Bionic Woman - The nickname of Jaime Sommers (Lindsay Wagner), a tennis player turned operative for the Office of Scientific Information on the adventure THE BIONIC WOMAN/ABC/NBC/1976-78.

When Jaime Sommers was injured in a sky diving accident, her fiancé Steve Austin (Lee Majors) intervened with OSI director, Oscar Goldman (Richard Anderson) to have her equipped her with artificial legs, a right arm and right electronic ear. (The Bionic Woman's catalog number was 87312/JSB).

Steve had previously received similar bionic replacement parts after his experimental NASA aircraft (M3F5) crashed at a Southwestern desert airfield (Edwards Air Force Base).

Unfortunately, Jaime died after her body rejected her bionic parts. Luckily, she was brought back to life via cryogenic suspension methods and her new implants kicked in successfully. However, the resulting trauma from the operation left Jaime with no memory of having known her fiancé, Steve. Jaime, eventually was recruited by the OSI as an undercover operative. In her spare time, she taught school in Ojai, California.

Others to benefit from bionic technology included Andy Sheffield, The Bionic Boy (Vincent Van Patten), a paralyzed teenager who had both legs replaced; Maximillian "Max" the Bionic Dog, a German shepherd injured in a laboratory fire equipped with a bionic jaw and four bionic legs at a cost of $1 million (Max became Jaime's pet); and a bionically rebuilt race driver, Barney Miller (Monte Markham) who was given nuclear-powered parts in a 1974 episode. He was the only living man stronger than Steve Austin.

Continuing the bionic saga, the NBC network aired the TV-movie THE RETURN OF THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN AND THE BIONIC WOMAN (5/27/87) with Lee Majors and Lindsay Wagner who reprised their roles to save America from a group of mercenaries. The sequel introduced Steve's son, Michael Austin (Tom Schanley) from an earlier marriage who sustained major injuries when his Air Force jet malfunctioned/crashed during his solo flight. Again, at the insistence of Steve, the OSI fitted Michael with a microchip computer in his chest, a new bionic right arm, 10 artificial ribs, reinforced spine, a laser equipped right eye and two new bionic legs. Due to the advances in technology, Michael was even faster than Jamie and Steve. By films end, Jamie regains her memory and her love for Steve.

The TV-movie THE BIONIC SHOWDOWN (4/29/89) again teamed Steve and Jaime with a new bionic woman named Kate Mason (Sandra Bullock) to battle a renegade cyborg.

In the TV-Movie BIONIC EVER AFTER? (11/29/1994 - a.k.a. BIONIC BREAKDOWN) Jaime Sommers, now a Family Counselor in Washington, DC, experiences a failure of her bionic limbs caused by a mysterious robot virus which puts a delay in her wedding plans to Steve (who also gets infected). The story has a happy ending and, finally, Dr. Jamie Sommers and Colonel Steve Austin marry on September 4, 1994.

The Bionic Newlyweds

.The SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN and THE BIONIC WOMAN were inspired by the novel Cyborg (1972) written by Martin Caiden.