The moment: eight years before the arrival of Visitors on our planet. The location: Los Angeles, California. The man: Kenneth Johnson. His mission: to give Steve Austin a partner and make it stronger, more popular, more consensual. In a word: create the best! Meet Super Jaimie!
Photo credits: ABC Television - Universal Television
THE ORIGINS OF THE BIONIC WOMAN
The myth started very slowly and it even came close to not knowing the magnitude that made it a flagship concept of the 70s. In 1975, after three TV movies and a season and a half on ABC, "The Man Who Was Worth Three Billion" seemed to be losing momentum, a shame for a hero with bionic legs, capable of running faster than an antelope! Ranked eleventh in 1974, the series was no longer in the top 20 the following year. ABC then became worried and called on the producers to set the record straight. "Our president, Frank Price, called me one day," Harve Bennett, executive producer, told TV Guide magazine, "and said, 'Too many people think it's just a children's program with nothing more than a guy running and jumping a lot. To attract an adult audience and humanize Steve, let's have him have a relationship with a girl who matters to him. In the course of the story she has an accident and can only be saved by transplanting a bionic arm and legs, like him, but after a while it doesn't work and he loses her. No one in the cottages will be able to remain unmoved by it.' »
It was then that a screenwriter who was still unknown at the time entered the scene for the future "Super Jaimie": Kenneth Johnson. "A close friend, screenwriter Steven Bochco, introduced me to Harve Bennett," Johnson later recalled. "'The Man Who Was Worth Three Billion' was in trouble. They were in dire need of new scripts. Harve and I hit it off and one of our ideas was "The Bride of Frankenstein." I said, 'Wouldn't it be a good idea to give Steve Austin a girlfriend?' Harve smiled and said, 'You know, Frank Price and I talked about the same thing. Do you want to write it?' A week later, Johnson returned with a script called Mrs. Steve Austin, which was unanimously acclaimed. Fred Silverman, ABC's program director, just felt the script was too dense and ordered a rewrite adapted to a two-hour TV movie that would become "The Bionic Woman," a two-part episode scheduled for the second season of "The Man Who Was Worth Three Billion."
Unlike Frank Price, Johnson did not want to kill his creation but abandoned it at the end of the two hours in a cryogenic chamber, his body having rejected the bionic limbs and led to complications with no way out. But Price and Silverman, who apparently feared the proliferation of bionic creatures and didn't want to hire Steve Austin beyond a double episode, finally got their way, and Jaimie Sommers, as she was called (apparently inspired by a water skier he had met), was sacrificed at the end of the adventure.
All that remained was to find an actress to play Steve Austin's tragic sweetheart. Ironically, the producers chose a young actress who was then under contract with Universal but whose contract the company had no intention of renewing, a twenty-six-year-old Lindsay Wagner who had just appeared in "Two People" and "Paper Chase." The reviews were good and the actress wanted to pursue a film career, so she wasn't too keen on a role in a series, even for two episodes. Harve Bennett, on the other hand, saw her as the ideal actress, endowed with the vulnerability that would make Jaimie Sommers eminently likeable. And best of all, since it was under contract, it wouldn't cost much! Wagner was enlisted, the actress having wanted to give her fourteen-year-old sister a nice gift by appearing in her favorite series, and it was in the middle of filming that Bennett learned that her contract had just expired and that she had not been rehired by Universal. His contract had to be extended by five or six days to allow him to finish filming!
Photo credits: ABC Television - Universal Television
THE RETURN OF THE BIONIC WOMAN
When the two-part episode aired on May 16 and 23, 1975, the ratings broke through. From the start, Jaimie's character was a hit that repaid ABC's confidence in the show. The network received a ton of positive mail and complaints: Jaimie Sommers was not to die. It was simply useless, inhumane, unthinkable. Immediately Price and Silverman turned to Johnson and exclaimed, "Why did you kill her? She was not to be killed! And the screenwriter was ordered to write a sequel for the next fall.
The authorship of the return of "Super Jaimie" is not clear: Lionel E. Siegel, producer and screenwriter of "The Man Who Was Worth Three Billion," is said to have launched the idea and drawn up the main lines, with Johnson taking care of making a script. Martin Caidin, the author of the novel Cyborg on which the series was originally based, said that the producers phoned him in a panic, not knowing how to explain the character's "resurrection" after shamelessly sacrificing him. He was the one who then proposed cryonics and allowed Jaime to make his comeback with a scientific justification.
History wasted no time sorting it out, and in the end it didn't matter: in September 1975, Jaime crossed paths with Steve Austin again in "The Return of the Bionic Woman", again written by Kenneth Johnson. Once again, the results were fantastic, and both ABC and Universal conceived the project of giving Jaimie her own series, just to capitalize on the impact of the "bionic woman". Already, however, the resurrection of the character completed the re-track of "The Man Who Was Worth Three Billion" which re-entered the top 10 in the 1975-1976 season. Lee Majors, aka Steve Austin, made no secret of his fear at the time that a spin-off series centered on the character of Jaime would hurt the popularity of his own series, but he eventually got a share of the profits from the new program from Universal. The actor probably had another reason to be worried: by agreeing to reprise his role as Jaime, first in a new double episode of "The Man Who Was Worth Three Billion" and then in a standalone series, Lindsay Wagner made the best deal of her career, on a strictly financial level. When Universal contacted her, the actress was no longer under contract and was working on a feature film, "Second Wind". She is not keen to go back to the past, but the producers insist: if the company was not convinced, at the beginning, of the actress' potential, the public is crying out for the actress it has now adopted. Other names were considered, including Sally Field and Stefanie Powers (the former would console herself with a career in film, the latter by becoming the hugely popular Jennifer Hart in "For the Love of Risk," three years later), but it was clear that the project would never be as viable as it was with Wagner in the title role of "Super Jaimie."
Wagner's agent, Ron Samuels, demanded a staggering salary for his protégé's return, out of all proportion to the actress' real popularity, which was still at the beginning of her career. To everyone's surprise, Universal agreed and also conceded him a share of the profits made by the marketing of various derivative products, such as a series of dolls bearing the effigy of his character. Plus the promise of a leading role in a Universal film per year: a dream springboard for the actress' film career. However, she will feel trapped in a role that does not offer her enough opportunities to play. "After that, he didn't behave the best for the first year and a half," said writer-producer James Parriott. "She loved us, worked hard and did a good job, but she had an underlying resentment of having to play 'Super Jaimie.'»
To make her work more enjoyable, the writers don't hesitate to mold Jaimie in her image. According to Ralph Sariego, another producer on the show, "she wanted a drama series more than an action-adventure series." Chasing after the bad guys, even at high speed, and kicking them with bionic limbs didn't give him much satisfaction, unlike Lee Majors who didn't care about the treatment of his character as long as the show continued to appeal to audiences.
Originally by no means a spy, Jaimie Sommers was first and foremost a vulnerable, touching character. A tennis champion, she existed only through her relationship with Steve Austin, her childhood sweetheart, with whom she had grown up at her adoptive parents' home after the death of her own parents in a car accident. Lindsay Wagner had already pointed out the irony of these premises by admitting that she was certainly the least athletic person in the world: "Once in my life I played tennis for half an hour and suffered for three days. I could barely walk. Thereafter, she did not undergo any special training to embody the bionic woman, relying most of the time on her understudy Rita Eggleston.
As a result, Jaimie Sommers is, a bit like Lindsay Wagner, a kind of "heroine in spite of herself". Brought back to life by the help of bionic science, she insists on paying off her debt by performing special missions on behalf of the OSI (Office of Scientific Intelligence), headed by Oscar Goldman, but her cover is a reflection of her character: starting with the pilot episode of the series, "Welcome Home Jaimie", she works as a schoolteacher on a military base. The combination of strength and gentleness, a secret weapon put at the service of others, in this case a class of recalcitrant kids who have already cracked up several teachers! In this inaugural episode, Jaime's first "mission" is to gain the children's trust: like Michelle Pfeiffer in "Rebel Spirits" many years later, she uses her special gifts to do so, wowing the crowd by tearing up a phone book with her bare hands while claiming to be in favor of "the gentle way." or catching a few words whispered in the ear of a student at the other end of the class.
More than her strength, however (let's remember, but only for the uninitiated, that Jaimie Sommers has two bionic legs and an arm, as well as an ear, replacing Steve Austin's eagle eye with an extraordinary hearing), it is her sensitivity that makes the originality of the character. "We've accomplished tremendous things with Lindsay that we haven't done with Lee Majors," Bennett said. "Lee's character was quiet and reserved. But here we had a character of a bionic woman, able to cry and communicate her feelings to us. So we were able to communicate a lot more feelings in the show. Lindsay even sings the song "Feeling" in one episode. She played the role of a nightclub singer (her secret agent cover) and Lindsay sang beautifully. These are things that Lindsay and I could do that weren't possible on "The Man Who Was Worth Three Billion." »
Even more than Steve Austin, in the series "Super Jaimie", the latter is often seen as a guardian angel, her presence serving as a catalyst for the revelation of the secondary characters: a sort of female Sam Beckett (Beckett will also sing Feeling in an episode of "Code Quantum". You can't make it up!). Richard Anderson, who during the three years of "Super Jaimie" played the always quiet Oscar Goldman in both series, spoke of Lindsay Wagner's very personal attitude towards violence, which she always tried to keep to a minimum in the series. And Larry Stewart, another producer-writer, insisted on the actress' desire to "make her character more feminine." "In one episode I directed, she had to chase the bad guys into a mine shaft and throw carts of gold at them," the producer told reporters. "Lindsay hated that kind of thing. There was another episode where she was chasing bad guys at a rodeo. Lindsay had enough of the story and left. Stewart then had to rewrite the story and put more emphasis on a "love story set against a rodeo background"! These "adjustments" were not always made easy by the "executives", with ABC harassing producers to sometimes ask for "more superheroes" and sometimes more sensitivity.
Photo credits: ABC Television - Universal Television
THE JOHNSON TOUCH The presence of Kenneth Johnson on "Super Jaimie," who left "The Man Who Was Worth Three Billion" to devote himself entirely to Super Jaimie in the spring of 1976, certainly did a lot to keep the series on the path of realism. As we have already pointed out for "The Incredible Hulk" and for "V", the producer-writer constantly makes it a point of honor to respect a certain truth in the definition of the characters and the stories told. Here, the realism is not necessarily obvious in the initial concept (a former tennis champion, whose accident made the front page of all the newspapers, becoming a spy by pretending to be a modest teacher...), but it lies in the choice to keep Jaime a simplicity that his male counterpart lacked, a "Mrs. Everyman" side that brings the character closer to the audience.
From this point of view, even though Steve Austin continued to appear from time to time in the episodes (and vice versa), it was important to mark the separation of the two characters by not giving all his memories back to Jaime. In "Welcome Home Jaime", she discovers the bond between her and Steve but is unable to recapture the feelings she once had. If they remain friends, their love is dead forever and Jaimie can go her own way without being irretrievably attached to the parent series. To the many fans who never understood how she could have forgotten this love, Lindsay Wagner replied with humor that she had forgotten it because... The production wanted it that way!
Philip DeGuere, who worked on the show in the first season before leaving to produce "Hotheads" with Stephen J. Cannell, believed that the show's success was largely due to the choice of the "anti-hero" approach. Jaimie "behaved like a woman and quietly used her bionic powers." In the first episode, for example, she uses her powers to restore the small house that will become her home. "The conventional wisdom of the time," DeGuere added, "was that audiences should not adopt a strong, aggressive female persona. Lindsay did very well in this role. In a particular register that was that of the action series, Wagner imposed a female character as believable, within the codes specific to the bionic concept, as the female cop played at the same time by Angie Dickinson in "Sergeant Anderson". "I love this show because it gives girls someone to respect," the actress said. "Super Jaimie is not a fighter, but she always goes all the way to the end. »
Kenneth Johnson also made sure that the screenwriters respected a minimum of verisimilitude. "We had bionic rules to follow," he said. "The writers could come in and say, 'I have an idea where Lindsay lifts a truck.' I'd say, 'No, Lindsay can't lift a truck.' The screenwriter would look at me in bewilderment and say, 'What does that mean? She's bionic!' and I'd say, 'But she can't lift a truck. She can flip a car, but trucks are too heavy for her. It can jump and reach the second floor of a building but not the third.' We had to maintain some credibility. Otherwise, viewers would have thrown their hands up to the sky and said, 'This is completely idiotic.' This has happened for many sci-fi series. Once the rules are established, you must play according to those rules. »
Another asset of "Super Jaimie," which Johnson also claimed responsibility for, was his humor. Less "heroic" than Steve Austin, Jaimie knew how to show a certain irony when it came to his bionic powers. She doesn't hesitate to use them in her everyday life, if only to open a can! The multiple personalities that the character assumes, in addition to offering Lindsay Wagner various roles to play, even if it is always within rather superficial limits, are another facet of this humor: sometimes nun, sometimes wrestler, singer or woman of the world, Jaime changes personality like Sam Beckett (him again?) changes his body and this Fregolesque aspect is sometimes delightful.
Photo credits: ABC Television - Universal Television
GOODBYE SUPER JAIMIE? In 1977, however, despite very satisfactory ratings, ABC decided not to order any new episodes. Propelled to fifth place on the list of most-watched series in its first season, even ahead of "The Man Who Was Worth Three Billion," "Super Jaimie" finished fourteenth at the end of its second year, and ABC preferred to interrupt it before the public abandoned it. Universal, however, did not give up and sold the series to NBC for another year. Johnson, however, had left to adapt "The Incredible Hulk," again for Universal, and his departure seems to have opened the door to a fantasy he had previously contained. The series dropped out of the top 20 for good and did not survive its third season. "The show got a reprieve by going to NBC," Bennett noted, "but by moving it to that network we lost the protective appearance of Steve Austin on 'Super Jaimie' and Jaimie on 'The Man Who Was Worth Three Billion.' We could only do that when both shows were airing on ABC. While Oscar Goldman remained the bridge between the two programs, a rare case of sharing a character between two channels, crossovers were now excluded. Jaimie was joined by two new "partners": a bionic dog, Max, and an agent named Chris Williams, a sort of ersatz Steve Austin played by Christopher Stone.
At the end of the adventure, Lindsay Wagner is said to have commissioned screenwriter Steven E. De Souza was a concluding episode that somehow staged her own position in relation to the series: Jaimie, tired of playing spy, decides to hang up her boots but the Government doesn't see it that way and sends men after her. Their mission: to lock up Jaimie to prevent the secrets she holds from falling into the wrong hands. A little "The Prisoner" side can't hurt, after all...
However, the story does not end there. Like the other agents, James West and Artemus Gordon, Max the Menace, Jim Phelps, etc., Jaimie and Steve will not have the chance to enjoy a quiet retirement. Indeed, in 1988, Richard Anderson contacted the two actors to offer them the opportunity to reprise the roles that had made them famous. Lee Majors, since then, has continued her career by becoming a bounty hunter for the needs of "The Man Who Falls in Time" and Lindsay Wagner has mainly distinguished herself in television dramas but both have remained marked by their roles as bionic agents. Although Wagner was still reluctant to play the superwoman, she accepted out of friendship for Anderson. Three TV movies were filmed between 1988 and 1994: "The Return of The Man Who Was Worth Three Billion and Super Jaimie", "Bionic Showdown" in 1989 and "Bionic Ever After" in 1994. At the time, Universal mentioned the possibility of launching a new series with new characters, but the level of the TV movies was in no way comparable to that of the original series and the project was forgotten. On the other hand, the faithful of Steve Austin and Jaimie Sommers have the joy of finally seeing their bionic lovebirds united: a marriage that reconnects with the origins, no doubt, but sacrificing the tragic to the conventional!
Photo credits: ABC Television - Universal Television
Associate Producers : Arnold F. Turner, Graig Schiller, David G. Phinney Writing Advisors: Philip DeGuere, Jr., Arthur Rowe, Susan Dworski, David Dworski Writing Directors: Arthur Rowe, Philip DeGuere, Jr., Tom August, Helen August, Joyce Howard Theme Music: Jerry Fielding Music : Jerry Fielding, Joseph Harnell, John Cavacas, Charles Albertine, Luchi DeJesus, Dana Kaproff, Robert Price, Dick Halligan, Bobby Bryant, Michael Issacson, Richard Clements, Jerry Powell, Herbert D. Woods Cinematographers : Enzo A. Martinelli, Gene Talvin, Allen M. Davey, J.J. Jones, Vincent A. Martinelli, Fleet Southcot, Frederic Gately Art Directors Lloyd S. Papez, Chuck R. Davis, Lou Montejano, Howard E. Johnson, David Marshall Set design: Gary Moreno, Robert C. Bradfield, Charles E. Tycer, Cheryal Kearney Costume design: Charles Waldo, Jerry Herrin, Victor Bergstrand
Editing: Robert K. Richard, George Ohanian, Alan C. Marks, Jack W. Schoengarth, Frederic L. Knudtson, John F. Schreyer, Alan L. Shefland, John Kaufman, James T. Heckert, Ronald LaVine, Michael D. Corey, David Howe, Duane Reese Set Managers: Ralph Sariego, Ted Schilz, Charles E. Walker, Jack Stubbs, Patti Hayes Head of Post-Production: Charles Clement Sound Editing: James F. Rogers, Sound Effects Editing: Martin Greco, Edison E. Craig , William Howard, Kendrick Sweet Assistant Directors : Tom Blank, Robert Bennett Steinhauer, Tom Connors, William J. Hole Jr., Wayne A. Farlow, David Dowell, Paul Samuelson, Mark Sandrich Jr. Special Effects Coordination: Johnny Borgese, Greg C. Jensen Sr., Kevin Pike Special Effects: Ted Koerner, Scott Forbes Stunt Coordination: Henry Kingi, Tony Brubaker, Graig R. Baxley Lindsay Wagner's understudies - Rita Egleston, Kitty O'Neil, Sandra Lee Gimpel, Kevin N. Johnston Stuntmen: May Boss, Jeannie Epper, Bob Bravler, Gene LeBell, Bob Minor, Evel Knievel, Branscombe Richmond, Dave Cass, Charlie Picerni, James Winburn, Wayne Baker, Conrad E. Palmisano, Fred Lerner, Gregory J. Barnett, Gary McLarty Credits and Optical Effects: Universal Title Production : Harve Bennett Productions and Universal Cast: MCA Universal Television (1976/1978)