I get an email at work from SharkBoy yesterday:
We need to watch this episode
Yeah. That’s a log attacking Jamie Summers, the Bionic Woman. I’m in.
At home SharkBoy puts on the show and we are treated to a schmorgesborg of late 70s goodness. In this particular show Jamie needs to fight a ghost.
“But DeadRobot!” you say, “How does a scientifically enhanced cyborg woman fight an entity from the spectral plane?!”
Jesus, calm down. I’ll tell you.
In the opening scene we’re POV-ing as a ghost from a graveyard into a big scary mansion, into a super science lab where the ghost we were following wrecks a Alpha Series 1 sensor. The ghost! Is mad! At electronics!
Cut to Oscar Goldman telling Jamie she’s off to Salem (spooky!) to pretend to be a nanny to the scientist so she can secretly oversee the construction of this OSI funded jiggermajooley thing.
Wearing a beauuutiful creme pantsuit, Jamie is welcomed by *GASP* a very young Kristy McNichol who is the pistol whipped child of said scientist. (My brother had posters of her all over his walls so I loved her by proxy I guess) Loverboy Scientist immediately starts putting the moves on Jamie. He calles her “a vital woman” and not in a “jeeze I need you here to cover this mopey kid of mine, you’re vital to my sanity.” kind of way. No he means “sexy” in his sad widower monolog. It’s skeevy how fast he’s all up in Jamie’s personal space.
Let’s pause for a moment: I hold the following theory to be true: In every Bionic Woman episode Jamie must bionically clean something, and, it’s done using sped up film, as opposed to the slo mo run. jump, wreck shit effect they use for her bionics. I’m not disappointed: She cleans up a pile of books with her bionic arm.
Besides the aforementioned bookcase that falls, a metal shelf in the lab is bent. Jamie fixes that of course which makes the Loverboy Scientist say: “You’ve got a thing for shelves” – such a sweet talker…
I want to talk about the lab for a second. It’s full of chemicals. Every flat surface has a vial of some brightly coloured liquid – SCIENCE!. During a ghost attack (things shake, people don’t freak out, they just stare at the shaking things) a vial of sulfuric acid falls on Jamie’s robo-foot and burns her shoe off, much to Kristy McNichol’s amazement. Loverboy Scientist is working on an electronic circuit – why all the liquids? Go figure.
Loverboy Scientist decides he needs a break and suggests to his daughter that they go on a picnick. He then demands that Jamie comes along too in a slimey, insistant kind of way. Cue the video above. The adults are attacked by a tree. So beautiful.
I won’t bore you with the rest so I’ll fast forward all through this stuff: Jamie discovers that Kristy is telekenetic and is subconciously trying to kill Jamie for replacing her mom. There’s a Eastern European in there too, with the only redeeming quality of having the name of “Lazlow”. All is resolved after a bedroom of stuff is thrown at Jamie, powered by a sleepy telekinetic pre-pubescent teen.
The ending is cut right from a F is For Family episode where they’re all lined up in front of Jamie’s car, ready to wrap this shit up:
Oscar Goldman: Jaime, we’ve got to leave or we won’t stand a ghost of a…
[Jaime rolls her eyes, but Alan and Amanda laugh] Oscar Goldman: … chance to catch that airplane.
Amanda Cory: [giving Oscar the thumbs up] That’s the spirit, Mr. Goldman.
If you’ve made it this far, here is the payoff: After sitting through all this hot garbage, I look over at SharkBoy when the credits roll. The fucker is asleep.