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| Production 45426 Original Airdate: 2 February 1977 | |||
 "I am Jaime Sommers."
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| Produced by Kenneth Johnson | |||
| Written by James D. Parriott | |||
| Directed by Alan J. Levi | |||
| Guest Cast | |||
| Guest Star(s) Don Porter as James Courtney Warren Kemmerling as Warden Cooper Katherine Helmond as Dr. Harkens Ford Rainey as Jim Elgin | |||
| Co-starring Ruth Kobart as Guard John Zenda as Weber | |||
| With Lou Fant as Convict Jack Kutcher as Guard Angela Hoffman as Jody Billy Rittenbaugh as Arty Jeffrey Whipple as Bill Stacy O'Brien as Terry Pat St. James as Woman Convict | |||
| Broadcast Order | |||
| Season 2 | |||
| ← Previous | Next → | ||
| "Doomsday Is Tomorrow (Part II)" | "Deadly Ringer (Part II)" | ||
| Related episodes Mirror Image | |||
Jaime is drugged and switched with Lisa Galloway. While Jaime attempts to convince prison officials of her identity, Lisa enjoys her new family and freedom.
Summary
A nightmare begins for Jaime Sommers when two hit-men introduce a sleeping gas into her Ojai apartment and render her unconscious. She awakens to find herself confined in a prison cell against her will after exchanging places with a surgically altered look-alike, Lisa Galloway, who has secretly eluded capture. Heavily sedated and placed in a padded cell, a conspiracy is mounted by Dr. Harkens and her assistant, Weber, to murder Jaime -- first they will give her the operation intended to restore Lisa's original appearance and then bury her wearing Lisa Galloway's face. Meanwhile, they keep her drugged, which keeps Jaime from using her bionics.
Meanwhile, Lisa acquires a small supply of adrenalizine, an experimental drug discovered by Dr. Rudy Wells, which produces bionic-like strength. But unbeknownst to Lisa, the drug also has severe adverse events. Incognito as Jaime Sommers, Galloway infiltrates the OSI offices in Washington, and even fools Rudy and Oscar into believing she is the genuine bionic woman. Agreeing to act as courier, Lisa steals the last remaining batch of Adrenalizine, an experimental drug discovered accidentally by Dr. Rudy Wells whose therapeutic indication appears promising for paralytic patients.
With the Adrenalizine in hand, Galloway is able to emulate bionic feats of strength. Her ultimate goal is to return the drug to Dr. Courtney and sell it for millions to foreign agents.
Meanwhile, Jaime escapes the drug trap and the prison, and is now fully aware of the plot against her. The prison warden is in hot pursuit with dogs and every available police unit.
Quotes
Rudy: Plato here is the product of an accidental drug discovery I made four months ago. I call it Adrenalizine.
Lisa: Adrenalizine?
Rudy: It's a plastic compound, it works about the same as our own adrenaline.
Trivia
- Lindsay Wagner won the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 1977 for her work on The Bionic Woman, and her victory has been directly attributed to her performance in the Deadly Ringer episodes.
- While Jaime is trying to convince Warden Cooper of her identity, she urges him to take her fingerprints -- implying that her bionic hand has fingerprints.
- It's implied that Jaime does not have 20/20 vision as she requires glasses for doing fine needlepoint work. However, as Lisa also dons the glasses it's possible these are magnifiers rather than prescription glasses.
Gaffes
Continuity
- Two different shots of the chair next to the sink are used during the scene where Weber injects Jaime with the drug.
- The prison infirmary in Courtney's flashback to the Adrenalizine experiment and the prison infirmary Jaime is taken to look exactly the same.
Visual
- In the scene where the guards and dogs are dispatched to hunt Jaime, the edges of the frame are obstructed as if shot through a tube.
- In the scenes where Jaime escapes the prison and Cooper dispatches the tracker dogs, it looks more like a construction site than a prison courtyard: forklifts, lumber stacks and trucks can be seen in the background.
Nitpicks
- Jaime didn't hear the noise of the two villains' car, before her kidnap. Perhaps her bionic ear had a malfunction.
- Two small canisters are able to release enough gas to flood Jaime's coach house and knock her out. But when the villains enter to kidnap her they don't wear gas masks.
- Courtney and Lisa have been been planning the escape for at least four months (when Lisa's faked mental deterioration began) but Courtney did not know about adrenalizine being the apparent secret of Jaime's strength until a fortnight (the time Oscar stated for Courtney's escape) prior to the kidnapping. So prior to his knowledge about adrenalize, how did Courtney intend to address the problem of Lisa not being able to emulate Jaime's powers?
- Dr. Courtney is a convicted felon known to the OSI yet is allowed to work in his prison's drug testing facility -- on a top secret formula from the OSI!
- Although it's not inconceivable that the OSI might be involved in shady actions, the testing of experimental drugs on convicts, even with their consent, would likely be considered illegal in real life (as even if the convicts were volunteers, the fact they were incarcerated would give an impression of duress, as opposed to non-prisoners volunteering for drug trials).
- Jaime trips out in the padded cell, yet she is coherent enough not to eat the sandwich, instead hiding it inside her shirt.
- In the padded cell, Jaime lands on a drainage grate as she attempts a bionic jump. It breaks in two perfect halves but is shown intact in her hand a moment later. Furthermore, no drainage hole is seen underneath.
- When Jaime calls out for the guard after waking up in her cell in the morning, her neighbors immediately begin yelling and complaining. Yet when Lisa is freed from her cell in the middle of the night, the guard speaks to her at full volume, and she replies in a normal tone of voice, yet no one utters so much as a "be quiet, I'm trying to sleep." The fact Lisa is conscious makes it unlikely the prisoners had been knocked out by the same gas that put Jaime to sleep. The prisoners also don't seem to notice Jaime being carried into her cell with the door loudly closed.
- Actions performed under the influence of Adrenalizine are accompanied by a sound effect that resembles the Bionic sound effect.
| The Bionic Woman: Season Two | |
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| Doomsday Is Tomorrow (Part II) | Deadly Ringer (Part II) |