When someone remakes a TV show or a movie, they often go more serious or darker. Is it because producers and directors feel they have to go "serious" to justify a remake? Do we live in more cynical times? Do the producers feel that they can't make a quality show that also happens to be light?

Kenneth Johnson, the creator of the original Bionic Woman series in the '70s (a spinoff of The Six Million Dollar Man), tells the L.A. Times that he's worried about the remake. I guess I would, too, if an NBC exec called my show "kind of cheesy." Although Johnson has been impressed with the work of producer David Eick on Battlestar Galactica, he's not so sure they're doing the right thing with the remake of his show.

Here's a piece of news from our "Networks Have Run Out of Ideas" department:

Reuters and The Hollywood Reporter are reporting that NBC has picked up a one-hour pilot for a remake of -- hold on to your artificial knees -- The Bionic Woman. You remember The Bionic Woman, right? Basicially it was The Six Million Dollar Man with girl parts. Lindsay Wagner played Jamie Sommers, a woman who's life was saved by bionic transplants after an accident and is recruited by the government to work spy missions. It ran from 1976-1978, not exactly the world's most successful run. But, for some reason, NBC thinks it's worthy of a revisit, maybe due to the success of Heroes. According to the article, the pickup is contingent on casting, so I'd imagine we won't be seeing anyone older than 30 in the role of Jamie.