A few minutes into the premiere of Bionic Woman, I thought Iwas watching a late ’90s WB drama. A pouty Jaime Sommers (Michelle Ryan, pictured) was arguing withher angst-ridden teenage sister Becca (Lucy Hale) while melodramatic music played in thebackground. But before I could go for some popcorn, an intense car crash forced meright back in my seat. Where I remained for pretty much the rest of the episode. (Will the series hold up to the standards set by the pilot? Check out Gillian Flynn’s review of the series in the new issue of EW.)
As in those ubiquitous Volkswagen commercials, a menacing tractortrailer barrels out of the darkness into the car driven by Sommers’ boyfriend,Dr. Will Anthros (Chris Bowers). Will escapes with a broken arm and a few bruises, but a bloodied,limbless Jaime soon lies on an operating table, unaware of her pending medical overhaul.
Jaime’s right ear, right eye, one arm and two legs are giventhe bionic treatment, courtesy of the good folks at he ominous Wolf CreekBiotech Research Facility. The $50 million makeover allows her to run fasterthan a speeding car, hear conversations across the room and spot a sniper from hundreds of yards away.
A newly bionic Jamie Sommers tries to return to a normallife after the accident, but is confronted by Sarah Corvis, another patient ofthe research lab who was supposedly shot dead in the first few minutes of the show.Turns out Sarah is "the first Bionic woman" and Jaime’s blondecounterpart. Whether the pair are friends or enemies remains to be seen, buttwo Bionic women means I am twice as excited! (Especially since Sarah is played by Battlestar Galactica’s Katee Sackhoff.)
Bionic Woman definitely benefits from the advances inspecial effects technology since the 1970s, when a bionic overhaul cost just $6 million. I kept expecting that iconic soundeffect that happened whenever old-school Jaime (Lindsay Wagner) did something bionic, but it wasnowhere to be heard. I thought I heard it once during the show, but alas, it wasa hovering helicopter.
Bionic Woman is infused with slick CSI-style editing, CrouchingTiger-like fight scenes, and a handful of Felicity-esque introspective moments. Ryaninjects a smartass sensibility into Jamie Sommers and fills the Sydney Bristowstrong woman role that Alias left vacant. But for an action series based on asuperhuman woman there was a significantly disappointing amount of action. Noteto producers: fewer incongruous sex scenes and more fights and chases, please.
Despite the relative lack of butt-kicking in the premiere, the restof the season promises lots of running, jumping and fiery explosions asJaime triesher bionic hand at saving the world. Will you tune in? What did youthink of the pilot’s mix of mystery, mayhem, and mushiness? And do youmiss that n-n-n-n-n-n sound?
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I was ready to LOVE the BW; well, I forced myself to last the entire hour; problem is that by then, I had missed the first episode of Private Practice. I should have stuck with ABC last night. Not watching BW. Too dark, too rainy, too fast, too boring. Back to ABC.
It s*cked.
i wanted to like this show. i couldn’t handle the sloppy, melodramatic camera work and the teen-angst dialogue. my husband says i’m not giving it a chance. i say, that’s an hour of my life that could have been spent playing xbox.
I liked BW. I remember (vaguely) the original, and this seems to have more promise. I especially liked the Aaron Douglas cameo. “Look! It’s Chief Tyrol” I exclaimed to my less than impressed kids. The action was good, the acting was good (although Sackhoff upstaged Ryan quite a bit), effects and casting were all good.
I haven’t watched Network TV in years, but this may bring me back to the pop-culture fold.
I’m on the fence. I’ll withhold judgement for another ep or two but I have a strange feeling that it might get to be too predictable. Hope I’m wrong, though. The show has potential.
I thought it kicked a$$! The opening scene grabbed me and I loved the fight scene between Jamie and Sarah. I’m a little lost on the plot involving Will’s dad and the smoking Euro man but I’m sure it will be made clear in future episodes. It was a good start and sort of fulfills the void left by Alias.
I hated this show – Jamie Sommers of 2007 is petulant and boring and reminds me of whiny kid – I didn’t like her and they did nothing to make me care about her or what happens to her – and a 2nd bionic woman already? How lame – no story line – boring boring boring!!
yes, I miss that Bionic sound! They shouldn’t be so busy reimagining the concept to at least give a nod to the past. It was too melodramatic and I was hit over the head with the whole female empowerment thing. They also need to edit out some bad wirework in the future! However, it was just good enough to keep me watching for the time being…. I hope they introduce Steve Austin at some point and that they don’t reimagine him into some bionic chauvinistic jerk…
I’m going to give it one more episode. I had to force myself to watch the entire episode. I want this show to be good. It has the potential, but it came off as flat last night.
I loved it, my boyfriend and I loved it, and i just kept on thinking thank god another strong chic on TV, more action, could be as good as Alias and La Femme Nikita, lets see
Like most of the comments here I also wanted to like the show a lot. Katee Sackhoff was great, but she’s always great. I thought the main girl was boring. I thought the writing was bad and I wasn’t interested by any of the subplots. Maybe I’ll give it another shot next week, if I remember…
I loved it but Katee Sakhoff stole every scene she was in.
GO STARBUCK!!!!
I liked it a lot! My only complaint is that folks don’t seem to have raincoats or umbrellas.
They tried to fit a lot of story into one episode. And I’m pretty sure by the end, I didn’t even like Jamie anymore. She accepted all of that way too fast. They definitely need to go back and show her struggling a little more. And did she even ask if that Will guy was ok when she got back from fighting Bionic #1? I might tune in if I’m bored…
Halfway through the show, I picked up a book about the Bay City Rollers and read that instead. That’s how bad the pilot was. The action sequences lacked action, the writing was poor and there were too many characters introduced (it’s bad when a pilot needs a flow chart from the get-go). I’ll watch next week just to see if there’s any improvement in our patient. And yes, I do miss the original Miss Sommers and all her accompanying sound effects.
That show was crud on top of a craptastic cracker. Bad writing, bad acting and bad pacing. I just lost my baby … let’s have sex. We were just in a car wreck, but my fiance is Ok and I lost my legs.
About ten minutes into it, we switched to America’s Next Top Model off the DVR. Waste of time.
Made it through the first 45 minutes-I couldn’t take it anymore! Just because the remake of BSG was good, by no means was this even a little interesting. I did however enjoy Katee-she made me watch the parts I did. The crash scene was the only thing that was cool.
I thought the show started off so so but by the end I was ready to see more. Katee Sackhoff was a really great baddy! She made every line sizzle. Since it’s a show from the BSG guys I’ll give it awhile before giving up.
Meh. I wanted to like it, but it was just too relentlessly dark for me. And I wanted to smack the angry, obnoxious kid sister every time she showed up on screen. But the worst part was that I felt absolutely nothing for the main character. She had very little personality and barely smiled even before her boyfriend fixed her up with the artificial parts. I’ll keep watching, mostly because I don’t like the other network choices at that time, but I hope they make Jaime a more interesting and sympathetic character.
Lots of potential…Setting up for a really good mystery. The music however, when Jaime and Sara are fighting on the rooftop was pretty lame. I have no problem watching attractive Women fight each other in the rain. Starbuck Rules!
Like most people here, I wanted to really like the show. I am normally not into these types of shows, but I thought I’d give it a try. I am still on the fence though. I liked the action scenes between the 2 bionic women, but the rest left me bored. I will give it one more week.
Anyone remember if the music was done by Bear McCrearu? The music was good….Katee was good, all I can think of that was food about the show. I agree, I wanted to smack that little kid.
Glad to see I wasn’t the only one who was hoping to like this dreck but who had to force myself to watch the whole hour. Melodramatic, bad acting, bad writing, unlikable protagonist. I’ll give it another episode, but that’s it.
The first 10 min were slow but that is the build up to a new show – intros, premise, set up, etc. As soon as the truck smashed into the car I buckled in for the ride. A few other parts were slow – but all in all I like it. The two women leads were hot – I can’t wait to see them battle it out as the season rages on! Some of the dialogue is a bit choppy but I feel it will get better. Pilots are the framework so I have high hopes this will turn into an Alias/Buffy/Kill Bill sort of thing where the women kick a## a plenty and look hot doing it!
I watched this and Tivo’d PP on ABC and I couldn’t sit through 20 minutes of that show, it was dreadful and a terrible Grey’s knock off! Stick to the original.
**Paitently waiting for LOST**
Kill off the bratty baby sister, please! This was a dumb, unrealistic (real sisters don’t behave this way), pointlessly annoying plot device on Buffy, and it’s just as awful here. The teenage demo is either going to watch this for Jaime and her story or they aren’t; having a badly-drawn adolescent isn’t going to bring them in.
So far, I’m a fan. I love the action, and I heart Katee Sackhoff so much. I kind of wish she had been made into Jaime actually because the main actress just doesn’t do it for me. There’s something stiff about her. But has tons of potential.I loved the opening scene of the pilot! I’ll give this one a month. It was much better than Private Practice (I tivoed that). Keep the action coming and please– less of the mopey sister!
The acting, eh. The writing? Shows promise. Still it was confusing. So let me get this straight, the military experimented on platnium blonde women, failed, and one of them is a Species wannabe? I was not sure if I was watching Bionic Woman or a sequel of Village of the Dammed, Village of the Dammed 2: now they are adults. I hope that the rest of the show is not as confusing as the pilot.
Loved, loved, loved it! (I also screamed “Look! Chief Tyrol!” to my unknowing husband.) It was one of those shows that when we clicked the Tivo button to see how much more of the show we had left and we saw that we only had two minutes, my husband and I both said “Awwww. No!” We didn’t want it to be over.
All it did was make me miss ALIAS in its prime. Without a brilliant Arvin Sloane, or a Vaughn, or even an interesting lead with a personality beyond “secretly genius outcast”, I just can’t care about ever watching this again. And Sydney Bristow wasn’t even part machine!