While watching the last "Bionic Woman" episode, I was struck by something that the character Sarah Corvus said: "Want, take, have." This is verbatim the same philosophy the character Faith convinced Buffy to adopt for a while in the episode "Bad Girls" in season 3 of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."
There are definitely parallels between Buffy and Jaime and between Faith and the Bionic Woman's nemesis, Sarah -- with some twists. The most obvious and silliest parallel between Jaime and Buffy are their last names: Sommers and Summers. Given that the Bionic Woman's name is the same name as the character in the original 80s series and I assume that Joss Whedon wasn't really thinking about that character when he was creating Buffy, I'll chalk that one up to coincidence. More important is that both Buffy and Jaime are two women who have super powers thrust upon them and, sometimes reluctantly, use them to help the world with them. Both yearn for a "normal" life. Faith and Sarah, meanwhile, are the dark versions of these characters and are inextricably linked to their counterparts. Faith became a slayer when Buffy died (one of a few times) but is thwarted taking her place as the Slayer by Buffy. Sarah, on the other hand, in a sense created Jaime in that she caused the car accident that forced Jaime's then-fiancé to have bionic parts implanted into Jaime.
The Buffy/Faith relationship is a time-old theme in mythology and literature: The new can not come into power until the old is overthrown. In Greek mythology, Cronus was overthrown by his son Zeus. In Arthurian legend, Mordred plotted to bring down Camelot in order to assume his uncle/father's throne.
The Jaime/Sarah dynamic is equally prevalent: The prototype is flawed in some way and is replaced by a better, newer model. In the Apocrypha, there was first Lilith who was later replaced by Eve because she wasn't docile enough to be controlled by Adam. In television culture, there is KARR who was the predecessor to "Knight Rider"'s KITT. On "Star Trek: The Next Generation," Data's older "brother" Lor was deactivated by their creator in favor for Data.
Despite the reversal of roles in the "Buffy" and "Bionic Woman" creation mythology, the fact that one character is pivotal in the creation of the other character links them together. This results in a trinity of sisterhood, self and other. Only another slayer like Faith could truly understand Buffy, but with Buffy around, Faith could never own what was hers by right of being a Slayer. Only Jaime understands what Sarah is like, but Jaime blames Sarah for making her like Sarah. Her revulsion of what Sarah does is borne out a fear that she is more like Sarah than she likes to think.
In conclusion, if "Bionic Woman" can keep me thinking about these sort of things, I'll definitely keep watching ...
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