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Bionic Woman: Second Chances (series premiere)

by Bob Sassone, posted Sep 27th 2007 12:01AM

Bionic Woman(S01E01)"I guess that makes me your landlord." - Jonas Bledsoe, explaining to Jamie Sommers who he is and all the money he spent on her

Sometimes I really hate first episodes of TV shows. They have to have so much exposition and explain everything and set everything up so fast. In the first 15 minutes of Bionic Woman, the following occurs: we meet the evil killer bionic woman, who is killed by one of her cohorts after a rampage; we're introduced to Jamie and her job as a bartender; we meet her kid sister and see them argue about their absent father; we meet her boyfriend the professor/scientist; and we find out that Jamie is pregnant.

Then as they drive away from a restaurant their car is slammed by a big truck driven by the aformentioned evil bionic woman (who isn't really dead) so the boyfriend (who survived the crash just fine) rushes her into surgery and replaces her legs, arm, and eye (lucky he's in that business) and she flips out about the procedure and loses the baby.

Whew. That's a lot of stuff to digest in 15 minutes.

And that's what's wrong with the first episode of this remake, but it's not the only one. And we can cut them some slack on it, since it's the first ep and we have to get all the info out of the way. But there are some things in this show that make you shrug more than get excited.

This isn't the 70s version of The Bionic Woman. It has been Alias-ized, with a dash of La Femme Nikita and Battlestar Galactica (it's from the same people). It's darker, edgier, and there's a shady government organization (of course!) who wants to utilize Ms. Sommers new body for their own purposes (I sense spy work of some sort?).

This is really a show I should love because I love innocent people who become spies, cool villains, fight scenes and all that. But maybe I'm just getting overdosed on shows like this. There's really nothing new here. And there's a definite problem when the villain (BG's Katee Sackhoff) is ten times more interesting than the hero (Michelle Ryan - another Brit playing American). Every time she's on screen the show's pulse quickens a bit. Though I have to really wonder how smart this evil Bionic Woman is. She's sent by her boss to kill the scientist boyfriend but instead of using her super strength to kill him in his apartment or something, she steals a truck and rams his car? And only ends up demolishing his girlfriend (the boyfriend just got a boo-boo, even though the crash was spectacular)? No wonder her boss writes "You Failed Me" on the wall.

We get the typical scenes of Jamie freaking out over her new body parts, mysterious talk between mysterious people in a sleek, mysterious headquarters, and Jamie trying to figure out how to run, jump, and hear on her own (a la Peter Parker in Spiderman). And these scenes are OK, I guess. We have to build the premise. But there are too many cliches and lame dialogue to let pass. You know from the second the two B-Chicks meet at the bar (side note: I really hate it when TV characters ask for "a beer" - what, TV bars only serve one kind?) that they're going to have a one on one fight on a roof at the end. I guess the downpour adds a little drama to the scene, but you know that the bad woman will explain things, they'll fight, with bad woman getting the upper hand at first, then good woman coming back, only to be interrupted by a helicopter so the bad one can escape (the show wouldn't be much without her so you knew that would happen).

But I'll give this show a bit more time, now that the explanation is out of the way. Let's see what kind of assignments she goes on (gee, it's a good thing her kid sister is some sort of computer hacker - you think that's going to come into play in later episodes??) and see how Isaiah Washington fits into all of it. Lots of promise here, I'm just not sold yet.

What did you think of Bionic Woman?
Awesome! I'm hooked already!263 (27.1%)
Eh, it was OK, I might give it another episode.515 (53.1%)
Lame. Bring back Lindsay Wagner!191 (19.7%)

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Melody

I watched it when it showed over the weekend, was not impressed at all. Although I was excited when I heard that it was coming back to t.v. but I walked away feeling empty and very dissappointed. They could have done better then they have done with this show. I won't be missing crimanal minds for this, that's for sure. Don't really understand why they ran up against criminal minds, seems there are looking for a nose dive to me.
Work on your show and put some life into it and put it on a better night, up against something that doesn't have good rating and I might watch it again, but as it is I am finished.

October 25 2007 at 1:47 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
darlene

What was the name of the song, in the second episode where Jaime and her friend were sitting at the restaurant having breakfast and the song was playing in the background at the diner. It was in the first ten minutes of the show. The show is great, excellent special effects... (the sng goes something like this...) there's a life ,for life...

October 22 2007 at 10:41 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
redeemed

I was fairly disappointed after all the hope and hype. I am thinking this will be pretty short lived unless the writers really kick it up a notch. There is so much competition now you just can write for the lowest common denominator anymore.

October 03 2007 at 7:13 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
ThomasD

With all the stuff they tried to cram into the episode, why'd they leave in something as mundane as Sarah smoking pre-fight? It just seemed like it was a way to show that she's Miss Evil McBadass-Tuffchik without doing anything to show she's supposed to be tough and bad.

Oh, yeah. The writing. Gotcha.

October 01 2007 at 11:18 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Tom

"This isn't the 70s version of The Bionic Woman. It has been Alias-ized, with a dash of La Femme Nikita and Battlestar Galactica." No kidding. I don't really remember that much about the original, and this my sound lame about a remake, but this show is so deriviative. I liked it the first time around--when it was called The Pretender. THat's what this show reminds me of. Watch how it plays out.

Everybody has already said much of what is rehashed hollywood. I'm just sadly disappointed that this is the best they have to offer. Maybe it will get better. I give it two more episodes, then if there's no improvement, its off my Tivo list.

I think that if this show fails, it will be because of the lead characters, especially this actress playing Jaimie Sommers. Yeah, she's pretty by campus standards, but she is just a plain jane and so uninteresting. I really think this is a casting mistake.

Katie Sackhoff has made a big mistake jumping over to this. When I see this, which I understand she is doing along with the BSG creators, it makes me wonder why BSG is quitting after this season. Granted, BSG has wandered off its previously brilliant path, but they can't keep it going? Its still better than most of what tv has to offer. It must be too expensive to keep going...

September 29 2007 at 12:45 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
kate

so bad. so bad. and I usually LOVE this kind of stuff.

I agree with everyone, the first bionic woman was much more interesting- wish she was the only one. I think following her character, in her craziness would be more compelling? Anyhow, disappointing- and the worst was the little girl in the car saying "I just think its so cool that a girl could do that" ahem, this is bionic woman. I think I can decide for myself that it's cool for a girl to do that, I don't need to be told what to think. I keep thinking- I should be loving this, but it seems so like pandering!

September 28 2007 at 1:43 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
BillS

I'm disappointed in the BSG fans only spotting Starbuck and Tyrol. Romo Lampkin (Mark Sheppard) plays Will's father, and, in a blink-and-you-miss-it part, Jammer (Dominic Z-something) was the EMT guy on the medevac chopper.

September 28 2007 at 6:15 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
OClvl3

The less like Heroes this show is the better. Heroes is horrible.

I thought the pilot was ok, but not great. I'll give it a chance only because its made by some of the BSG people.

September 28 2007 at 5:20 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
TomB

I love the actress that plays the psychologist - wish I could recall her name now. She was the female cop on Third Watch. This character is so completely different - I thought she rocked every scene she was in.

Two things that especially bothered me: that was a horrific car accident (very nicely done, BTW) and the boyfriend/doctor was able to just shake it off - slap on a sling and perform surgery. Jaime was in love with this guy and carrying his baby, but didn't trust him or really seem to care how he was doing at all.

The special effects were great but the writing was flat. It has a lot of potential. We'll see.

I'm really NOT looking forward to IW joining the cast.

September 27 2007 at 8:45 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
James J. Gutierrez

wasn't weird how quickly she forgot about her boyfriend though?

he gets shot and she could care less?

does he live or die at the end and she doesn"t even ask about him?

September 27 2007 at 7:29 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply

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