TV: "Bionic Woman" Review

Let me break it down for those of you unfamiliar with the original Bionic Woman from 1976. The basic plot surrounds a woman named Jamie Sommers who was involved in an accident and had the good fortune of being saved by scientists who replaced some of her body parts with machines. The surgery makes her run faster, see further, hear better, and have animal-like instincts. She really is the female Spiderman, without the bug bite, the webs, or the tight ass costume.

While the old bionic woman was a tennis pro who almost died in a parachute jump, the new one (British newcomer Michelle Ryan) is a bartender/artist who was nearly killed in a car accident. By taking away all the glitz and glam, they made her more relatable to blue-collared folk and young people. I never watched the old show, but I doubt it was as dark and mysterious as this one. It turns out the car accident was more like a hit-and-run. Sarah Corvis (Katee Sackhoff from "Battlestar Galactica"), a previous bionic experiment that was supposed to be terminated, rammed a truck into the car. The reason is still unknown even after the first episode. But in the process, Jamie miscarries an unexpected child she conceived with her scientist boyfriend, Will (Chris Bowers from "Rescue Me"). Since he just proposed to her, it was only natural that he went to the extremes of airlifting her out of the accident and performing drastic reconstructive surgery on her dying body.

Once she gets passed the initial shock, she's very hostile towards her "saviors," and wastes no time demanding to be freed. Will is torn between being a responsible professional, who understands that his girlfriend is now government property, and a man in love, who will do anything to protect her. There are many examples of men in this show who would not go as far as he did for the women they love. His boss, Jonas Bledsoe (Miguel Ferrer from "Crossing Jordan"), had an ailing wife, but he never brought her in "for repairs" even though he knew he could. And the lab's combat trainer Jae (Will Yun Lee from Elektra) gives the impression that he was in love with the rogue bionic woman, but he still shot her when he was ordered to--which explains his cold demeanor.

Will, unfortunately, must prove himself, since his scientist father, Anthony (Mark Sheppard from "24"), has been in jail for the past 3 years for an undisclosed crime. The fact that Sarah keeps trying to kill Will at the same time that his father was being broken out of jail by her lover, referred to as The Man (Thomas Kretschmann from Next), is suspicious. Anthony refuses to reveal how Sarah lived, but she gives a bit of a clue when she tells Jamie mid-combat that she's been improving herself, adding more bionic features--getting rid of the weak parts as she called it. Apparently, the more machine she becomes the more her conscience deteriorates. Although, you get a sense that she can be turned, because she spares Jae when she has a clear shot and she commiserates with Sarah while she suffers through the unnerving changes that the surgery causes. Meanwhile, the "good guys," headed by Jonas, originally intended on using the bionic experiments to rehabilitate war amputees--to send them back in, not to give them a cushier life. He admits, "Technology is at the point where science fiction isn’t science fiction anymore," which is an interesting pop culture topic to drive the relaunch of an old series.

Although I enjoyed some parts, there's always a chance that a remake can fall victim to trying to be "cool." In one instance, Jamie is running away from the lab and a little girl sees her alongside the car her mother's driving. Since her mom doesn't believe her, the girl responds with “I just thought it was cool that a girl could do that. That’s all.” Yeah, we get it. Girl power. No need to sell us the pitch. That's not the only dialog that's lame. In the end, Jonas finally gets a face to face with Jamie to inform her of the terms of her freedom, and he actually utters the words, “Heads you lose. Tails you die.” They used a line that appeared in Domino, an action movie that only made $10 mil. Seriously? Seriously? And the worst hasn't even come yet. In the preview for next week they actually have the balls to show her saying, “This saving the world thing. I’d like to give it a try.” The writer, Laeta Kalogridis, only has "Birds of Prey," Alexander, and Pathfinder--a canceled show and two box office duds--on her resume. But the simple fact that she's a girl should be reason enough for her not to write lines like that. She's not at Bloomingdales, spotting the latest trend. "I think I'll give it a try." You've got to be kidding me.

The structure of the plot could be better too. Kalogridis should've spent more time in the intro, setting Jamie up. I don't know Jamie. I know she has a bratty little sister and is semi-interested in her boyfriend--since she spends a lot of time trying to push him away--but I don't know her. So once she's all cyborged and giving her best badass glare, I don't know if she was always this tough and capable of being a vigilante or if the machines have made her this way. Then there's the shotty camera work. Children of Men--that's how you do jumpy guerilla filming. This just makes it seem like they’re not really doing their own stunts or they're doing it badly, so let's move the camera around a lot to distract you. But what do you expect from a guy who's longest job was directing "The Wonder Years."

Despite all of its faults, I'll still be catching another episode, because in the end it's still the Bionic Woman. That's like not watching Spiderman 3 just because you hate Mary Jane--which I do.