A funny thing happened to Lindsay Wagner this spring while she was busy working on a fantasy special for ABC, the network that brought her to life as The Bionic Woman. She got the word that ABC had canceled her series.

But Miss Wagner wasn't series-less for long. Within days, NBC picked up The Bionic Wosnan and put her on its fall schedule where the series will be seen Sat­urday nights at 8 (opposite Bob Newhart on CBS and Fish on ABC).

Miss Wagner doesn't look on the ABC cancellation as a personal affront "If they'd said, 'Hey goodbye, and here's your special back too,' that would have been painful and I would have been a little hurt. But they didn't.

"I frankly don't know why ABC dropped the series and I was surprised when they did, but I wasn't surprised when NBC picked it up because I know it is a popular show. I think the series is good and I know people like it"

Actuallv, as Miss Wagner describes it, the upcoming year for The Bionic Woman should run smoother than the season and a half to date, because there is time now for advance planning, a luxury not possible before. She related how the program started production with about three weeks notice in order to become a midseason re­placement on ABC a year ago last winter. Shortly after its debut, she was in an automobile accident which meant more production delays, putting the company further behind schedule.

­By the time they finished filming the first 13 episodes last year, it was time to start on the second season, and still there was no backlog of stories. "We were still trying to make up time from the first 13 shows," she said.

"But this year," she went on, 'I had a hiatus, the first since the series started. I was very drained as far as far as input to the show. But I had a chance to go away and be Lindsay for awhile and when I do that I seem to come up with a lot of ideas.

NO TIME TO DEVELOP RELATIONSHIPS

"Before, I was more concerned with getting the format of the show together. Last year, Jaime Sommers took care of a lot of kids and busted a lot of people, but she didnt really get involved with anybody. She wasn't much of a human being. They were afraid to let her have a lover or any kind of an intimate friend because they were trying to keep her relationskdp with Steve Austin (The Six Million Dollar Man) going as the main source of her inspiration.

"However, that was only a couple of times out of a year, which made her relationships pretty shallow. That's an area I'd like to work on ... to show more of Jaime to the audience, more of what she thinks about, what she does, who she is, what it's like to be a bionic woman.

"In the beginning of the series, they did that for about three shows and that was it. All of a sudden, it was,'well, I'm adjusted, and I'm bionic, and I can handle anything now.' It just didn't make sense to me. Jaime has a good life, but it's an adjustment to have artificial limbs. How does she handle that?

"I know its difficult when the writers have to turn out shows week after week, and they still have to have her bionic. My argument is that as long as she's running and jumping, why can't they show her other sides as well?"

So far, her impression is that NBC will be cooperative on the concept of humanity as opposed to the hardware level. "I think they'll be more daring on their willingness to take chances on the subject matter, so there will be more lee­way to do different kinds of things. I'm always trying to find something different to put into the show so that it doesn't become redundant. I'd like to see it more of an an­thology than to be the same same same every week."

THE OTHER SIDE OF LINDSAY

While she's hoping that scripts for next season will re­flect more of Jaime Sommers as a person, what she does know for sure is that viewers will see more of Lindsay Wagner as a person on her special for ABC (tentatively set to air in the fall).

"It's called "Another Side of Me' and it's very much what the title suggests," she explained. "For example, Ive always wanted to dance. I started dancing as a little girl and my dance teacher said, 'Why don't you try acting. . ." which I did. But I vowed then that someday I'd dance and now I do. That's one fantasy sequence on the special.

"We have a home base on the show and we go back to it after each vignette. I talk about a fantasy, and then we do it. There's an Esther Williams water ballet and a silent movie segment called 'The Perils of Paul' where I go around saving him instead of him saving me.

"It was not meant to have any connection, but it's kind of ironic in reference to the fact that I'm The Bionic Wom­an, because when I jump off the roof and onto the bay wa­gon on the special, I go pffft! What Jaime does, this girl just screws up!"

What about the future after Bionic Woman? "I'd like to do some stories on metaphysics because that's something I'm very interested in and I have had some remarkable ESP experiences.

I might also try a little writing. I do have a lot of ideas, but I can't always put them on paper. I need to work with someone. Michael (Brandon, her actor husband) is good at writing scenes and I'm good with ideas, thoughts and tran­sitions. It may be that we'll end up doing something together.

I've never been a very rigid person in my thoughts about what can and cannot happen. If anything, my stron­gest belief is that almost anything can happen. I try to keep a certain form of objectivity in my life through medi­tation, and that reminds you that while you're in the lime­light right now, it may only be for right now. The impor­tant thing to remember is that it's only a career, it's not your life."