episode #03 - A Thing of the Past

episode #3 of 1st season / Air Date: 2/18/76 written by Phillip DeGuere, Jr. Directed by Alan Crosland

Jaime helps a local out in this one - the school bus driver, Harry (Donald O'Connor), who also runs a local gas station. Harry has a 15-year history with the town of Ojai (Jaime has known him since high school) and is an all-around nice guy. But, there's no information about him before those 15 years. A low level hood (Don Gordon) passing through town recognizes Harry from somewhere and soon figures it out: Harry used to be a stand-up comic in a Chicago nightclub, where he witnessed the murder of his boss. Fearing for his life, Harry fled, changed his name and settled in Ojai. The contract killer (Roger Perry) is still around and still after Harry, willing to pay 10 grand for information as to his whereabouts.
Jaime again manages to use her bionic strength in a wide variety of ways. The key scene is when the schoolbus crashes and the door is wedged against a huge boulder; Jaime sends everyone to the back of the bus and kicks the door. The boulder, one of those big 4-ton things, rolls away like... paper-mache (also, you'd think after the ripped phone book in the 1st episode, the clobbered baseball and now this, even the slowest kid in her class would start catching on...). The gist of this episode, however, is that Jaime must use her powers to help Harry against the crooks without Harry really catching on. She manages to be surreptitious enuff in each instance that Harry isn't quite sure what happened. BoG's Score: 6 out of 10

Bionic Trivia: Lee Majors as Steve Austin cameos in this episode; he also knows Harry, having grown up in the same town. Star Trek TOS actor alert: Roger Perry appeared in Tomorrow is Yesterday as a pilot