Recap: In a remote complex in a remote corner of the U.S., a shapely redhead named Katie, who's scantily clad in a crop top blouse and ultra short shorts, tells her crotchety mad scientist boss, Dr. Franklin, that the Soviets' plane has just arrived. Franklin grumbles about how much he hates being forced to beg from fools...and by fools he means rich gangsters who have too much money and power to not be treated with the appropriate amount of respect if he expects them to continue bankrolling the crazy Frankenstein shit he's been dabbling in since ever getting the heave-ho from the OSI. Two Russian gangsters enter the complex decked out in white suits - the mandatory uniform for villains on The Bionic Woman and The Six Million Dollar Man - and the sweatiest of them, Baron Constantine, tells Dr. Franklin he's not forking over an additional $10 million unless he gets a progress report on what he's accomplished so far. Dr. Franklin ushers him over to his lab and shows him a row of mannequins (housed in tall glass tubes) he's in the process of transforming into female robots, which he affectionately refers to as fembots. He proudly tells Baron, "They're programmable, obedient, and as beautiful or deadly as I choose to make them." A skeptical and somewhat bewildered Baron chides the kooky misogynist for squandering all the money they loaned him on building fembots when he's supposed to be using their financial resources to gain control of the weather control device that's currently under development by the OSI. Dr. Franklin reminds him that he worked for the OSI for ten years and knows the weaknesses of the system (blabby agents like Jaime who brazenly showcases her "top secret" cyborg abilities has to be near the top of that list), and that he can't acquire the weather machine without making some "very special arrangements". Katie hauls out an organizational chart for the OSI, which Dr. Franklin uses as a visual aid for Phase One of his sinister plan: replacing several OSI employees with fembots. He then clicks on one of the monitors and brings up a digital photo of Linda Wilson (Rudy Wells' secretary) and says she's been under surveillance for a month and will be the first to be replaced by a fembot. Baron, who's now sweating profusely, scoffs at the idea that a motorized mannequin would be able to fool anyone...and Dr. Franklin's like, "Oh yeah..?" then dramatically rips off Katie's face skin, revealing the grotesque innards of her bare fembot face: a motherboard type mask with googly eyes and a round mouth hole that looks like something I could plug my central vac hose into. Baron's all, "Ack!" as Dr. Franklin smugly dials the number of Baron's board of directors and shoves the phone at him...and a freaked out Baron tells the board he's agreeing to whatever additional funds Dr. Franklin needs in order to carry out Operation Replace People With Fembots For the Purpose of Acquiring OSI's Weather Control Device...Even Though It's Still Very Much in Beta Test Mode. Jaime arrives at OSI headquarters in DC and drops in on Oscar's frazzled secretary, Peggy Callahan. Callahan (as everyone seems to call her) starts bitching and moaning about never getting encouragement or support from Oscar, and that the constantly OSI ringing phones are driving her nuts. She's forced to put a pin in her bitchfest when Linda Wilson pops by to tell Jaime that Rudy is looking for her...and Callahan makes Jaime promise to come back, 'cause she's not quite done bending her ear about Oscar's shitty interpersonal skills...which seems kinda unprofessional for the OSI director's secretary to be railing on and on about, but OK. Back at the remote complex, Dr. Franklin is painting a mannequin's face so it'll look exactly like Linda Wilson. Eeeeek! Rudy tells Jaime he wants to fine-tune her bionic ear so that they can "communicate in ultrasonic ranges", 'cause apparently the regular sonic ranges are no longer cutting it. Jaime suddenly hears thunder claps and is all, "Wuh? Is it storming outside?" so Rudy explains that Steve is helping the OSI test its new weather control device...then admits that it still needs a lot of work on account of they can't seem to control the storms' damage. Yeesh. Sounds like a nonsensical man-made disaster just waiting to happen. Jaime perks up at the mention of Steve and rushes over to the testing room...where smoke is starting to billow from. She finds Steve locked in a glassed-in testing lab, where a violent thunder storm is raging around him...and when his bionic arm gets struck by lightning, he urgently asks Jaime to shut off the magnetic power switch. When she quickly does, he flees the lab with a badly burned arm...and Rudy looks over the damage and assures him he'll be fine once he cleans out the charred parts and fuses the burned out wires back together. Steve grimly remarks on how unstable the weather control device still is, refrains from adding how completely, fucking insane it is to simulate a violent electrical storm inside a city building in the middle of Washington DC, and says that Oscar is under huge pressure to make this project work. Steve also refrains from reminding everyone that he's an astronaut - not a meteorologist's guinea pig. Dr. Franklin has finished building Fembot Linda and is in the process of uploading Human Linda's personal history into her memory bank...and a few seconds later, Fembot Linda opens her eyes and stares blankly into space. Human Linda, meanwhile, is helping Jaime with her bionic ear tune-up and informs her that she now has a 60% increase in hearing. Steve looks impressed at the enhancement and invites Jaime out for a game of handball, then dinner. Dr. Franklin, Baron, and a squad of fembots are loaded in a white van and racing toward the OSI building. Jaime and Steve flirtily banter as they bionically play handball...and the game seems to go on for a looooong time. As the white van drives by the OSI gym, Jaime's enhanced bionic hearing picks up a strange buzzing sound from the fembots' internal wiring. The van gets waved into the OSI parking lot by an inattentive attendant...and I wonder if the lax security surrounding the OSI building is one of the "weaknesses of the system" that Dr. Franklin was talking about earlier. Human Linda strolls toward her car as Jaime ambles nearby. She activates her bionic ear in time to hear Linda cry out for help, so she bionically races toward the parking lot...and nearly gets run over by Fembot Linda, who's behind the wheel of Human Linda's car. Jaime stares at her confusedly and asks why she was calling out for help just now, and Fembot Linda's like, "Say wuh?" and says she must have heard wrong. Dr. Franklin, who's watching Jaime via a live feed, wonders aloud who this female non-secretary could possibly be, then scrunches his face confusedly when Jaime gabbles about her ear being all out of whack ever since Rudy's fine-tuning. She quickly detects the same weird buzzing noise she heard earlier in the gym, then stares in puzzlement after Fembot Linda as she drives off. Jaime heads back over to Callahan's office and gets an earful about how unappreciated the disgruntled secretary feels at work. She tells Jaime she's thinking about fleeing the workforce to be a wife and mother, and Jaime says she's going to have a word with Oscar about his abysmal treatment of her...which most people would find awkward and inappropriate - but since Callahan doesn't seem interested in fighting her own battles, she smiles and nods her approval. Dr. Franklin is putting the final touches on Fembot Callahan and tells Baron he's ready to make the second switcheroo. Oscar is informed by his Weather Control Station flunkies that the testing they've been doing in a remote location (White Sands) has had some serious storm damage related setbacks, which...shocker. He ruefully admits to Steve that he may have jumped the gun with this ill-conceived project, then orders him to fly to White Sands to lend whatever help his bionic limbs and eye could possibly offer to the group of disheartened OSI meteorologists. Steve agrees, but grumbles about how bummed he is to miss his dinner date with Jaime. Oscar runs into Jaime outside, points at a chopper taking off, and tells her that Steve is off to White Sands. She scrunches her face in annoyance at having her dinner date cancelled, then chides Oscar for being such a rude turd to his beleaguered secretary. When he just stares quizzically at her and asks her whassup with Callahan, she smugly retorts, "That's exactly the problem." That evening, Callahan calls Jaime from her apartment to report that Oscar wanked her about how much he needs and depends on her at the OSI, and Jaime's like, "You're welcome" and says she called him out on his shitty 'tude. When the doorbell suddenly rings, Callahan puts the phone down to see who's at the door...and comes face to face with the fembot version of herself. As she stares at her doppelganger in shock, Katie appears in the doorway and spritzes something in Callahan's face that promptly knocks her unconscious. Fembot Callahan then picks up the phone and abruptly ends the call with Jaime. The next morning, Rudy rechecks Jaime’s hearing to see if he can figure out why her ear keeps detecting a weird buzzing noise - but he can't find anything wrong with his fine-tuning. The buzzing noise returns in earnest when Fembot Callahan enters the room...and as Dr. Franklin and Baron eavesdrop on Rudy's and Jaime's conversation, they twig onto the fact that Jaime is a bionic OSI agent. Dr. Franklin remarks that Jaime's bionic ear must be picking up the frequency of his fembot's transistors, so he quickly adjusts something on his computer to lower it, then orders Fembot Callahan to begin launching Operation Kidnap Oscar. Baron, meanwhile, is intrigued by the idea of a bionic woman and creepily murmurs, "She would fetch a price." Fembot Linda is hovering over Rudy and Jaime as they continue gabbling about her bionic ear adjustments. Oscar, meanwhile, phones the lab to invite Jaime to lunch, and she happily accepts. The white van carrying Dr. Franklin, Baron, and the squad of fembots is once again able to pull into the OSI parking lot. Fembot Callahan calls Oscar to tell him that Jaime asked if he could meet her in the parking lot at noon - just as Fembot Linda informs Jaime that Oscar cancelled their lunch and left the building a half hour ago. Jaime glances out the window and happens to see Oscar strolling towards the parking lot, is all, "Wha-a-a?" and rushes outside to see if she can intercept him. Dr. Franklin et. al. pull up to where Oscar is standing, spill out of the van's back door, and Katie spritzes the knockout drug in his face. Jaime, who is witnessing the brazen abduction, bionically jogs over to the van and punches her way through the back door in an attempt to rescue Oscar - but Katie foils her efforts by spritzing the knockout drug in her face...and Jaime instantly collapses. As the van speeds off, a miffed Baron says he really really wants to go back and abduct Jaime 'cause of how awesome it would be to possess a bionic woman who has the ability to think for herself - but Dr. Franklin says it's too risky, then snaps, "When is the ability of a woman who can think for herself an asset?!" I wonder if the fembots could be programmed to punch a man in the nuts every time he's heard making misogynist remarks like that. Fembot Callahan is being grilled by NSB Chief Inspector Hanson, who tells a roomful of OSI employees that the white van used in Oscar's abduction was found abandoned near an airstrip. Jaime catches Fembot Callahan in a lie when she incorrectly recalls the time that Oscar left the office...and Fembot Linda is now denying telling Jaime that Oscar left thirty minutes before their scheduled lunch and gaslights her further by reminding her that she's been having problems with her hearing lately. Hanson opens Oscar's safe and pulls out a videotape that Oscar instructed them to play in the event of his capture. In the video, he orders all action units of the OSI and NSB to kill him before he's able to spill the beans about any government secrets. He assures everyone that it's kind, not cruel, then sadly bids them adieu. Jaime stares despondently into space, while Rudy refuses to even consider the possibility of killing Oscar to keep him from talking to the enemy. Hanson, on the other hand, has no such qualms about whacking Oscar and points out that since Oscar sanctioned his own killing, he's A-OK with carrying out his final wishes. Cold-hearted dickwad. Inside the remote complex, Oscar is ushered into a cage, where the real Callahan and Linda are being held. He stares at them in confusion - just as Dr. Franklin appears and gleefully explains that he made robot copies of the two secretaries for the purpose of infiltrating the OSI. He smugly reminds Oscar how shittily he was treated by the OSI, and poutishly says that the weather control device was originally his harebrained idea. He declares that soon he's going to acquire the working model of the device, and that Oscar is going to help him - but Oscar's like, "Yeah right" and flatly refuses to assist him in any way. Dr. Franklin insists that he will help him, in ways he can't imagine, then ambles off to evilly cackle to himself about the success of Phase One. Callahan asks Oscar if the OSI is coming to rescue them, and Oscar's like, "Er...no" and solemnly explains that he left instructions to the OSI and NSB to swiftly kill him in the event of capture. He grimly acknowledges that he didn't expect to have fellow hostages...and when he doesn't even attempt to offer a scrap of hope that any of them will likely survive this kidnapping, Callahan and Linda stare back at him in despair. Jaime demands that Hanson give her and Steve, who's rushing back to DC on the first available chopper, a chance to rescue Oscar. Hanson refuses, flippantly says that Oscar knew the risks, then ejects her and Rudy from the room. Rudy tells Jaime he's afraid that Hanson will gun Oscar down the minute he can get a clear shot...while a contemplative Jaime remarks on how weird Callahan has been acting. Jaime drops by Callahan's apartment to further examine her strange behavior under the guise of wanting to apologize for being so snappish earlier. She brings up their conversation about her wanting to be a wife and mother...and when Fembot Callahan just stares at her cluelessly, Jaime throws in the towel on the jig and says she knows she's not really Callahan. She snaps, "Who are you? Where is Oscar?" and Fembot Callahan retorts by grabbing her by the wrist with her strong robotic grip - but Jaime manages to bionically push her away and run towards the door...where she finds Katie, menacingly aiming her spritzer bottle at her face. Jaime karate-kicks it out of her hand, unwittingly rips off Katie's face skin - that thing needs to be tied down firmer - and is so wigged out by the sight of her motherboard innards, googly eyes and central vac mouth hole that she shrieks in horror and falls backward. Katie grabs a metal pole and advances on Jaime, and Jaime shoves a bookshelf in her direction, and then a sofa chair at Callahan. While the fembots are momentarily incapacitated, Jaime flees to the nearest bedroom and barricades the door. A few seconds later, the fembots punch their way through the door, and Jaime runs over to the window and peers toward the ground, several stories below. She bionically leaps out the window...and when she hits the concrete, her bionic legs spark and quickly collapse beneath her...and she moans pitifully as she lays immobile on the sidewalk. As Rudy hovers over Jaime in the OSI hospital, he hears her mutter, "They're robots.." Rudy assumes she's just rambling incoherently and worries that her body might start rejecting her bionics. Again. Fembot Linda enters the room...and Rudy asks her to keep an eye on Jaime - just before Dr. Franklin orders the fembot to finish Jaime off so she doesn't interfere with Phase Three of his nefarious plan. Eeeek!! An oblivious Jaime drifts off while TO BE CONTINUED flashes across the screen. Thanks for reading! If you are enjoying TVofYore's recaps, consider thanking me by buying me a "coffee"!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
The Bionic Woman homepage
Recapper: Isabel K. French
Your contributions help keep the site ad-free
|
Television of Yore
Snide recaps of television's most entertaining classics recapper@televisionofyore.com |
|