Jaime Wells Sommers is a fictional character portrayed by Michelle Ryan in Bionic Woman, a remake of the original 1970s series The Bionic Woman in which Lindsay Wagner took the lead role. The character was created by Kenneth Johnson based upon concepts from author Martin Caidin's 1972 novel, Cyborg (neither Johnson nor Caidin, however, receive screen credit on the 2007 remake). Fictional character history The new version of the character is a San Francisco bartender. She was born in Van Horne, Iowa, to political activists, Ethan and Madeline Jo Sommers. Both parents traveled a lot for their causes, and could be away for days or weeks at a time. When he would return home, Ethan always brought back photographs of his travels for Jaime, and, even at a young age, influenced Jaime's love for photography. In 1992, Jaime's sister, Becca Sommers, was born. Jaime attended the local public school, Meskwaki High School, in Van Horne. She was a very active student; she was the forward on the school's field hockey team, contributed to and edited the school literary magazine, was a success on debate squad, and participated in the photography club. She was popular among the students and a favorite of her professors. With neither of her parents in lucrative professions, Jaime helped contribute to the family by getting jobs around the neighborhood. She baby-sat, delivered newspapers, and was hired as a host and waitress at a family-style restaurant called Jelly's Eatery. A year before Jaime was to graduate high school, Madeline was diagnosed with malignant stage II breast cancer. Jaime, who always believed her parents' busy life on the road prevented Madeline from getting an earlier diagnosis, quit most of her extracurricular activities to help care for her mom. Her grades slowly began to suffer, but she managed to graduate in the top 7% of her class in 2001. She was accepted into Harvard University, where she hoped to study Irish literature. When her mother's condition worsened, Jaime threw aside her plans for college to stay close to her. She continued to work, but became more and more involved as a caretaker for her mother. In 2004, after a lengthy battle with cancer, Madeline Jo Sommers died. Immediately after the funeral, Jaime left for the west coast, leaving Becca behind. Upon her arrival on the west coast, Jaime quickly found herself a cramped apartment in a college town and