Bionic Ever After (1994)
Cassaundra Marley
Bionic Ever After? is a made-for-television science fiction action film which originally aired on November 29, 1994 on CBS. The movie reunited the main casts of the television series The Six Million Dollar Man and its spin-off The Bionic Woman. Series regular characters Steve Austin (Lee Majors) and Jaime Sommers (Lindsay Wagner), Oscar Goldman (Richard Anderson), and Dr. Rudy Wells (Martin E. Brooks) are featured along with new characters Kimberly Harmon / Haviland (Farrah Forke), Carolyn MacNamara (Anne Lockhart), John MacNamara (Alan Sader), and Miles Kendrick (Geordie Johnson). In the movie, the long-overdue wedding of Steve and Jaime is put in doubt when Jaime's bionic systems start to fail and Steve is caught in a tense hostage situation.[1][2]
This is the third and final reunion movie in the franchise featuring most of the original actors from the 1970s television series, following The Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman (1987) and Bionic Showdown: The Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman (1989).[1][2]
Jaime Sommers is counseling OSI agent Kimberly Harmon, who was severely traumatized on her last mission and begs Jaime for help getting out of the OSI. Jaime informs Oscar Goldman that Kimberly is unfit for an upcoming mission and needs time to heal. On the way to meet her fianc Steve Austin at his boat, her bionic ear malfunctions, greatly amplifying the sounds around her and causing her to wince in pain. The two discuss the plans for their upcoming wedding. Later, while playing a bionically-intense racquetball game with Steve, Jaime's right hand appears to be giving her trouble, allowing Steve to win for the first time. The next evening, her hand pain begins to worsen and Steve takes notice. That night as Jaime lays immobile in bed, someone replaces one of the computer chips in her bionic right arm with a new one labelled "Phase 2".
At the U.S. Embassy in Nassau, Bahamas, Oscar visits with U.S. Ambassador John MacNamara and his wife Carolyn, who are preparing to host a ball with guest of honor, tennis star Astaad Rashid. Oscar leaves with regrets, explaining that he is best man at Steve and Jaime's wedding and can't stay. On the day of the ball, an armed team in a black van infiltrates the Embassy, taking the Ambassador, his wife, and their guests hostage. The group, led by Miles Kendrick, deploys a Scud missile with a nuclear core pointed at the heart of the city as insurance against a rescue attempt and demand that Rashid be handed over to them.
Back in Washington, Jaime explains to Oscar that her bionic systems seem to be breaking down and that she's worried about the impact it will have on Steve and their wedding. The discussion is put on hold as word of the embassy attack comes in. Later, while in a counseling session with Kimberly, Jaime collapses and is rushed to the hospital. Dr. Rudy Wells, the pioneering bionic surgeon, tells Steve that Jaime might have neurological damage and may never be bionic again. In the hospital, Jaime sends Steve away, and he is forced to cancel the wedding.
Not willing to sit idly as Jaime suffers and to repay a life-saving debt to John MacNamara, Steve asks Oscar for an assignment to resolve the embassy situation. Kimberly meets with Steve, telling him that Oscar assigned her as his partner on the mission. Inside the embassy, Kendrick's men are searching for Rashid, hidden somewhere within. Steve and Kimberly arrive in Nassau and begin making preparations for the rescue. After giving him a cup of drugged coffee, Kimberly cuts open Steve's bionic arm in the same way Jaime's was earlier.
Dr. Wells discovers that Jaime is suffering from a computer virus which has infiltrated her bionic systems. He resolves to shut down her power supply completely and replace the infected chips. Jaime wakes and Rudy tells her that he had taken the opportunity to have some "improvements" made. Rudy talks to Oscar, explaining that he had an associate in his bionics research, Dr. Jason Haviland, with whom he had a falling out and who he suspects might have a motive and knowledge to sabotage Jaime. She and Oscar visit Connie Haviland, Jason's widow, who explains that leaving the OSI and bionics research took a toll, causing him to drink heavily until he died of cirrhosis four months earlier. They spot a picture of Kimberly in Connie's house, revealing that Kimberly Harmon is in fact Kimberly Haviland, Jason's daughter, and that she is familiar with her father's work. OSI finds shortwave radio equipment in her apartment, revealing that she had been in contact with Kendrick.
Steve makes his entry into the embassy by bionically jumping to the water tower which is coincidentally where Rashid has been hiding. Kendrick's men, hearing sound from the tower, capture Rashid instead of Steve. His bionics start to break down and he, too, is captured by Kendrick and thrown into the basement.
Jaime arrives in Nassau and confronts Kimberly before making her way into the embassy under cover of darkness aided by bionic night vision, one of the "improvements" of which Rudy spoke. She kicks down the basement door and rescues Steve and the other hostages. A radiation alert rings out across the city and Oscar sends a nuclear containment (NEC) team into the embassy. Kendrick's men change into matching NEC outfits to cover their escape by replacing the real NEC team. Kendrick's team loads into an NEC truck, driven by Kimberly, taking an unconscious Rashid with them. Steve and Jaime give chase, bionically running after the truck. Miles pulls out a remote detonator telling Kimberly that once they escape, he'll ensure no one will follow them. Jaime grabs a manhole cover and, using a new bionic targeting display, throws it at the truck, causing it to flip over. In a moment of regret, Kimberly whispers a warning to Jaime about the detonator. She tells Steve, who shoots the remote and ends the threat.
Some time later, the wedding of Jaime and Steve commences. Rudy gives away the bride to Steve, who eagerly skips straight to the "I do". The couple kiss, ignoring the rest of the formalities, and the annoyed minister pronounces them husband and wife.
All three reunion films were included alongside The Six Million Dollar Man in a 40-disc DVD set from Time Life on November 23, 2010[4] and a 35-disc DVD set from Universal Home Video on October 13, 2015.[5]The films were released by Shout! Factory on Blu-ray in 2022 as part of their Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman complete series sets.[6][7]
First broadcast in 1994, Bionic Ever After? was the final production to feature the original cast and mythos of The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman. It is most notable for providing closure to the events begun in The Bionic Woman (Part II) by ending with the wedding of Steve Austin and Jaime Sommers. It also comprises the end of a loose, three-story arc beginning with the film, Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman. Unlike the first two films, Bionic Ever After? was not produced as a potential pilot film, but simply a final outing for the original Steve Austin and Jaime Sommers.
As of 2014, it marks the final screen appearances of the characters Steve Austin, Oscar Goldman and Rudy Wells. A reimagined version of Jaime Sommers would be introduced 13 years later in the short-lived Bionic Woman series. Stories featuring the original versions of the characters would next appear 20 years later in the comic book series The Six Million Dollar Man Series 6, albeit set well before this TV film.
Days away from her wedding to Steve Austin, Jaime Sommers experiences a mysterious breakdown of her bionic limbs. With her physical fate unknown, Jaime calls off the wedding. Her condition quickly deteriorates, and Dr. Rudy Wells races to find the cause behind the breakdown. Meanwhile, in the Bahamas, terrorist Miles Kendrick takes control of the American Embassy and threatens the launch of a nuclear missile. Steve and OSI operative Kimberly Harmon head to the Bahamas to stop Kendrick, but in the midst of the mission Steve is suddenly stricken with the same computer virus that is destroying Jaime.
Jaime: Oscar... my legs are weak. My arm has been aching for a month; it's having spasms. This morning, I couldn't even lift it over my shoulder. My ear... I... I keep hearing conversations everywhere I go - when I'm at work, I'm in the grocery store - all the sounds keep running together. I'm having trouble isolating anything. (beat) My bionics are breaking down.
Jaime: What if I do? Steve is expecting to marry somebody who beats his behind in racquetball; somebody who... who runs sixty miles an hour; who takes a little twenty mile swim with him once a week. We've been bionic together for a very long time.
Jaime: (on video) I have tried to tell you how I feel, Oscar, and I realize it's difficult to comprehend, but it's as through my... my body is turning against me and is trying to kill me. It's just the most awful thing I've ever experienced. And it's forced me to make the most difficult decision of my life. I... I have to call off the marriage - because even if I do survive whatever this is that's happening to me, I don't expect to ever be the same again. Steve, you and I have what most people only dream about. I know I was truly blessed with you, and... uh... I'll always love you. Please believe that what I'm doing is the best for both of us.
Steve: Look, it... it's sayin' Jaime loves me... she doesn't want me out of her life; she'll realize that soon enough for herself. But in the meantime, I just can't sit here and not be with her. I gotta keep occupied; I gotta work.
Jaime: Well... well, I'm not leaving you... (Steve looks on in amazement as Jaime takes out the NEC truck with a manhole cover) Rudy gave me a few new options. Wait'll you see what he's got in store for you.
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