The Bionic Woman: The Ghost Hunter originally aired Wednesday, May 26th 1976.

The series The Bionic Woman was actually a spin off of Lee Majors' very successful sci-fi action show The Six Million Dollar Man. In this show Lindsay Wagner portrayed tennis pro Jaime Sommers who was seriously injured after a parachuting accident. Her life was saved by O.S.I.; a secret government agency that reconstructed her body by using cybernetic implants to rebuild her legs, arm and ear giving her superhuman powers. Afterwards Jaime began working as an undercover government operative, being sent on a new and dangerous mission every week.

In this episode Jaime's boss Oscar Goldman (Richard Anderson) must send her to Salem Massachusetts, her mission to investigate some mysterious incidents that have been occurring in the home of Dr. Alan Cory (Paul Shenar) and his daughter Amanda (Kristy McNichol). Dr. Cory is an O.S.I. scientist working on a very important project. Lately though his work has been frustrated by some unexplained force that seems determined not to let him complete his experiments. Jaime is sent in posing as Amanda's new governess with orders to find out who is behind this and to make sure that the doctor's very vital work is completed. As she probes further Jaime discovers that it is some unnatural force that has threatened the doctor and his work and now that she has become involved her life is endangered as well. Amanda is convinced that the disturbances are being caused by her mother, who died just a year before, but as Jaime investigates further she comes to believe that it is Amanda herself that might unknowingly be the source of the strange occurrences.

This is a "spooky old house" story that is atypical of the type normally used for this series as it isn't really action oriented and Lindsay Wagner has very few "bionic" things to do, however it is well done and keeps you interested. All the actors do a good job and Kristy McNichol is particularly memorable in one of her earlier television roles.

Buying note: This show has never been available on commercial home video. But there are other sources for this as well as many other Kristy McNichol appearances that you might be looking for.

5-15-2006