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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 258183" data-attributes="member: 23"> The Return Of The Bionic Woman (Parts I and II) (continued)As for the episode itself: when watched back-to-back with the earlier two-parter that introduced us to Jaime Sommers, it feels reassuringly familiar. Many of the same notes are hit: the story opens with Steve on a mission; Jaime comes back into his life; we see bionic surgery and the recovery and training process (this time on Steve after damaging his bionic legs); there’s a return to Ojai; Jaime, still adjusting to her bionics requests to be given a mission despite Steve’s protective protests; Jaime’s mission goes wrong due to her malfunction needing her to be rescued by Steve; she goes AWOL and has a meltdown; Steve sadly watches her leave his life again. Jaime’s return is successfully done, though it must be said this is probably because everyone - characters; those writing and producing the series; and the audience - is so happy to see her return that we choose either to forgive or to overlook any shortcomings regarding its implausibility and the collateral damage to the earlier storyline. Regarding the latter, Jaime’s death is an extremely strong and emotionally potent moment. Yet for me as someone who has only ever watched knowing that it’s but a temporary state that’s quickly retconned, the impact is hugely diluted. Jaime’s resurrection has always been a simple fact for me. Perhaps this is why I’ve largely been able to accept it and enjoy the benefits that come with the retcon. For the earlier storyline, Kenneth Johnson had originally written a more ambiguous “death” which had Jaime in a coma. This would have been the perfect way to keep the door open for her potential return but her on-screen death was mandated by the network due to the success of Love Story (so it’s all Ali MacGraw’s fault). But when the audience reaction to the character was so positive, the network realised the potential for further revenue and an expansion of the franchise, and things changed. Still, part of me wonders if the character’s death was actually one of the factors that grabbed the audience enough to warrant the spin-off. Perhaps a key to her success was the impact of that first ending. The stars were also in place with the timing of it. With the original Bionic Woman story being the last two episodes produced for SMDM’s second Season (albeit not the last ones to air), The Return represents the two episodes that immediately followed it.But it’s also a new season, meaning six months of real time passed between the two stories, even though her return happened just three episodes later. Those six months were long enough for her death to resonate with the audience but short enough in screen-time that her death didn’t have time to “set” as a firm reality within the series. There’s also the fact that unlike, say, Bobby Ewing, Jaime had only appeared in two episodes of the show before “dying”. And this is a sci-fi series, after all. So if not here, where?Kenneth Johnson also got to re-do this storyline his way, as anyone who has seen his later The Incredible Hulk series will know. The Pilot and Married episodes of that series both featured a death that had a profound impact. Married, in particular, has numerous similarities with the original Bionic Woman two-parter. continued… </blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?