Jaime Sommers (Bionic Woman)
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Jaime Wells Sommers is a fictional character portrayed by
Michelle Ryan Michelle Claire Ryan (born 22 April 1984) is an English actress, best known for portraying the role of Zoe Slater in the BBC soap opera ''EastEnders'' (2000–2005, 2025–present). In 2007, she starred in the short-lived American television s ...
in '' Bionic Woman'', a remake of the original 1970s series ''
The Bionic Woman ''The Bionic Woman'' is an American science fiction film, science fiction Action-adventure fiction, action-adventure television series created by Kenneth Johnson (producer), Kenneth Johnson based on the 1972 novel Cyborg (novel), ''Cyborg'' by ...
'' in which
Lindsay Wagner Lindsay Jean Wagner (born June 22, 1949) is an American actress. Wagner is best known for her leading role in the American science fiction television series '' The Bionic Woman'' (1976–1978), in which she portrayed character Jaime Sommers. S ...
took the lead role. The character was created by Kenneth Johnson based upon concepts from author
Martin Caidin Martin Caidin (September 14, 1927 – March 24, 1997) was an American author, screenwriter, and an authority on aeronautics and aviation. Caidin began writing fiction in 1957. In his career he authored more than 50 fiction and nonfiction books ...
's 1972 novel, ''
Cyborg A cyborg (, a portmanteau of ''cybernetics, cybernetic'' and ''organism'') is a being with both Organic matter, organic and biomechatronic body parts. The term was coined in 1960 by Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline.San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
bartender. She was born in
Van Horne, Iowa Van Horne is a city in Benton County, Iowa, United States. The population was 774 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Cedar Rapids Metropolitan Statistical Area. History It was named for William Cornelius Van Horne, a railroad official. Ge ...
, to political activists, Ethan and Madeline Jo Sommers. Both parents traveled a lot for their causes, and could be away for days or weeks at a time. When he would return home, Ethan always brought back
photograph A photograph (also known as a photo, or more generically referred to as an ''image'' or ''picture'') is an image created by light falling on a photosensitivity, photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor. Th ...
s of his travels for Jaime, and, even at a young age, influenced Jaime's love for photography. In 1992, Jaime's sister, Becca Sommers, was born. Jaime attended the local public school, Meskwaki High School, in Van Horne. She was a very active student; she was the forward on the school's
field hockey Field hockey (or simply referred to as hockey in some countries where ice hockey is not popular) is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with 11 players in total, made up of 10 field players and a goalk ...
team, contributed to and edited the school literary
magazine A magazine is a periodical literature, periodical publication, print or digital, produced on a regular schedule, that contains any of a variety of subject-oriented textual and visual content (media), content forms. Magazines are generally fin ...
, was a success on
debate Debate is a process that involves formal discourse, discussion, and oral addresses on a particular topic or collection of topics, often with a moderator and an audience. In a debate, arguments are put forward for opposing viewpoints. Historica ...
squad, and participated in the photography club. She was popular among the students and a favorite of her
professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...
s. With neither of her parents in lucrative
profession A profession is a field of Work (human activity), work that has been successfully professionalized. It can be defined as a disciplined group of individuals, professionals, who adhere to ethical standards and who hold themselves out as, and are ...
s, Jaime helped contribute to the family by getting jobs around the neighborhood. She baby-sat, delivered
newspaper A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as poli ...
s, and was hired as a host and
waitress Waiting staff ( BrE), waiters () / waitresses (), or servers (AmE) are those who work at a restaurant, a diner, or a bar and sometimes in private homes, attending to customers by supplying them with food and drink as requested. Waiting staff ...
at a family-style
restaurant A restaurant is an establishment that prepares and serves food and drinks to customers. Meals are generally served and eaten on the premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and Delivery (commerce), food delivery services. Restaurants ...
called Jelly's Eatery. A year before Jaime was to graduate
high school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., ...
, Madeline was diagnosed with malignant stage II
breast cancer Breast cancer is a cancer that develops from breast tissue. Signs of breast cancer may include a Breast lump, lump in the breast, a change in breast shape, dimpling of the skin, Milk-rejection sign, milk rejection, fluid coming from the nipp ...
. Jaime, who always believed her parents' busy life on the road prevented Madeline from getting an earlier diagnosis, quit most of her
extracurricular activities An extracurricular activity (ECA) or extra academic activity (EAA) or cultural activity is an activity, performed by students, that falls outside the realm of the normal curriculum of school, college or university education. Although approved ...
to help care for her mom. Her grades slowly began to suffer, but she managed to graduate in the top 7% of her class in 2001. She was accepted into
Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
, where she hoped to study
Irish literature Irish literature is literature written in the Irish, Latin, English and Scots ( Ulster Scots) languages on the island of Ireland. The earliest recorded Irish writing dates from back in the 7th century and was produced by monks writing in ...
. When her mother's condition worsened, Jaime threw aside her plans for
college A college (Latin: ''collegium'') may be a tertiary educational institution (sometimes awarding degrees), part of a collegiate university, an institution offering vocational education, a further education institution, or a secondary sc ...
to stay close to her. She continued to work, but became more and more involved as a
caretaker Caretaker may refer to: Occupations * Janitor (chiefly in the United States), a person who cleans and maintains buildings such as hospitals and schools * Property caretaker, a person who cares for a property * Caregiver or carer (UK), a person wh ...
for her mother. In 2004, after a lengthy battle with cancer, Madeline Jo Sommers died. Immediately after the
funeral A funeral is a ceremony connected with the final disposition of a corpse, such as a burial or cremation, with the attendant observances. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember and respect th ...
, Jaime left for the west coast, leaving Becca behind. Upon her arrival on the west coast, Jaime quickly found herself a cramped apartment in a college town and a job working at a local bar. She enrolled in the
psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...
program at the nearby college and was able to afford
tuition Tuition may refer to: *Formal education, education within a structured institutional framework *Tutoring, private academic help *Tuition payments Tuition payments, usually known as tuition in American English and as tuition fees in Commonwealth ...
since she had saved up a little bit of money while taking care of her mother. In a
bioethics Bioethics is both a field of study and professional practice, interested in ethical issues related to health (primarily focused on the human, but also increasingly includes animal ethics), including those emerging from advances in biology, me ...
class she took as an elective a few semesters later, she met a highly regarded professor, Dr. Will Anthros, whom she eventually started dating. Tracking Jaime down, Becca showed up on her doorstep in 2006 with a duffel bag of a few belongings, asking to stay with her. Jaime allowed Becca to move in, but again the need to provide for her family, this time her sister, forced Jaime to drop out of college. Following a nearly fatal car accident, Will arranges for Jaime to receive
cybernetic Cybernetics is the transdisciplinary study of circular causal processes such as feedback and recursion, where the effects of a system's actions (its outputs) return as inputs to that system, influencing subsequent action. It is concerned with ...
implants, known as
bionics Bionics or biologically inspired engineering is the application of biological methods and systems found in nature to the study and design of engineering systems and modern technology. The word ''bionic'', coined by Jack E. Steele in August 195 ...
. These implants replace both her legs and her right arm, which give her superhuman strength and speed. She also has a bionic ear which allows her to hear at low volumes, at different bandwidths to most humans, and over uncommonly long distances, as well as a bionic eye that gives her 2000/20 vision and mathematical analysis of objects, their speeds, trajectories and so forth. Sommers' rebuilt body contains "anthrocites", a
nanite Nanoid robotics, or for short, nanorobotics or nanobotics, is an emerging technology field creating machines or robots, which are called nanorobots or simply nanobots, whose components are at or near the scale of a nanometer (10−9 meters). ...
-like technology that causes rapid healing of physical wounds. The fourth episode confirms that Sommers can feel pain through her bionic limbs, such as when she accidentally damages a toe after a jump. Subsequent episodes of ''Bionic Woman'' have revealed that Sommers has additional bionic components, including a tracking system implanted in her brain that allows her supervisors to see through her bionic eye and track her location, although Sommers subsequently learns how to disable this feature at will. The reimagined version of Sommers is recruited by a covert anti-terrorist organization and early episodes of the series have shown her training to be an agent, while trying to uncover who within the agency is actually trustworthy. Meanwhile, Sommers has to balance her life as a
secret agent Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering, as a subfield of the intelligence field, is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence). A person who commits espionage on a mission-specific contract is called an ''e ...
with being a surrogate mother to her rebellious 15-year-old sister, whom she has taken care of since the death of their mother and abandonment by their father. Early episodes have revealed assorted information: Will Anthros, whose father invented bionics, is apparently shot to death by Sarah Corvus, a renegade and the first Bionic Woman. After his funeral in the second episode, Jaime Sommers discovers he had kept a secret dossier on her dating back two years which contained her IQ test results, photos and personal history. In the series' fourth episode, Sommers discovers that her bionic systems have a maximum five-year life span. She is also for the first time shown experiencing bionic-hand tremors similar to that exhibited by Corvus, whose first-generation bionics are shown to be slowly failing, affecting her physical and mental health. The fourth episode also reveals that Jaime is afraid of flying. Jaime is depicted as refusing to kill, at one point refusing an order to perform an assassination by sniper rifle and finding an alternative. At another point, however, she encourages her partner Antonio to take a kill shot to neutralize a target.


Character origin

In 1972 the
speculative fiction Speculative fiction is an umbrella term, umbrella genre of fiction that encompasses all the subgenres that depart from Realism (arts), realism, or strictly imitating everyday reality, instead presenting fantastical, supernatural, futuristic, or ...
novel ''
Cyborg A cyborg (, a portmanteau of ''cybernetics, cybernetic'' and ''organism'') is a being with both Organic matter, organic and biomechatronic body parts. The term was coined in 1960 by Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline.Martin Caidin Martin Caidin (September 14, 1927 – March 24, 1997) was an American author, screenwriter, and an authority on aeronautics and aviation. Caidin began writing fiction in 1957. In his career he authored more than 50 fiction and nonfiction books ...
. The book was later adapted into a television movie in 1973, and later into a television series from 1974 to 1978, with the title ''
The Six Million Dollar Man ''The Six Million Dollar Man'' is an American science fiction and action television series, running from 1973 to 1978, about a former astronaut, USAF Colonel Steve Austin, portrayed by Lee Majors. After being seriously injured in a NASA test f ...
''. A multi-episode arc of the show introduced the character of Jaime Sommers (played by
Lindsay Wagner Lindsay Jean Wagner (born June 22, 1949) is an American actress. Wagner is best known for her leading role in the American science fiction television series '' The Bionic Woman'' (1976–1978), in which she portrayed character Jaime Sommers. S ...
), a woman who received bionic implants after a near-fatal accident much like
Steve Austin Steve Austin (born Steven James Anderson and later Steven James Williams; December 18, 1964), better known by his ring name "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, is an American media personality, actor, producer and retired Professional wrestling, profes ...
in ''The Six Million Dollar Man'' (Sommers was a new character created for television; she did not originate in Caidin's novels and thus was considered the creation of writer Kenneth Johnson). The episode arc received very high ratings which led the producers to create a
spin-off Spin-off, Spin Off, Spin-Off, or Spinoff may refer to: Entertainment and media *Spinoff (media), a media work derived from an existing work *''The Spinoff'', a New Zealand current affairs magazine * ''Spin Off'' (Canadian game show), a 2013 Canad ...
series produced by Johnson, with Lindsay Wagner reprising the role of Jaime Sommers as the star of the show. Although Caidin was not involved in the creation of the character, the fact the spin-off series used his concept of bionics as well as featured several characters that Caidin did create, he received a credit on the series. The re-imagined series Bionic Woman, conceived and produced by
David Eick David Eick () (born 1968) is an American writer and producer, best known as the executive producer of ''Battlestar Galactica'', for which he also wrote several episodes. Eick executive produced '' Caprica'' and '' Battlestar Galactica: Blood & C ...
, alters the character of the bionic woman, starring
Michelle Ryan Michelle Claire Ryan (born 22 April 1984) is an English actress, best known for portraying the role of Zoe Slater in the BBC soap opera ''EastEnders'' (2000–2005, 2025–present). In 2007, she starred in the short-lived American television s ...
as a re-imagined and more contemporary Jaime Sommers. Neither Johnson, nor Caidin receive screen credit in this version.


Critical reaction

The original Jaime Sommers was considered a
feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...
icon An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Catholic Church, Catholic, and Lutheranism, Lutheran churches. The most common subjects include Jesus, Mary, mother of ...
, described by ''Time'' magazine as "the most appealing argument for feminism" in 1977, as well as a "latter day
Wonder Woman Wonder Woman is a superheroine who appears in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character first appeared in ''All Star Comics'' Introducing Wonder Woman, #8, published October 21, 1941, with her first feature in ''Sensation Comic ...
," referring to the
DC Comics DC Comics (originally DC Comics, Inc., and also known simply as DC) is an American comic book publisher owned by DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. DC is an initialism for "Detective Comics", an American comic book seri ...
superhero A superhero or superheroine is a fictional character who typically possesses ''superpowers'' or abilities beyond those of ordinary people, is frequently costumed concealing their identity, and fits the role of the hero, typically using their ...
ine. ''The Bionic Woman'' had been of an era where "The ERA (
Equal Rights Amendment The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was a proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States, United States Constitution that would explicitly prohibit sex discrimination. It is not currently a part of the Constitution, though its Ratifi ...
) movement was very much alive," according to the new series' producer,
David Eick David Eick () (born 1968) is an American writer and producer, best known as the executive producer of ''Battlestar Galactica'', for which he also wrote several episodes. Eick executive produced '' Caprica'' and '' Battlestar Galactica: Blood & C ...
. "''Bionic Woman'' was the first television show where the... female was not the wife of or the girlfriend of or the mother of the guy." Despite these accolades, others note the inherent contradiction among the feminist characters of the 1970s, such as Jaime Sommers,
Lynda Carter Lynda Jean Carter (born July 24, 1951) is an American actress, singer, and beauty pageant contestant, best known for her portrayal of Wonder Woman in the television series ''Wonder Woman'', aired on ABC and later on CBS from 1975 to 1979. Befo ...
's ''Wonder Woman'' and the ''
Charlie's Angels ''Charlie's Angels'' is an American crime drama television series created by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts for ABC. It originally aired from September 22, 1976, to June 24, 1981, airing for five seasons consisting of 115 episodes. It was produ ...
''—that these women are objectified by men in order to relay a " lipgloss feminist" message. The new incarnation has been criticized by television analysts as more of a gender-stereotypes portrayal than the original, citing that Sommers is no longer an independent careerwoman (tennis pro and teacher) but rather a college dropout and bartender, who despite being described as having a very high IQ is otherwise in no position to be the "ultimate
women's lib The women's liberation movement (WLM) was a political alignment of women and feminism, feminist intellectualism. It emerged in the late 1960s and continued till the 1980s, primarily in the industrialized nations of the Western world, which resu ...
heroine" the original had been. Lindsay Wagner, the original Bionic Woman, described the new series as "dark and broody and violent." Describing the new Jaime, Michelle Ryan comments that "She is a strong, feisty female character… She has a vulnerability to her. She's very warm and compassionate. I think she has high morals. She always questions things. She says, 'We're the good guys, and I don't think that's right."It's not easy being bionic
newsday.com
Ryan continues describing the character, adding "She's a real tomboy as well. She's real. I think she's very grounded, and she has a good heart, but she also has an edge to her as well." Parallels are drawn between the new Jaime and her 1990s female
action hero An action hero (sometimes action heroine for women) is the protagonist of an action film or other form of entertainment which portrays action, adventure, and often violence. Action heroes are depicted in exciting or perilous chase sequences, figh ...
predecessors, some commentators remarking on a likeness to
Buffy Summers Buffy Anne Summers is the title character of the ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer'' franchise. She first appeared in the 1992 film ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer'' before going on to appear in The WB/ UPN 1997–2003 television series and subsequent 1998â ...
, protagonist of supernatural drama ''
Buffy the Vampire Slayer ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer'' is an American supernatural fiction, supernatural drama television series created by writer and director Joss Whedon. The concept is based on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer (film), 1992 film, also written by Whedon, a ...
'', in the sense that she has been unwillingly given a superhuman burden. This also extends to the relationship between Jaime and her
foil Foil may refer to: Materials * Foil (metal), a quite thin sheet of metal, usually manufactured with a rolling mill machine * Metal leaf, a very thin sheet of decorative metal * Aluminium foil, a type of wrapping for food * Tin foil, metal foil ma ...
and
antagonist An antagonist is a character in a story who is presented as the main enemy or rival of the protagonist and is often depicted as a villain.nemesis In ancient Greek religion and myth, Nemesis (; ) also called Rhamnousia (or Rhamnusia; ), was the goddess who personified retribution for the sin of hubris: arrogance before the gods. Etymology The name ''Nemesis'' is derived from the Greek ...
Sarah Corvus, which has been described by reviewers as sharing similarities with the Buffy/
Faith Faith is confidence or trust in a person, thing, or concept. In the context of religion, faith is " belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion". According to the Merriam-Webster's Dictionary, faith has multiple definitions, inc ...
dynamic in ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer''. Other commentators mention that the relationship between Jaime and the Bionics program director Jonas Bledsoe parallels that of Buffy and her mentor Giles, much as the Berkut Group serves similar functions within the storyline as the Watcher's Council does in ''Buffy'': that of patriarchal oppressors.


See also

* Woman warrior *
List of women warriors in folklore This is a list of women who engaged in war, found throughout mythology and folklore, studied in fields such as literature, sociology, psychology, anthropology, film studies, cultural studies, and women's studies. A ''mythological'' figure d ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sommers, Jaime Bionic franchise Cyborg superheroes Fictional bartenders Fictional cyborgs Fictional characters from Iowa Fictional characters with superhuman strength Fictional characters who can move at superhuman speeds Fictional spies in television Television characters introduced in 2007 The Bionic Woman