The late Andy Griffith lent his titanic talents to this first regular hour-long episode of THE BIONIC WOMAN, setting the series on its high-flying trajectory much like his character Jack Starkey does with airplanes.
The plot is a straightforward and simple one--sneak into a third-world banana republic ravaged by civil war and rescue the trapped American ambassador and his wife. But the story's strength lies in all the little things that happen along the way towards the inevitable conclusion (which was nevertheless a nailbiter!).
Oscar Goldman, barely on screen this time around, makes the most of his time and gives his character a real humanity. In the Air Force jet en route to South America, Goldman admits that he's unsettled about sending Jaime on such a dangerous mission. On paper, he says, she's just another agent, but face-to-face he realizes she's a person and not just an expendable functionary. What a contrast between Goldman and his 1960's counterparts like U.N.C.L.E.'s Alexander Waverly and even the IM Force's Jim Phelps, each of whom took a more stoic, sometimes even cold-hearted, approach to sending agents into harm's way. Goldman's giving Jaime an encouraging word and a peck on the cheek was a nice touch, kept from brimming over into schmaltziness by Andy Griffith's cynical growl of "I don't believe this!"
It was Andy Griffith's passing away yesterday, July 3, 2012, that sparked me to pay him homage by watching one of his performances. Griffith's guest appearance on THE BIONIC WOMAN would probably not be anyone's first pick, but having seen his standout A FACE IN THE CROWD a couple times and the bulk of his own 1960's series, I went with something I had not seen (or don't recall seeing--I watched THE BIONIC WOMAN as a kid and would have been nine when this one aired). Griffith did a fine job, as he always does. He and Wagner clicked and it was a delight to watch the banter between Jaime and Griffith's hardbitten pilot Jack Starkey. Starkey's gruffness erodes over the course of the episode, from his being convinced to carry little Julio on his shoulders to his later snapping to with a "Yes, Ma'am!" to Jaime's orders. Suspicious of Jaime's cover as a nurse from the beginning, Starkey never called her on it. And at the end it's clear he won't ever divulge the secret of Jaime's bionics to anyone. Likewise, Jaime was always careful not to bruise Jack's outsized ego, getting him out of the helicopter and later quietly lending a bionic foot to help roll that log.
Speaking of the ending, I saw what I'm counting as a nice allusion to THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW. When Jack and Julio are standing there together on the tarmac, Jack saying he'll pal around awhile with the orphaned boy Julio, it was like Andy and Opie together again, albeit with a multicultural twist for the sensitive Seventies.
Some nice touches throughout the episode include Jaime's throttling the snake and exclaiming, "I hate snakes!" five years before Indiana Jones made it a catchphrase. Jaime and Jack helping the wounded guerrilla had me confident he would turn out to be an ally later, but I was wrong. He sold them out to his comrades (who in turn leave him lying in the jungle shivering from shock). That betrayal provided Julio an opportunity to reap a small revenge on the guerrillas who murdered his parents. His sending them off on a wild goose chase gave Jaime and Jack the invaluable time necessary to make their escape possible.
Andy Griffith shines bright, but there are also other nice performances in this episode, such as that of from Claudio Martinez, who played Julio. I knew I had seen him before, and thanks to IMDb learned it was on the "Bureaucrat" episode of BARNEY MILLER, where he's especially memorable. James Karen, who did a fine job playing Ambassador Morehouse, will nonetheless always be the once-ubiquitous face of the Pathmark supermarket commercials to those of us who grew up glued to the tube in the tri-state area circa 1975-85. And Robbie Rist as the kid keeping abreast of current events is always fun to see. (Yes, I'm the guy who actually enjoyed him as Oliver on THE BRADY BUNCH!)
All in all, a fast-moving and fun forty-eight minutes and a strong start to the ongoing series. And it is a worthy tribute to the talent of Andy Griffith, who thankfully bequeathed us a bounty of entertaining television.
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