KOJAK YOUR ENTHUSIASM (7)
By:
April 22, 2022
One in a series of 25 enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of our favorite TV shows of the Seventies (1974–1983).
THE BIONIC WOMAN | 1976–1978
Jaime Sommers (Lindsay Wagner) as the Bionic Woman was my adolescent aspirational icon. Significantly, she was real, at least relative to other options in the fictional pantheon: Supergirl, Wonder Woman, Invisible Girl, etc. The Bionic Woman was like us, just with a few machine-tooled add-ons. She was the cool older sister I never had, and a role model for independence.
Sure, I could see she was a spin-off. She was the next iteration of The Six Million Dollar Man franchise, the first sequel where you “add the girl” and which, if successful enough, would lead to the second sequel where you “add the kid and the dog”. But sometimes the sequel can rise to its own occasion — and in fact the Bionic Woman did include Max the Bionic Dog.
Steve Austin (Lee Majors) was the Six Million Dollar Man and Jaime Sommers was Steve Austin’s girlfriend; although depending on where one is in the series this knowledge is either right out front, or hidden from her because of complicated reasons involving a tricky second brain surgery and cryogenic suspension. She teaches middle and high school, but that’s just a cover for her undercover work for OSI, a fictionalized combination of the FBI and CIA. She goes on secret missions where her bionic capabilities (super-speed, super-jumping, super-hearing) allow her to track and capture various baddies and thwart their evil plots.
But equally compelling as her dashing adventures, and the will-she / won’t-she of her once and possibly future relationship with her co-bionic rebuilt soulmate, was her apartment. That amazing shabby-chic studio over a garage (OK over a barn, but “garage” to my suburban comprehension of the built environment) with the big brass bed, and her own car, where she and her fabulous hair could come and go as she pleased. An apartment like that was what I really aspired to, more so than any bionic capabilities, or secret missions.
And it was set in the conceivable future, a near-future as we call it in fantasy/science fiction; maybe by the time I was an adult, these things, or some of them anyway, would be real. And sure enough, we do have “bionic” capabilities here in the future: customized athletic prosthetics, exoskeletons, deep-brain stimulation, CRISPR. And just like in the series, they are solutions to injuries and illness, which was true for The Six Million Dollar Man also: real superpowers come from our clunky efforts to rebuild what has been broken. We have the technology.
And yes, in case you’re wondering: I got the apartment.
KOJAK YOUR ENTHUSIASM: INTRODUCTION by Josh Glenn | Lynn Peril on ONE DAY AT A TIME | Dan Reines on THE WHITE SHADOW | Carlo Rotella on BARNEY MILLER | Lucy Sante on POLICE WOMAN | Douglas Wolk on WHEW! | Susan Roe on THE LOVE BOAT | Peggy Nelson on THE BIONIC WOMAN | Michael Grasso on WKRP IN CINCINNATI | Josh Glenn on SHAZAM! | Vanessa Berry on IN SEARCH OF… | Mark Kingwell on BATTLESTAR GALACTICA | Tom Nealon on BUCK ROGERS | Heather Quinlan on LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE | Adam McGovern on FAWLTY TOWERS | Gordon Dahlquist on THE STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO | David Smay on LAVERNE & SHIRLEY | Miranda Mellis on WELCOME BACK, KOTTER | Rick Pinchera on THE MUPPET SHOW | Kio Stark on WONDER WOMAN | Marc Weidenbaum on ARK II | Carl Wilson on LOU GRANT | Greg Rowland on STAR TREK: THE ANIMATED SERIES | Dave Boerger on DOCTOR WHO | William Nericcio on CHICO AND THE MAN | Erin M. Routson on HAPPY DAYS. Plus: David Cantwell on THE WALTONS.
JACK KIRBY PANELS | CAPTAIN KIRK SCENES | OLD-SCHOOL HIP HOP | TYPEFACES | NEW WAVE | SQUADS | PUNK | NEO-NOIR MOVIES | COMICS | SCI-FI MOVIES | SIDEKICKS | CARTOONS | TV DEATHS | COUNTRY | PROTO-PUNK | METAL | & more enthusiasms!