for Jaime to tear a phonebook in two - but not in the way shown.

This of course, is a minor quibble and considering how famous the scene became, it's certainly worth it, and the series does generally go to great pains to ensure that the feats she achieves are actually possible bionically. [cite web|url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0526213/synopsis|title=Synopsis for The Bionic Woman: Welcome Home, Jaime: Part I (1976)|publisher=IMDB.com|accessdate=2008-07-07|last=BenCam91|first=]

Episode 2

The second episode is quite straightforward really, but this is necessary for an introductory adventure. It gives us a view as to how Jaime will use her bionics in her OSI work as well as giving Lindsay the opportunity to don many different outfits - both of which are big elements to the show's appeal. It's interesting to note here that the plot concerning Carlton's wish to buy Jaime by offering her large sums of money reflects on how Lindsay Wagner's contract was established for the show. Possibly an inside joke from the producer?

Production notes

The Tennis Career Obstacle

Mention is made of Jaime's tennis career, not just by Jaime, but other characters also. This is a bit of a sore point for the show really, as it makes some of her later adventures seem silly (a top-seeded tennis player entering a beauty contest or female wrestling show for instance), but more importantly in that as a secret agent, everyone she comes up against is going to know who she is!

It is well handled here, but it would have been better had she not been so well known. Of course, the original storyline in the first pilot was intended as a one-off, so nobody could have known that a series such as this would have ever happened.She mentions her skydiving accident as well, which means it must have been publicly known about, and is probably the reason she gives as to why she gave up tennis (which it is anyway!).

Final Point

This story sets the series off to a fine start with a very entertaing first episode and more than adequate second.In the US, only the second episode was part of The Bionic Woman series, while in other countries both episodes were shown as the introductory adventure. This certainly proved a good idea in the UK, as the first episode became the top rated show of that week - a high honour indeed for a Science Fiction series - and something that has never happened before or since.

References

External links

* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0526213/ Welcome Home, Jaime] at IMDB.