The Bionic Woman
To maintain the show's plausibility, creator/executive producer Kenneth Johnson set very specific limits on Jaime Sommers's abilities. He elaborated, "When you’re dealing with the area of fantasy, if you say, ‘Well, they’re bionic so they can do whatever they want,’ then it gets out of hand, so you’ve got to have really, really tight rules. [Steve and Jaime] can jump up two stories but not three. They can jump down three stories but not four. Jaime can’t turn over a truck but she can turn over a car." These limits were occasionally incorporated into episodes, such as "Kill Oscar Part 1," in which Jaime is forced to make a jump that's too far down for her bionic legs, causing massive damage to them and nearly causing her death as a result.
The Bionic Woman
The series proved popular worldwide, particularly so in the United Kingdom, where it was shown on the ITV network and achieved unusually high audience figures for a science fiction show. The first episode of the series ("Welcome Home Jaime") was shown on 1 July 1976 and was the most watched programme of the week. It was watched in 7 million homes, giving it an average of 14 million viewers. Two weeks later, the show's third episode ("Angel of Mercy") also became the most watched programme of the week. Its success continued with a further 10 episodes scoring in the top 20 during 1976. (By contrast, "The Six Million Dollar Man" never once entered the top 10 rating during its five seasons, though this was most likely due to the fact that the show was never broadcast across all ITV stations at the same time). The second season also proved popular, with seven episodes finishing in the weekly top 20, the highest of these being the episode "The Vega Influence" on 12 May 1977, which reached No.8 with 14.8 million viewers. The third season was not broadcast simultaneously across all ITV stations in the UK, however, and therefore no episodes reached the weekly Top 20.