EPISODE REVIEW 2x14

January 26, 1977

Dear Diary,

Mood Ring: Purple

Oh wow, like really wow!  Tonight THE BIONIC WOMAN SAVED THE WORLD ALL BY HERSELF. She cried a few times but she was really brave and strong and destroyed that mean Alex in the end. I will never ever get a computer no matter how big my house is.

February 28, 2015

Dear Bionic Blondes,

Mood Ring: Purple

Weeeere back! Viewing supplies ready? Considering the intense cliffhanger of part one, I have decided to re-stock my doomsday bunker supplies with a little inspiration from Sister Jaime with way more megabytes of wine. -->

We're also going to need lots of chocolate to battle depression alongside Jaime’s "insurmountable odds" plus an especially aggravating operating system that won’t shut up.

I cannot believe the world could possibly end all because of a stupid computer glitch! Even though we can probably thank this episode drama for preparing us for our own futures, where our world systematically ends every time a hard drive crashes and we forgot to make any file backups. Oops.

Doomsday Part 2 naturally begins with a recap of Part One, which burns our countdown clock by more than 2.5 minutes, further pressuring Jaime's timeline. This is narrated by Oscar, who wraps it all up with, "And now the conclusion of Doomsday is Tomorrow on The Bionic Woman."  OK this kinda made me verklempt, as this also marks the conclusion of the Bionic Blonde’s episode reviews.  I'd ask Oscar to give me a hug, unfortunately his stress level is at Defcon 1 for the next full hour, so I'll just send him a bouquet of Tums instead.

Here on the blinky lights, main communication "bridge," Jaime is rifling through drawers hoping to find something that tells her where the central core of the complex is. Alex 7000 The Stalking Computer boasts that he can see and sense her every step of the way, so good luck, sister. Or cousin. (Wait, that comes later.) Anyway, he just goes ahead in a neeners kind of way to present her video footage of what she's looking for, which is located on "Subterranean level 8." Oh goody, Super Mario Brothers drinking game commence—we hereby get to drink every time Jaime conquers a lower level! 

Alex also reminds Jaime that his defenses are designed to keep an entire army out, "much less one ordinary woman."

Ooooo he really did just minimize her as an “ordinary woman,” but Imma skip a feminist rant here because at the moment I'm too distracted by the way the content skew is almost always off on Alex's video monitors*. One would think a computer this large and sophisticated could superimpose images without looking like it was pasted on by a pre-schooler. Safe to say at this point in the plot, I am fairly confident that even an "ordinary" female video editor could kick Alex's ass. (Refresh browser for animated gif)

*my apologies to the pre-digital age 70s editing staff working with ancient technology and tight budgets—no thanks to Alex's astronomical electricity bill.

For like 2 seconds Jaime makes a pit stop pose to obligatory-pat her Russian comrade Dmitri's shoulder, who is still resting on a parking curb wrapping his leg wound from Part 1.

"Wish me luck I gotta long way to go," Jaime bids, while never even bothering to make eye contact with him. Then she races on to her destination for the American Doomsday team and Olympic Gold.

Jaime makes it past the rocket incinerator in time, dodges a few lasers and gets inside the door, racing down her first staircase to reach level 2. *DRINK!*

Hey No Fair: Alex is whining this doesn't seem normal for a human being because he can clock her running at 57.384 MPH. He warns Jaime she will never make it down to level 3 because of all his high voltage electricity barriers. (C'mon Jaime, your drinking audience is counting on you!)

Meanwhile back at the OSI Safe House Central Command For Personnel Too Afraid To Die In The Nuclear Holocaust, Rudy tells Oscar he has a theory for how to stop the Doomsday device, simply by dropping another Cobalt or Strontium something neutralizing atomic bomb on top of it. BUT… OSCAR KEENLY OBSERVES, YOU WOULD ALSO BLOW UP THE BIONIC WOMAN!!!

No worries, Rudy tells Oscar they can always cancel the military delivery order at the last minute in the event Jaime is successful in saving Doomsday first. (Besides Rudy has plenty of time left and like almost 100 more chemicals on the periodic table of elements to explore new bomb recipes. Get on it.)

Oscar takes Rudy's advice and authorizes a B-52 (All together now: Tin roof, rusted!) to pack up with their shiny new, my-bomb-is-bigger-than-your-bomb WMD, and head that way—while he and Rudy and Russ all pause to look semi-sad about their HEARTLESS decision to kill Jaime.

Egg Timer Update: 4:12:11 until detonation now. While Jaime touches a railing on a crosswalk, Alex can detect her right arm doesn't perspire…. which she then uses defiantly to bionic-open a 220-volt gate without getting shocked. Woah! Alex asks Jaime what her arm is made of, and she answers him in a a quite contemptuous tone, "Sugar and Spice." LOLOL

So Alex googles her arm data and of course gets the popular 3-D graphics from the Bionic Woman opening credits. To skip past the remaining electrocuted gates on the maze of crosswalks, Jaime decides to take a short cut across a steel balance beam and dismounts bionic jumps 24 feet down (in 2 stages) to reach the 3rd level of the complex. Woohoo DRINK! #TeamBionicWoman

Alex analyzes mid-jump she has bionic legs, too. Jaime ignores his update and turns the corner to find a long tunnel lined with pipes that she was warned about earlier. Alex proudly boasts this contains fire-fighting foam, consisting of a chemical that will also cut off her oxygen and since the human parts of her still need to breath, she will lose.  OH…. NOT SO FAST, MISTER CRANKY COMPUTER PANTS. 

Soap Opera: Because what woman can't navigate a little deluge of soapsuds ? Dude, we invented laundry day.

I simply adore this scene and consider it one of the most iconic and suspenseful of the series. The Bionic Woman surfing down the Tunnel Of Tide practically suffocating in soapsuds.

Natch, Jaime makes it through the tunnel, although a bit winded from that lack of oxygen thang. However her hair takes a major hit, and quite frankly I'm surprised her clothes weren't any cleaner when she came out the other side.

The second Jaime turns the corner, she notices a steel airlock door to Level 4 beginning to close, with lights flashing and alarms blaring. So she has Rita make a sudden bionic long jump horizontal leap to get through it in time. Oh no, her right leg gets caught and hammered! Jaime bionic lifts the door up to pull her leg the rest of the way through to assess the severe damage to her bionics. Whereupon now and only now that she is technically FULLY inside Level 4, we can all finally DRINK! Hooray!

Byte Me: After the commercial, alas, Jaime can now barely walk. OMG she looks so pitiful as she hobbles down a staircase while Alex is droning on about noticing she can't repair her own bionics and how hard it must be for her to struggle on with such insurmountable odds.

"Oh will you SHUT UP?! I've had enough without having to listen to that soft-soaped voice of yours!" BOOM. Even though this isn't aim-related, I'm awarding the Bionic Woman 250 Angry Bird Points for losing her lady-like composure and finally putting this one-eyed computer nerd in his place.

Kissing Cousins:  Then Alex has the audacity to point out to Jaime that hey y'know what, they're sorta like cousins! After all, she's human with the parts of a machine, and he's a machine with the mind of a human. "Well bully for you." Jaime quips back.  Oops, that snarky remark costs her a piercing bull horn blast from one of Alex's speakers, which causes her to scream and lose her balance and fall down the stairs.

Alrighty that does it. Jaime stomp-limps over to a remote computer module station and starts walloping the side of it with her bionic fist, screaming... 

Motherboard of Meltdowns: Then how much do I love this dramatic scene where Jaime pleads with Alex to understand emotions, to know what it's like feel the warmth of the sun or to play with children—to be alive. Alex drones he is only programmed to stop her and win and that's what he's done. "You've lost and there is no one to repair you. Our duel is over."

But with tears in her eyes, Jaime looks up at the monitor and keyboard and decides to do what we all do in times of desperation. Google it. 

Jaime searches for bionic repair, (amazingly without AOL dial up speed in 1977.) Hit!  Alex's internal memory bank just happens to have some troubleshooting tech support information (effectively in PLAIN ENGLISH) so she downloads and follows the on-screen instructions and pulls out a mini camera cord device to scan the damage to her leg.

After she confirms "You mean that little blue thing?"  she uses a station pin laser to solder some wire in her smashed bionic leg so she can finally wiggle her toes again. (I feel it worth noting that her bionic typing is greatly appreciated here given our short timeline for armageddon.)

Oops there goes the egg timer: Meanwhile Alex has to "leave" to follow up on the 3-hour warning, so he satellite feeds another pre-recorded tape from the still late Dr. Cooper saying hey world, you only have 3 hours to live so let's take this remaining time to think about how you've sinned, shall we? And incidentally the death rockets are launching NOW buh bye!

When the missiles launch, the Mid Eastern contingent experiences regret for triggering this whole thing. The OSI contingent opens their 4th bottle of Tums. And Jaime feels the earth move under her feet and the skies tumbling down a tumbling down, then casually resumes her bionic repair.

While she grabs a missing "crystal thingy" replacement chip from inside the module panel, she is spooked by a live wire she confesses to Alex she thought was a snake, which incidentally she hates. (Oopsie) Meanwhile Alex has been quietly positioning a giant 40-ton hydraulic crane above her. Just as Jaime completes her bionic repair and stands up to declare she can now fight him on her own two feet again, he drops the industrial crane on top of her.

Nooooo! But Jaime manages to bionic jump out of the way, earning 500 Angry Crane Points for her impeccable timing. Plus high marks for also recognizing that Alex seems to now be crudely improvising because he doesn't have any real defenses on these lower levels, does he? Alex refuses to answer her, only to boringly repeat he is programmed to win (can somebody please get this computer some new lines?) and also BTW we only have 2 hours and 18 minutes left.

Jaime races down the stairwell to the next level and notices a sprinkler system valve dripping above, which Alex feels nerd-ly compelled to explain was shut off back when he was created by Dr. Frankenstein, er Cooper, to avoid any electrical short circuiting. PAY ATTENTION HERE KIDS  #NoReason

YAY DRINK! Because Jaime has now passed the welcome to level 7 stairwell intersection! According to my math, the last time we got a Level progression marker was #4, so we get to swig 3 drinks now to catch up. 

Interesting side note. (Delivered in Alex's voice) In this next scene, Oscar's "mission go" code for the B-52 pilots (Tin roof, rusted!) to proceed with dropping a bomb on top of Jaime is "404." Ironically, this is the future, completely opposite HTTP 'not found' code for a server being unable to find a web page or internet address. So now whenever you get a 404 code, you can feel paranoid that Alex is still alive and we are continuing to intercept Oscar's damn signal to his military mission pilots.

Dungeons and Dragons: Just as Jaime reaches a sign for level 8 on the staircase (DRINK!), Alex says he has a little surprise for her.

SSSSSSSuddenly there is the loud sound of rattle snakes coming from the hell pit known as the dark stairwell below. Noooooo!  "That's what you'll have to go through to get to the Doomsday device," Alex teases.

But after a few flights of fear and stress, Jaime decides Alex is improvising again, finds his wall speaker playing the audio file and destroys it.

Back After These Messages: Look for the video link at the end of this review for a special reference to this scene—when Ms. Wagner unexpectedly encounters her nemesis Alex 7000 again in 2013.

Behind The 8 Ball: At the bottom of level 8 dungeon, Jaime finds the giant doomsday bomb missile housing and has Rita skillfully rappel down to it using a rope. (Why have I never noticed this scene before?) With a comfortable 54 minutes to go, Alex suddenly detects the B-52 approaching his airspace and starts radar-jamming its communications. So now Oscar’s 404 code can't refresh.

Rudy has a moment of guilt about not letting the rest of the world know YOU'RE ALL GONNA DIIIIIE, and whether or not his bomb vs. bomb theory will even work. We then cut to the Mid-Eastern guy having a heartfelt moment hugging his grandson on a playground, while Jaime finishes her bionic leap descent into the Level 8 abyss containing the central core vault and doomsday device. Quite deservedly, she makes a Proud of Me™ face.

The Victory Parade:  Jaime struts down the hallways. OMG she's not even running. Seriously sweetie, I know you have a tendency to be late for things, but tick, tock, tick, tock let's pick up the pace a bit, shall we?

When Jaime at last reaches a panel of his pretty memory banks, she touchés to Alex he's about to lose. But he informs her of a tiny disclaimer that any tampering of his guts, in any way, will immediately trigger the doomsday device.

Jaime's like whatever, in 45 minutes it won't make any difference anyway. And so with a lot of nail-biting apprehension, she pulls out the first chip. Whew nothing explodes! She tentatively yanks a few more to similar results, but then when she grabs and disengages the number 0033, an alarm blares. 

Oooooo Crap, here comes Dr. Cooper on the TV again. I mean seriously, how many different recordings did he make for potential video game level scenarios?  "My friends, the failsafe system of the Doomsday device has been triggered, the countdown clock will advance, the end is now upon humanity…" yadda yadda "…in 20 seconds all of the world will behold armageddon."  

Ah well... on the upside, kudos to Jaime Sommers for hyper-advancing the timeline, thereby shortening this episode to a 2 parter instead of 3.

Russian Roulette: Poor Jaime is now well aware of the 20 second emergency status with alarms going off while she frantically pulls more short circuiting chips from the memory banks in a last ditched attempt to find one that will stop Alex.  OMG the tension here is amazing, cutting back and forth to the spinning clock and Jaime's desperation and fear. (Bravo to director Kenny Johnson; the editing is awesome) And then suddenly the clock hits 0.00 and everything just goes silent.

Blink.

Dear God nooooo, not the fetal position!!!!  Kids, once again we are forced to witness the Bionic Woman emotionally collapse under the intense pressure. This entirely breaks my heart. But as Jaime (and the rest of us) keep waiting and waiting for something to explode, nothing happens, except that a vault door at the end of the hall slowly grinds open.

Ohh Emmm Geee LOL we've all been pranked!  Inside the vault there's a giant memorial plaque with a bible passage inscription from the Book of Isaiah. "They shall beat their swords into plow-shares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation. Neither shall they learn war anymore… " 

Jaime can you hear me now?! Oscar is on a speaker phone located on a computer panel, calling in from OSI headquarters. Jaime picks up the phone receiver and excitedly tells Oscar there is no bomb because Elijah Cooper was a man of peace after all! 

But then Alex rudely disconnects the signal and informs Jaime that au contraire, there actually IS a doomsday bomb and that B-52 coming this way is super going to trigger it. (Oh great, thanks a LOT Rudy.) And Jaime's all like WTF, WHAT B-52?

(All together now, Tin Roof… Rusted!)

Thanks to Alex's radar jamming they can't get Oscar’s 808 recall code, so they're dutifully pressing on with Rudy's strontium bomb pizza order with extra pepperoni. The pilot remarks "I guess the girl struck out down there."  Um whut?  Don't get me started on the implication of gender immaturity by referring to Jaime as a girl here.

I'll Take B-52s for 500, Alex: Our behemoth motherboard fills Jaime in on the scenes she missed where Dr. Wells took the intercept-initiative to drop a bomb on top of Alex’s bomb, the effects of which will trigger Doomsday after all. Once again Alex repeats he is programmed to win and he's awesomely gargantuan with a lot of remote modules scattered about and "there is no way to stop all of me in time."

And then there it is, that little moment of spark, inspiration and devilish glint in Jaime's eye, as she figures out how to TAKE HIM DOWN.

I just love this face, which is why I chose it for the profile image in the blog. Jaime’s expression perfectly captures the human spirit—which has the ability to find creative solutions to any problem, without having to possess any superhuman strength nor involve the use of violent force.

See, it was not the Bionic Woman who saved the world. It was just that Woman part, with some kick ass determination after surviving an unfortunate incident with a bullying washing machine.

Just Add Water. With her brill idea, Jaime Sommers takes off and heads back to the surface of the complex via an underground tunnel. En route, she passes by that Russian agent Dmitri again, still sitting on the curb nursing his leg, and tells him she has to go stop a bomber now buh bye!

Jaime narrowly dodges surface defense lasers, and reaches that big red, clearly labeled water main H2O sprinkler valve she ran past earlier in this episode, and proceeds to frantically bionic-crank it on—which engages the entire sprinkler system. Water starts spraying into all 8 levels of the complex, causing explosive electrical computer sparks and widespread system failures.

I do find it amusingly ironic that this water dousing was exactly the same method Dorothy used to kill the Wicked Witch. YOU CURSED BRAT LOOK WHAT YOU’VE DONE! I’M MELTING, MELTING…

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As Alex begins to short circuit and die, he complains, " I'm. Getting. Confused.  Are you still there? Make it stop. Jaime?…". Sizzle Fizzzzz. Whoop, he's gone, the radar jam ends, and the B-52 gets the OSI’s 808 abort mission recall code milliseconds before they drop the bomb.

The relieved pilot then remarks "Looks like the little lady pulled it off!"  Great, so now she's graduated from the military rank of "girl" to  "little lady." If not saving the world, I wonder what Jaime needs to accomplish to earn the title of "woman?"

Night At The Museum: In the final scene, Jaime and Dmitri limp over to visit the Plow Shares Memorial Quote again.

Jaime considers Dr. Cooper kind of a hero for taking "every leader of the world today to his own funeral." Perhaps a brilliant tactic for peace, Dmitri admits, but wonders "will they remember it tomorrow?" 

Um, I certainly will. In this, my favorite episode of the Bionic Woman television series that remained most vivid in my memories of watching this show as a girl. Bravo to Kenny Johnson and Lindsay Wagner for bringing us such an epic 2-parter.

And on that blissful note, today I officially end this blog with a sparkling purple mood ring and a final Martini toast to all Bionic Woman fans who followed me on this journey: Cheers and Cin Cin!

Related:

Doomsday is Tomorrow (Part 1)

Doomsday is Tomorrow: The Lost Tweets

Lindsay Wagner gets a surprise visit from Alex 7000 again at DragonCon 2013 (Video)

Join me in taunting Alex7000 on his Twitter account

FASHION HIGHLIGHTS

Jaime’s outfit from Part 1 carried over as her one and only this entire hour. Tan bell-bottomed slacks with a long sleeved white blouse over a white ribbed turtleneck, plus a teal green and blue neck scarf— that, as I mentioned previously—will make a surprise wardrobe return in next season’s Out Of Body. By the end of the episode, her clothes were dirty and her hair was kind of a mess. But honey, you try saving the world and see how your hair holds up.

Also of note, The Bionic Woman is wearing her enneagram necklace again—and if I am not mistaken, this is the last time we will ever see it. Her iconic necklace seems to disappear from the series altogether after these Doomsday episodes. Perhaps Jaime threw it into the belly of the beast known as Alex 7000.