Tapeworthy: Fall TV Preview - Bionic Woman

Bionic Woman - Original Pilot - directed by Michael Dinner, written by Laeta Kalogridis
Premieres Wednesday, September 26th, 9pm on NBC/E!CH(Canada)

The fanboys are going to hate me for this review but based on the original pilot previewed back in the spring, before some recasting was done, I'm not as excited about this show as everyone else seems to be. I wasn't before I saw the pilot either but I was willing to give the show a chance (as always) even though I really knew nothing about the original show except in name only (much like The Six-Million Dollar Man or The Avengers). Yet, there's nothing bad about the pilot that I can really pinpoint, I just feel no need to tune into this show every week and the upcoming casting of Isaiah Washington certainly isn't helping me wanting to watch this show any more now.

The show stars Michelle Ryan (above) as Jaime Sommers, a university student who is dating her Prof. Will Anthros (Chris Bowers) until they get into a car accident, when Anthros decides in quick reaction to use Jamie as their next trial as a bionic woman in some underground experiment lair that is used for U.S. Military research and development. Jonas Bledsoe (Miguel Ferrer, Twin Peaks, Crossing Jordan) leads the group that includes Jae Kim (Will Yun Lee) and Ruth Truewell (a new platinum blonde Molly Price, Third Watch) and we basically discover that Will Anthros has been apart of this group before. As Jaime discovers her new abilities, she encounters a former bionic woman, Sarah Corvus (Katee Sackhoff, Battlestar Galactica) who seems intent on destroying her or something. By then it was basically a lot of dark greys and rainy weather and fight sequences between two sexy woman. I guess that's enough to get the geek boys to view, but I was sort of bored by this point.

I'm not sure what I can pinpoint to blame either other than the fact that I feel like I've seen it before (and no, I've never seen the original but that's not it anyways) with the whole dark and moody thing, rainy scenes, dark bars, grey laboratory filled with barking actors (does Miguel Ferrer ever NOT bark? I mean, LOVE him cause of Twin Peaks days but, you know, STRETCH a bit)... even though the production values were good and acting quality quite high, nothing made me really want more. Add that Mae Whitman (Anne in Arrested Development), originally cast as Jaime's deaf sister, has now been replaced (and the character is no longer deaf), takes away one of the plot points that gave the show some interesting depth that I wouldn't have expected.

It was nice to see Molly Price in her new platinum blonde 'do although one wishes again that she move away from the strong female role (like in her Third Watch days) and play comedy (like as the rich disaster Susan Sharon on Sex and the City), and Katee Sackhoff seems to have fun playing evil, but it all seems so caricature at this point, especially after the rest of the episode tries so hard to fully realise and humanize Jaime Sommers.

I wish I could give it more stars because the pilot started off quite strong and there are a lot of pros in it but my interest waned by the end of the episode just as they were ramping the series up for, what I assume, will be an unending series of "To Be Continued"'s, and I just couldn't really care less to follow along at this point. Maybe I'm still bitter for poor Mae Whitman who was so good in the pilot and that it already sounds like they are dumbing the thing down, although, that may actually help the series a little bit since it also felt way too heavy for a supposed sci-fi piece entitle Bionic Woman. 2 1/2 Stars (**1/2) for now.

Here is the promo clip for Bionic Woman:

Bionic Woman Extended Promo on NBC

Michelle Ryan