Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Bionic Beauty, 8 May 2007
Season 2 of the Bionic Woman had pretty much all you could ever wish for in a television show. The scripts were sharp and witty, the plots were either suitably dark and twisted (Kill Oscar, Doomsday is Tomorrow) or light and funny (In This Corner Jaime Sommers, Sister Jaime) and in Lindsay Wagner the show had a beautiful, charismatic lead who could genuinely act. Lindsay Wagner - make no mistake - was very easy on the eye but, leaving my churning hormones to one side for a second, she was first and foremost an extremely talented actress. If you watch her in Deadly Ringer where she portrays a woman suffering a complete psychological breakdown you can see just how good she was. Lindsay Wagner, as you would expect from the lead in what was primarily supposed to be an entertaining sci-fi show suitable for children and adults alike, could do funny and dynamic and stylish and sympathetic. After all she dominates every episode in the series so she effectively had to provide the likeable focal-point all the time, but she could also do dark and tortured. In Deadly Ringer she plays a dual role, being both Jaime Sommers and a woman who looks just like her but who has a very different character, and given the opportunity to go through the entire range of emotions from euphoria to the darkest of dark despairs she really shines as a very talented actress.
The best stories here are the two and three parters such as Jaime's Shield, Doomsday is Tomorrow, Deadly Ringer and Kill Oscar - the last of which introduced the rather sinister fembots. My personal favourite is Doomsday is Tomorrow in which Jaime battles against a beautifully-mannered computer in an attempt to prevent the world being destroyed in a nuclear holocaust. It is, quite honestly, as good and dramatic a piece of televison as I have ever seen.
The stand alone episodes tend, in general, to be a little more light-hearted and give the lead characters greater scope to show their comic talents. Some of the little scenes between Lindsay Wagner and Richard Anderson (who played the charming and reassuring Oscar Goldman) make for great televison. You can sense the genuine affection between the actors and the scenes really shine as a result. Indeed watching the series as a whole you do get the feeling that the entire team of actors, directors, story-writers etc., all had a great deal of affection for the programme and gave it their very best in order to make it a success.
Season two shows the programme at the height of its powers. More settled, and with less to prove, than in the first series but still fresh and innovative. I, for one, am very glad to see this fabulous little box set on the market. Seventies TV at its beautiful, charming, daring, likeable, charasmatic best.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
AT LAST--the 2nd Season has finally arrived..., 1 Nov 2006
My first impression whilst watching these episodes is realising that they have been heavily butchered in syndication. It was quite the revelation that Alex 7000 had actually preyed upon Jaime's fear of snakes in "Doomsday is Tomorrow." That part had been edited from every single episode I have seen in syndication! Also, the part where Jaime leaps up onto the gantry in that same episode to escape the rocket fire had been cut. This is actually a very good piece of film and stunt work, because it does actually look like Jaime has leapt 20 feet into the air. Brilliant editing.
I do have to remark upon the mislabling of this set, however. This is NOT THE COMPLETE 2ND SEASON! The Return of Bigfoot is missing, part 2 of which aired as a Bionic Woman episode. My guess is that Universal have decided to package the "Bionic Bigfoot" episodes with the Six Million Dollar Man sets, as they have been syndicated that way. However, Jaime Sommers does appear in both parts, and Universal might just as well have included both parts of this classic episode for us Bionic Woman fans along with the notation that these were crossover episodes. After all, to be entirely correct, they're going ot have to do this with the SMDM sets that contain these episodes. Okay, enough ranting and pouting about that.
Thank you, Universal-Playback, for offering the Bionic Woman in unedited form. The only complaint I have is with the sound quality. There is some background static on the soundtrack during several episodes. I tried different players with the same results. I don't know if Universal Playback's source material contained this technical flaw or whether this is indeed a defect in the discs themselves.
The picture quality, on the other hand, is very good. I had forgotten how cute Lindsay Wagner was back then. She's still not hard on the eyes these days.
By far, this is the best of the Bionic Woman seasons...but, that doesn't mean Universal should stop there. We fans still want the 3rd season, complete with the handful of rubbish episodes that went along with it.
Enjoy...this is a great classic show from the 70's. Why Universal have not released this stateside is beyond me.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another great set, 28 Oct 2006
I was pleased with season 1 and am also pleased with this set. Except it is not complete. The second season pilot episode is actually Part 2 of a 2 part story that began as the 4th season pilot of Six Million Dollar Man entitled Return Of Bigfoot. So "In This Corner, jaime Somers" is actually episode 2 of the 2nd season. Another trivia item is that Part 2 of "Kill Oscar" is actually a Six Million Dollar Man episode and its obvious when Lee Majors isn't credited as a Guest Star in Part 2 and the text font for the episode credits is the same as all the SMDM episodes. But from what I have heard that is because when it aired in UK it aired as a Bionic Woman Episode so thats why the changes were made. Nevertherless, I am glad that was kept on the disk. Now lets hope that Univeral Playback doesn't wait so long in releasing season 3 as a year is a long time to wait. Of course as soon as I get all the sets, MCA in the US will of course release them stateside...it always happens.
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