User:Zythe/Jaime Sommers

Jaime Sommers
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Created by	Kenneth Johnson
Portrayed by	Lindsay Wagner Michelle Ryan
In-universe information
Occupation	Classic: Tennis player School teacher Modern: Bartender
Family	Classic: Steve Austin (husband) Modern: Becca Sommers (sister) Ethan and Madeline (parents)

Jaime Sommers is a fictional character appearing in the 1970s American science fiction television series The Six Million Dollar Man, its spin-off The Bionic Woman and the failed 2007 franchise reboot Bionic Woman. Originally portrayed by Lindsay Wagner in a 1975 two-parter of The Six Million Dollar Man, the character's popularity led to her own television series and continual crossovers with the parent series throughout its run and in eventual "reunion" television movies. In the 2007 re-imagining of the concept, Jaime Sommers is portrayed by British actress Michelle Ryan and combines aspects of the original with those of The Six Million Dollar Man protagonist Steve Austin. In both depictions, Jaime is a woman whose life is saved from near-fatal injuries through the use bionics and becomes a cyborg possessing many superhuman physical attributes.

The character was introduced to The Six Million Dollar Man in the episode "The Bionic Woman", written by Kenneth Johnson, based on concepts and characters by speculative fiction novelist Martin Caidin, who had written the Cyborg which inspired the original Six Million Dollar Man television movie and series adaptations. The 2007 re-imagining of the character was created by David Eick, a loose adaptation of both Caidin's Steve Austin character and Johnson's Jaime Sommers. Eick had previously worked as an executive producer in the re-imagining of the Battlestar Galactica franchise three years previously.

Conceptual history

In 1972, the speculative fiction novel Cyborg was published, written by Martin Caidin. The book told the story of Steven Austin, a man given internal bionic upgrades which granted him superhuman abilities. The book was later adapted into a television movie (1973) and series (1974-1978) with the title of The Six Million Dollar Man. Part-way into the run of the television series, writers found story ideas scarce and development hit a wall. Kenneth Johnson, a writer on the series, had come up with the idea of a introducing a character to serve both as a "love interest" stock character and bionic counterpart to Steve Austin, drawing influence from the 1935 film Bride of Frankenstein, naming his creation "Jaime Sommers" after a water-skier he had met at Sea World.

The character's introduction promised the possibility of a boost in viewing figures, potential attracting a greater adult audience. This bid was successful, and when Jaime Sommers debuted, portrayed by Lindsay Wagner in The Six Million Dollar Man two-part episode, "The Bionic Woman," ratings began to "soar out of sight". In creating the character, Johnson "endeavored to write a character and a story that would interest [both himself] and hopefully a broad audience" as well. With an emphasis on keeping Jaime incredibly relevant, realistic and human - Jaime was to have flaws and weaknesses just as any other humans, her superpowers being irrelevant to this. Johnson credits comedian George Burns for this aspect of his writing style, who had told him to "put as much truth into a fictional story as possible".

The character in its development stages had originally not been considered for spin-off potential. In writing up the script for Jaime's first appearance (originally under the working title of "Mrs Steve Austin,") the network, ABC pushed for the character to be killed off to maximize the emotional impact upon the audience. Johnson's original idea had been to put the character "on ice" for potential future use. The studio reconsidered after a massively positive reception, angry letters from fans and ratings that could not be ignored; ABC executive Fred Silverman ordered the character be resurrected, in what would later be the two-part story "The Return of the Bionic Woman," rectonning her apparent death with the revelation she had been saved by "revolutionary new cryogenic technology." For the first time, The Six Million Dollar Man had achieved top ten ratings. The success of the episode led to The Bionic Woman, a spin-off starring Lindsay Wagner as its titular character. The rights for The Bionic Woman would later shift to NBC, although Wagner's final appearance was in the 1994 CBS TV movie Bionic Ever After? alongside the Bionic Man, where the two were married after a long courtship.

In 2007, years after the "Bionic" franchise ended, a new series entitled Bionic Woman (having dropped the "The" of its predecessor) aired on NBC, starring Michelle Ryan as a re-imagined and more contemporary Jaime Sommers. While The Bionic Woman was a spin-off of The Six Million Dollar Man, which in turn is based off of the Cyborg novels, the new series' mythos excludes the Steve Austin ("Bionic Man") back-story, with the Michelle Ryan-portrayed Jaime Sommers being a largely new interpretation of the character. Ultimately, the series revival and the Michelle Ryan portrayal would be short-lived, as lackluster ratings and the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike (which forced the show into a season one hiatus), contributed towards cancellation after just seven episodes.

Fictional character histories

Jaime Sommers, having being essentially reinvented as a new character, carries two distinct although superficially similar character histories. As such, the two characters can be separated by their actresses. The original character lasted over episodes of The Six Million Dollar Man, television movies and a spin-off series whereas the latter's story is restricted to a half-season of the reimagined series. The below is a concise overview of both characters, largely for comparative purposes.

Lindsay Wagner (1975-1994)

Jaime Sommers was introduced in The Six Million Dollar Man episode "The Bionic Woman", where protagonist and "Bionic Man" Steve Austin traveled to his hometown of Ojai, California and rekindled his relationship with his high school sweetheart, Jaime, herself unknowingly the daughter of two US government agents, and now a rising tennis star in her own right. In a skydiving accident, Jaime is injured and Steve pleads his friend Dr. Rudy Wells for her to be given similar internal bionic repairs to those he received from after his near-fatal car accident. Jaime is enhanced with two bionic legs, a bionic ear and a bionic right arm. In her episode, she is assigned to become an agent for the "Office of Scientific Intelligence" and on a mission, discovers her body is rejecting its bionic enhancements and in surgery, she appears to die on the operating table.

After the character's debut received high ratings, she was reintroduced in the following season. Jaime had been placed in suspended animation while Dr. Wells removed her cerebral clot, although consequently Jaime had developed amnesia and lost all her memories of Steve. The two would later reestablish a friendship without romantic suggestions. In her own spin-off series, The Bionic Woman, Jaime adopts a bionic German shepherd dog. Jaime faced a series of plots and enemies before the series end, and subsequently Jaime and Steve would again rekindle their romance in three made-for-TV reunion movies in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Jaime meets Steve's bionic son Michael, regains her lost memories and in the final movie, Bionic Ever After?, marries Steve Austin and receives a bionic upgrade which not only enhances her abilities, but grants her new ones such as night vision.

Michelle Ryan (2007)

Jaime Wells Sommers received bionic implants following a nearly fatal car accident, much like Steve Austin in The Six Million Dollar Man. The first episode sees her inform her boyfriend, Dr. Will Anthros, that she is pregnant with his child before an attempted assassination of him by a previous bionic woman, Sarah Corvus, results in Jaime being critically injured and repaired by her boyfriend with use of his father's nanite "anthrocytes" and bionic limb technology. The nanites heal Jaime's wounds, while her other enhancements grant her superhuman vision, strength in one arm and speed which greater resembles Steve Austin of the original Bionic franchise. The pilot would later see Sarah Corvus successfully kill Will by sniping him, before she and Jaime engage each other in a battle over Will's death, where she comes to term with her new bionic abilities.

The new character also has a younger sister with whom she is charged, having become estranged with her father following the death of their mother. Looking after her sister meant having to turn down a place at prestigious universities and become a bartender to support the two of them. As the series continues, Jaime agrees to work as a secret agent for the mysterious "Berkut Group" which funded her life saving operation, as she also discovers similarities between her and Sarah Corvus as well as the fact that her deceased boyfriend Will had preselected her for bionic enhancement as far back as two years before they ever met.

Bionics and prosthetics, blurring fact and fiction

• Some google scholar results
• Laptop Magazine article about New Jaime
• Bionic Woman a blast from the past
• Bionic arms turns science fiction to fact
• Retinal neuroprosthesis: science fact or science fiction?

Characteristics

"What’s important to me is how someone reacts to a situation and how they come away from it. When I created The Bionic Woman I viewed Jaime simply as a real human being who was suddenly given powers beyond human and who struggled to deal with them."

—Kenneth Johnson

Feminism! Expand! Shift elements from critical reception here!

"[S]he has these deeper abilities, but at the core of it it's this young woman's journey of self-discovery and her rise to empowerment, and I feel like I'm on that journey, and I just felt an instant connection."

—Michelle Ryan

Critical reception

The original Jaime Sommers was considered a feminist icon, described by Time magazine as "the most appealing argument for feminism" in 1977, as well as a "latter day Wonder Woman," referring to the DC Comics superheroine and feminist champion. The Bionic Woman had been of an era where "The ERA (Equal Rights Amendment) movement was very much alive," according to the new series' producer, David Eick. "Bionic Woman was the first television show where the ... female was not the wife of or the girlfriend of or the mother of the guy." Despite these accolades, others note the inherent contradiction among the feminist characters of the 70s, such as Jaime Sommers, Lynda Carter's Wonder Woman and the Charlie's Angels - that these women are objectified by men in order to relay a "lipgloss feminist" message.

The the new incarnation has been criticized by television analysts as more of a gender-stereotypes portrayal than the original, citing that Sommers is no longer an independent careerwoman (tennis pro and teacher) but rather a college dropout and bartender, who despite being described as having a very high IQ is otherwise in no position to be the "ultimate women's lib heroine" the original had been. Among critics of the new interpretation of the character are Lindsay Wagner herself, who disparagingly comments upon the perceived "dark and broody and violent" atmosphere of the new series. Describing the new Jaime, Michelle Ryan comments that "She is a strong, feisty female character ... She has a vulnerability to her. She's very warm and compassionate. I think she has high morals. She always questions things. She says, 'We're the good guys, and I don't think that's right.'" Ryan continues describing the character, adding "She's a real tomboy as well. She's real. I think she's very grounded, and she has a good heart, but she also has an edge to her as well."

Parallels have been drawn between the new Jaime and her 90s female action hero predecessors, some commentators remarking on a likeness to Buffy Summers, protagonist of supernatural drama Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in the sense that she has been unwillingly given a superhuman burden. This also extends to the relationship between Jaime and her foil and antagonist, her tragic nemesis Sarah Corvus, which has been described by reviewers as sharing similarities with the Buffy/Faith dynamic in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Other commentators mention that the relationship between Jaime and the Bionics program director Jonas Bledsoe parallels that of Buffy and her mentor Giles, much as the Berkut Group serves similar functions within the storyline as the Watcher's Council does in Buffy: that of patriarchal oppressors. Noting similarities to Sydney Bristow of spy drama series Alias, SyFy Portal described the new series and, by extension the character, remarking "If you throw the original series into a blender along with "Alias" and "Buffy [t]he Vampire Slayer" this is what you would get. "Bionic Woman" borrows all the best bits of all three shows and gives them a fresh and interesting twist."

The original Lindsay Wagner interpretation was popular alongside the other high octane female heroes of her generation, as would later be their 90s counterparts in Buffy, Xena: Warrior Princess, Alias, Dark Angel and Charmed.[1] The Washington Post notes the show's popularity with gay and lesbian audiences, noting "emotional connections to characters like the Bionic Woman can run deep for countless gay viewers who see isolation and repression reflected in heroes who must harbor secret identities and who can't show off their fabulousness in their everyday lives." The new character has yet to reach the similar levels of popularity within the gay community, however "lesbian icon" Katee Sackhoff's own "bionic woman" character Sarah Corvus has largely proved instantly popular.[2][3][4][5] The Washington Post attribute the rebooted character's lukewarm reaction from gays partially to her casting alongside Isaiah Washington (who purportedly abused a Grey's Anatomy co-star with a homophobic slur) whose presence may detract from gay viewership in Bionic Woman as a whole.

External links

• Jaime Sommers at BionicWiki.com An in-universe character biography.
• Jaime Sommers (Lindsay Wagner) and Jaime Sommers (Michelle Ryan) at the Bionic Wikia projects.