Just watched the origin of The Bionic Woman on The Six Million Dollar Man again. Probably the 4th(5th?) time I’ve seen this two-parter in the last fifteen years. And it always blows me away. It’s just so good. Not just by today’s standards (where it can stand side-by-side with any genre show) but by the standards of the times. Speaking as someone who still watches a lot of 60s/70s/80s TV I can confidently state that it blows everything out of the water.
During it’s first three seasons, SMDM was quite a serious drama, and this ‘movie’ illustrates that. Very little action here. Key scenes are between Steve and his mother, and Steve and Oscar. Some of the best scenes, the very emotional ones, have little or no dialogue. Steve finally tells his mother about his bionics, but we hear nothing they say. And in the final scenes, after Jaime has died, she is never mentioned. Instead we see Steve packing up and leaving and everyone trying to be cheerful.
Every time I watch it I notice something new.
One of the best television episodes ever made.
