Ventura Air Force Base is a United States Air Force airbase in California, likely located in Ventura County. Ojai is nearby.
The west gate entrance to the base.
The entrance to the school, building 100
Grades 1 through 12
School[]
A school is located on the base for the children of the men and women stationed there. Jaime Sommers officially taught 7th-9th grades there, although some of her students seemed obviously younger. As was typical of many schools of the era, she appeared to have her own particular classroom at the base.
Among the featured students of the school were: Andrew, John "Paco" Little Bear, Teddy, Gwen, Joey, Mark, Caroline, Jody Warner, Terry, Arty, Katie, and Pam.
Personnel[]
Aside from Jaime, the school also employed her fellow teacher, Karen Stone. Additionally, the base was known to be the primary duty station of Deputy Base Commander Lt. Col. Tom Hollaway, Maj. Don Mills, Sgt. Don Woods, Cpt. Anders, an unnamed communications officer, and an unnamed guard.
At various points, several officers were temporarily assigned to Ventura, including: Steve Austin, Jack Starkey, General Fuller and Captain Phillips.
A few people were shown to provide privately contracted or voluntary assistance to the school or base proper. They included Harry Anderson, Thomas Bearclaw, John Mallory, Briggs and Henderson.
Deconstructed[]
- While The Six Million Dollar Man preferred to use a variety of real-life airbases (such as Edwards, Luke, and Vandenberg), for The Bionic Woman it was decided to establish a purely fictional base close to Ojai. (In reality, there no such facility anywhere near the city, which is located in a valley surrounded by foothills and coastal mountains.)
- Creating a fictional air base served several purposes: in the introductory episodes it provided a nearby base of operations for Rudy Wells and his bionic team to work on Jaime when she began to reject her bionics, and, later, it provided a convenient location for Jaime's school rather than having her commute five hours a day to Edwards. It also provided a convenient location for scenes such as that in Welcome Home, Jaime in which Steve Austin arrived via jet fighter. (Not to mention facilitating Oscar Goldman's own ability to constantly commute between Washington and Ojai, either to brief Jaime about missions or even, on a few occasions, apparently just to visit.)
- Canyon of Death implies that it, like Edwards, is a test flight facility.
- Although the school is nominally meant to support military families, the guardians of the kids were rarely seen. At least one known example exists in the form of Elora Mitchell. She, however, was John "Paco" Little Bear's aunt, and her appearance does little to establish Paco's entitlement to study at the school. (Canyon of Death)
- The precise grades Jaime teaches at the base are slightly controversial. Dialogue in Welcome Home, Jaime has her teaching 6th-8th grades, but The Bionic Woman title graphics indicate two different age ranges. The original titles for season 1 have her teaching grades 6-7, while the graphics for the second and third seasons have her teaching 7th-9th graders. Making the situation even more complicated is the fact that, in syndication, Welcome Home, Jaime was retitled as a Bionic Woman episode, using the later titles. Thus, syndicated viewers — and perhaps especially viewers whose memory stretches back to the initial syndicated run — have cause to be quite confused as to the grades she taught.