* Every time she does a television movie, she breaks her record as the iron woman of the genre. *

Known since the '70s as Bionic Woman Jaime Sommers, actress Lindsay Wagner is also the undisputed iron woman of TV movies, with nearly 40 to her credit.

"Every time I do a new one, I keep breaking my own record," says Wagner with a laugh.

In her latest, "Voyage of Terror," Wagner plays a virologist with the Centers for Disease Control who must battle a deadly Ebola-type virus that breaks out on a cruise ship on which she's vacationing with her daughter.

Viewers will find the ship full of familiar faces: Brian Dennehy, Martin Sheen, Michael Ironside and William B. Davis (Cigarette-Smoking Man from "The X-Files").

"Voyage of Terror" "is not a heavy-issue movie for me," says Wagner, who turns 49 this month. But she has often selected telefilms for their messages, such as 1988's "Evil in Clear River," in which her character took on anti-Semitism in a small town, and 1990's "Shattered Dreams," which dealt with spouse abuse.

"I began doing TV films for two reasons," she says. "One is because in the '80s, feature films were devoid of any substance. It was `Rambo' and `Rambette' and all the copies thereof. There was no place in feature films to explore real human issues. But TV allowed me to do projects with some substance."

The second reason, she says, is more personal than professional - her sons, Dorian and Alex. "I've raised my kids alone," she says, "and as someone who's very interested in being a mom, being able to make a couple of TV films (shot in far less time than feature films) a year allowed me to have a life with my kids and still make a living."

Ironically for an actress whose fame and livelihood have come largely from the small screen, Wagner doesn't watch much TV.

"I enjoy making TV films, but I also enjoy living life," she says. "If I spend too much time in a fantasy world, well, that's just not living life to me. I think the medium of television is something that can be used to occupy your time or really communicate, educate and share. But I think the majority of TV now is used to occupy one's time."

Still, some viewers are occupying their time watching Wagner as the Bionic Woman on the Sci-Fi Channel, which reruns episodes of "The Six Million Dollar Man," the series that launched the character. Jaime Sommers, she says, is a cyborg with a mind of her own.

"She's amazing," Wagner says. "She keeps running and running without me. There's a whole new generation growing up on her. I've noticed also that I get asked to do talk shows and people want to talk about the Bionic Woman. For instance, about a year ago Rosie O'Donnell called and I did her show and she just wanted to talk about the Bionic Woman."

But fans shouldn't look for a new Six Million Dollar Man-Bionic Woman reunion film. The third - and last, Wagner stresses - was 1994's "Bionic Ever After?" in which the two got married after years of heavy flirting. Says Wagner: "What would we do? They're married. That was the quest."