EPISODE REVIEW 3X11

Dec. 17, 1977

Dear Diary,

Mood Ring: Blue (happy!)

I got to see the Bionic Woman tonight!!!  It was about some old guy that Jaime was forced to work with. He was kind of a jerk and he didn't think she knew anything. Ha ha, she was smarter and stronger than him!  I am never, ever going to get old and gray like him. And neither will Jaime.

December 10, 2011

Dear Bionic Blondes,

Mood Ring: Purple (bliss!)

OMG, the Bionic Blonde's wardrobe in this episode was bountiful and positively boo-tee-ful. For a wardrobe admirer like me, this was like winning the lottery. Trust me, if we want to turn this nation's economy around, all we need to do is send Jaime to the mall. The GDP will instantly rise 3 points. 

I PRESENT TO YOU THE ALPHABET OF WARDROBE EXHIBITS:

Awesome             Beautiful            Cheap               Divine              Elegant           Fantastic          Gorgeous

So this week Jaime was forced to work with some over the hill OSI agent, who was indeed a bit of a jerk early on, but who cares. Jaime got to wear some kick ass clothes and drink wine in the middle of the afternoon. I *HEART* this woman!

Oh Yeah, the Plot: Oscar searches out 69-year old retired OSI agent Terry Quinn, whom he describes as a guy who used to have "style, charm, grace… he was really beautiful."  Yeah, he really did say that. Maybe Oscar accidentally fell in love with Quinn years ago during one of his Mrs. Doubtfire dress-ups. Anyway, Quinn, who likes to don disguises, is needed to help find an old nemesis of his named "Slotsky," a Soviet spy. But the only catch to getting a new employment compensation package from Uncle Sam is he has to agree to work with a younger female OSI agent he has never met: Jaime Sommers.

Because It's Five O'Clock Somewhere: Jaime is not liking her new "senior partner" one bit, and calls Oscar on her mini-talkie that she somehow had velcro’d or strapped to (or inside?) her nylons under her skirt —right above her knee. Or maybe it just has a magnet and sticks to her bionics. I have tossed and turned too many nights trying to solve this hidden attachment enigma. Jaime's mini-talkie lives on her leg. Just accept it.

Anyway, she complains to Oscar about this old nut, but he convinces her to stick with the plan. Jaime hangs up, deposits the mini-talkie back under her skirt (don't ask), pours herself a drink and takes a seat in a wing back chair to wait for Mr. Quinn. I have now witnessed my new favorite scene of the season, and perhaps even the series, when Quinn came down the stairs with suitcases, surprised Jaime was no longer bound on the couch.

Quinn: "How'd you do that?"

Jaime (raising her wine glass):  "Double jointed."

A hahahahaha! Drink up everybody, I LIKE the way this one is starting out!!

Hotel California: Quinn waits for Jaime to join him at a table in the lobby of a hotel she has just surveilled, and she's wearing this positively divine black silk blouse and red plaid skirt belted at the waist. I heart this. (Exhibit B) She mentions there's a group of international fashion designers there (no duh), plus a convention of world economists. (See, there's Jaime’s direct GDP shopping correlation again.) But they don't know which event their Soviet spy is pretending to attend. Quinn orders Jaime back to the room while he plans to set off firecrackers for a distraction and steal the hotel registry. But he clunks his head in the act and Jaime has to help get him out of there. He also broke his eye glasses and is basically blind for the rest of the episode.

Back in the hotel room, Quinn tosses Jaime a blonde wig and brown dress and says they will need to go undercover, otherwise Slotsky might recognize him. Jaime, shocked at what she will have to wear, totally jokes, "I certainly hope we're not going anywhere the vice squad visits."  

!What?! Okay, my mood ring has now returned to that off-the-charts Brain Wash episode color that reflects terror. Gurrrl, don't MAKE me make a list of some extreme wardrobe violations that could have gotten you arrested by the vice squad. Oh, never mind, it’s all water under the bionic bridge. Besides, thanks to Lisa Galloway, Jaime has already done her time in the state pen for these vice crimes. Lets move on, shall we?

And Now, Back To Our Story. So Jaime emerges wearing this long platinum blonde curly wig and HUGE horn-rimmed glasses. (Exhibit C) Ofergodsakes Jaime, you like Harry Potter. But her brown dress is actually not so bad, and of course I'm ROFLing because she really DOES have a "Hello My Name Is" sticker in this episode, instead of an imaginary one like Fembots in Las Vegas.  (BTW, her undercover name tonight is "W. Rich." Yeah, rub some of that "Wardrobe Rich" in, will ya?)  Standing next to Quinn, they make a seriously dorky couple (nice way to not stand out), but Jaime is having some secret fun with this, and when the waiter seats her, she stops smacking her gum for a second and squeaks out a dizzy "thank you," like she had just inhaled helium. Boys and girls, at last, we meet a REAL Bionic Blonde!  Mood ring: ecstatically purple.

Hidden Valley: While Quinn goes back to snoop in a suspect’s hotel room, Jaime starts in on her lunch salad, and she is TOTALLY shoveling on the ranch dressing. But unfortunately she has to bolt and try to rescue Quinn before this guy gets back to his hotel room. So sadly, we did not get to see how many gallons of dressing Jaime might have stopped at. But the girl likes to dress, so why am I not surprised she likes to dress her salads, too? I can sense an intentional theme here tonight.

Samurai Sommers: Back in the hotel room, Jaime has changed again, this time into Exhibit F, a purple silk kimono robe, obviously just a temporary tie-over until wardrobe—who she has working overtime this week—finishes sewing her next outfit. (Or, maybe she had to attend a karate class between scenes?) Anyway, she and Quinn can’t find any spy chip in the designer outfit she stole. Meanwhile, some bad guy overhears them outside the door and discovers they are OSI agents. A couple scenes later, Jaime is now sporting Exhibit G, a mostly muted lavender, “mood ring blouse” that ties at the waist, and which oddly seems to also change color to gray or light blue depending on the set lighting. Paired with dark green knit slacks that are cuffed at the calf. She’s also wearing some really tall, wedgie sandals with red straps. Ordinarily, I would never put lavender, green and red together like this, but somehow Jaime manages to make it work. Maybe it’s her colorful rope style necklace that subliminally ties this zany spectrum together. Unfortunately for this viewer, Jaime wears this same outfit for the remaining 20 minutes of the episode, which means I now have to focus on the plot. Sigh.

A la Carte: Room service arrives. Oh good! Maybe Jaime will dress another salad. But she bionically hears a ticking sound, and finds some little transistor radio-looking device hidden under the service cart. In heroic fashion—and I mean that literally, because she looks damn fabulous in this outfit—she hurls this ticking time bomb off the hotel balcony, carefully choosing an abandoned construction site next door for her weapon of mass destruction, in order to avoid harming any people or possible kittens. When it hits the ground and nothing happens, Quinn doesn’t believe it was a bomb, thinks she’s overreacting and disses women agents as “hysterical with a tendency to fantasize.”  Cue bomb explosion. A-haha. Match point Jaime Sommers. Take that, you chauvinist grandpa! Now quick Jaime, catch that flying kitten!

In the next scene, Jaime bionics up to a second floor balcony to begin searching the suspect’s room, but winds up having to hide in a closet when the bad guys return. (Yay, she’s at least surrounded by clothes!!) She overhears they plan to hide this spy chip in a photograph. Then Quinn knocks on the door dressed like Barney Fife, pretending to be hotel security following up on another bomb threat. But during his pretend room search, he unexpectedly bumps into Jaime hiding in the closet and gets them both busted. They get stuffed into steamer trunks and when the bad guys try to smuggle them out of the hotel room, Jaime does an awesome jack hammer kick from inside the trunk that gives us a power perspective on her wedgie sandals, whilst knocking all the bad guys over like bowling pins. Angry Birds Score: 250 points.

Back After These Messages: I really did not expect to like this episode as much as I did. Gorgeous wardrobe aside, I thought Ms. Wagner and the actor who played Quinn, Richard Erdman, were actually quite good together. Plus it touched on sexist issues and attitudes, something Jaime wasn’t afraid to dish back. What wasn’t necessary, IMO, was the overly-whimsical music and silly cartoon transitions from one scene to the next. Okay, we get that this was supposed to be humorous, but instead of letting these talented actors carry the comedy themselves, post production decided to step in and superfluously steal their scenes.

We Now Join The Garden Party, Already in Progress:  So Jaime and Quinn crash a garden party reception at the hotel and finally spot this Soviet spy Slotsky, but he’s already handed the photograph/chip over to another bad guy, so Jaime takes off after him, while Quinn decides to apprehend his old nemesis Slotsky. Jaime bionically stops the bad guy in the parking garage of the hotel by gracefully pushing a parked car in his path. Just then, Oscar pulls up in his black stretch limo with squealing tires to take over from there. I just love how he always shows up at the exact moment the script calls for him to be on set, that way Jaime never has to read anybody their Miranda rights. What a pro!!

Jaime ventures back to find Quinn has successfully apprehended and handcuffed Slotsky, and they are sitting in this gazebo having a friendly chat about old times... about how they are both considered over the hill spies and have been cast off by their respective countries, despite giving a lifetime of patriotic service. The long standing feud between them is over. And see, this is why Jaime is so cool. She feels sorry for them both and doesn’t want Slotsky to have to die in jail, so she drops a hint that it will probably take Oscar another 30 minutes before he can get here. As Jaime watches them run off and escape together, she reflects,

“Nice when wars are over, Mr. Quinn. Good luck.”

I just love happy endings. As a matter of fact, it wasn't until this final scene that it struck me I had actually seen this episode back in 1977. Funny that it was Jaime’s noble act of compassion I still remembered way in the back of my mind after all these years, but not any of these amazing clothes. OMG, I am SO glad I grew up and got my priorities straight!  <--- okay, this is where you add the whimsical music track to let viewers know this statement was tongue-in-cheek, and then we fade out to black with a cartoon-style transition.

The End.

P.S. It was this episode that inspired the creation of the Bionic Blonde video Jaime’s Wardrobe Party, which includes 6 of the 7 fabulous outfits that Jaime wore here in ‘Over The Hill Spy.’