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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 258378" data-attributes="member: 23">Welcome Home, Jaime (Parts I and II) (continued)While no time is wasted in getting Jaime ensconced in her new life, there is some very welcome continuity. Michael Marchetti is still present at the beginning; we’re had back to Ojai; Steve’s parents are Jaime’s guardians (her new home is an outbuilding their new ranch); Dennis Patrick - Vaughn Leland from Dallas - is back as Carlton Harris in these opening instalments (Harris was the villain in The Return…).There is also one key concession to exploring the themes outstanding from the last story. Despite most of her memories becoming accessible again, Jaime still only remembers Steve as a bionic mentor. And so, with the permission of Jaime’s carers, Helen and Jim Elgin are the ones who reveal Jaime and Steve’s engagement to her. Despite all the other goings on in the episode, it gets a satisfying amount of time, and Steve even flies in to reconnect with her. With Lee Majors only appearing in the first part of Welcome, Home Jaime, it does feel like a story of two distinct halves - even with its running thread of the Carlton Harris arc. On this level, it was unsurprising to learn that Part I was originally written as a SMDM episode but pulled and rebranded as the first BW episode at the last minute (some sources claim that on first transmission it actually was a SMDM episode, right down to opening titles, but this appears to have been debunked). Knowing it was written as a SMDM episode brings its own surprises, though, considering how Jaime-heavy the episode is (Steve doesn’t really arrive until Act II). With Steve’s visit and the references to their past, Part I does indeed feel more spiritually connected to the SMDM episodes and a little more special. We again hear how Jaime dared Steve to eat one of everything in the canteen.  They revisit their tree, and Jaime asks Steve why he hid their inscription in The Return. The Elephant In The Room is brought out into the open with Jaime recognising that with no memory of her feelings for Steve, she no longer views him in a romantic light. On paper it’s all dealt with very quickly, but it’s honoured with enough time to satisfy and give a form of resolution. Importantly, the writing and performances go not for the drama, but for something a little more reflective and poignant. This makes a rather soapy situation feel tangible and real. I can empathise with how bizarre it feels for Jaime, which in turn allows me to connect with both the sadness and acceptance that both naturally feel. Michael Marchetti is despatched with even more quickly, giving a degree of obliqueness to balance out the resolution. I must confess that when Donald Harris first appeared in long shot in Part II, watching Jaime with his father Carlton, I at first mistook him for Marchetti, and came over all righteous for being sceptical about Marchetti’s motives. Part II, while perfectly enjoyable, feels a little more generic. On paper, Angel Of Mercy is the first standalone “typical” episode. In execution, it feels that it’s actually Welcome Home, Jaime Part II. With no Steve and many of the loose ends resolved, there’s far less to connect it with the history of the character, instead it’s about the day-to-day business of being a bionic-woman-stroke-schoolteacher. There’s little to make this feel unique to this character, and it’s easy to imagine many of its scenarios being played out by other 1970s detectives/heroes. Albeit the product here feels like a higher quality than most of them.</blockquote>

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