Category: Bionic Woman

Interesting fact: every recipient of an organ transplant -- heart, kidney, liver, you name it -- spends the rest of their life taking anti-rejection drugs in order to stop their immune system from killing the organ. Some immune systems strike so rapidly surgeons have seen transplanted organs turn black from antibodies before the wound is even closed.

So what's this to do with Bionic Woman? It'd be premature to tag it dead on arrival, but NBC's new series has all the tell-tale scars of a cut and paste job worthy of a certain Doc -- name of Frankenstein. And like the Karloff monster of old, last night's premiere often stumbled when it needed to sprint, and groaned feebly whenever it aimed for eloquence. Executive producer David Eick, flying here without Galactica wing mate Ron Moore, has taken parts of RoboCop and the X-Men films and crudely stitched them onto the bones of a comic book retread, replete with all the melodrama and angst we get from our super-heroes of late.

With a new series, it's the world and the characters I'm hoping will snag my interest. ABC's Lost had a setting so unique, it grabbed me quick and never let go. The show was so instantly compelling, so aggressive, I was right there in the flaming wreckage of that plane, hearing the screams of the survivors and the Godzilla roar coming from the jungle. In other words, they had me at "plane crash."

Eick's Battlestar Galactica presented a world that was less immediately compelling but nevertheless reeled me in, thanks to the freshness of its cast lifting the show above its genre cliches. Yes, maybe Gaius Baltar is still cut from the mold of Paul Reiser's Carter Burke in Aliens. But Reiser was never that sympathetic, and Burke didn't have the wit and style or the desperate mania of Baltar.

With Bionic Woman we're shown a vaguely familiar world, darkly atmospheric but rather ill-defined. What could have been arresting settles instead for safe. Sadly its cast and characters, save a few exceptions, prove equally uninspired.

Though it's still early days, Michelle Ryan as Jaime Sommers looks to be a dull lead. She spends much of this first hour idling along through a been-there, done-it-better-elsewhere plot that begs a stronger, more charismatic point man. Although strangely enough, the show doesn't seem eager to distance itself from its forebears. Witness the placid plagiarism on display when our newly bionic lead tests her powers by running across a building (with what I can only describe as a "light FM girl power anthem" blaring from the soundtrack) to leap through the air and grab the ledge of the building across the street. It was a comedic scene in Raimi's first Spider-Man film, and became a parody in the sequel -- here it's just cringe-worthy and more than a little immature.

To be fair, there are moments that remain a cut above: the horrific car accident is tremendous, the bionic surgery is handled well, as is Jaime's nightmarish awakening. And the villain Sarah Corvus is undeniably the highlight of an otherwise humorless hour, with Katee Sackhoff burning white hot amidst all the countless, colorless, rain-soaked skylines. Along with Miguel Ferrer (who brings a grumpy gravitas to his role as Jaime's boss) Sackhoff likewise claims all the choice bits of dialogue in a surprisingly flat script.

Bottom Line: Thought at times it hints at promise, Bionic Woman fails to peel itself from the shadow of it's many inspirations; nor does it deliver on the network's effective marketing campaign, which wrongly positioned the show as an upbeat and edgy sci-fi actioner. With so many cast and creative changes in the months since the pilot was filmed, perhaps Eick managed to get those bionic legs pumping through some more interesting paces. If not, I’d bet the antibodies start chewing away at all those transplanted ideas and NBC finds itself looking for a mid-season replacement.

This post was authored by Jim Titus, a man worth significantly less than Six Million Dollars

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!
I agree, Katee was far and away the highlight. At this stage I tend to think they'd have done better to make the show about her character. I liked the effects and Jamie's reaction to finding out about the bionics, but I was pretty cranky they killed off Will (he loves this girl so much he takes exteme measures to save her, yet when he is carted off shot up in an ambulance she's too busy trading tough talk with the mystery Gman to be upset about it at all? And after rolling around in the sheets with him shortly before... Meh, that lost me). MAYBE the character will develop, but at this point, I'm unimpressed.

READ THIS BEFORE COMMENTING: This comments area is for discussion and opinions exclusivly about the topic of the post. All comments will be posted regardless of your view. Disagreement and debate are welcome and actually encouraged. HOWEVER, comments are subject to being deleted from the thread if: 1) The comments are not directly about the topic in the post OR 2) The comment attacks another commenter or the author of the post. If you have a specific question or comment for the author of the post, contact them directly via email. You can find a list of email addresses in the ABOUT THE MOVIE BLOG page.

Name:

Email Address:

URL:


Remember Me? YesNo

Comments:

Type the word "Reboot" in the box below (required):