Bionic Woman

OK first things first..Michelle Ryan looks the part, seems likable and is attractive...however there is some depth missing in her performance. The premise is modern, or maybe typical is a better word, as this time around Jaime Sommers works as a bartender, yes a bartender. Gone is the high school teacher / tennis player. Maybe that was too 70's. Also gone are Rudy Wells and Oscar Goldman. However Rudy does have a cameo of sorts as Jaime's middle name is said to be Wells in the episode...Hmm maybe Rudy will show up. This Jaime takes care of her troublesome kid sister ( is there any other kind on these shows )is engaged and about to possibly marry her professor boyfriend and we find all this out within the first 10 minutes when....well here is where circumstances cause her to become, the Bionic Woman. Here is my problem with this version. Its dark, brooding, and comes across as Spiderman meets Alias meets X-Men. And half the show appears to be a night. Can I get some daylight please!!!! And the sister is an annoying addition and unnecessary. Another head scratcher is that after finding out what she is now...there wasn't much delving into her discovering and acceptance of her current state. The woman goes straight back to work serving drinks for god sakes like she just had a boob job and that was it and oh well back to work. Maybe this new Jaime is OK for the new generation but I don't find it appealing in its present incarnation. Maybe its the times we live in but almost every show I see on TV is dark, brooding and depressing. The bionic woman of the 70's was about adventure and action and a touch of tongue and cheek. This version is about violence, death, hit men, and dark depressing characters with ulterior motives. Yes there is action in it too but it all comes with all the extras above. Give me Lindsay and the fembots any day!!!! One good thing about this version I will say is they spruced up on how they show and deal with Jaime's speed. It doesn't come across silly or anything. Sadly Alias, aside from the superhuman strength, has already charted these waters of the beautiful babe with kickass fighting abilities. Been there done that. They should have just gone the way of an adventure/action show and maybe, just maybe...then again who knows...Dark , brooding, depressing seems to be the in thing these days.

I did appreciate this show for one thing, unintentional humor. My sig other and I watched this and were laughing within the first 10 minutes. From the dreadfully cliché story line, forced, weak romance as if she's 12 years old and everyone on the show has the maturity of high schoolers, to her "powers," there's more cheese than Wisconsin produces in a decade here. Quite possibly this is the worst show to ever hit the boob tube since in the 80s they tried this show that revolved around a bunch of fun-loving flight attendants, a show so bad you could tell they were reading of cue cards just off camera.

And the writers went on strike AFTER the show started airing, which makes one wonder after watching this total garbage and waste of broadcast bandwidth how they can possibly justify more money for what they do. And now, I guess showing maybe there is a god, it's getting canceled. Good riddance, wow this was a bad show. Wow.

But again, it's a funny show due to it's completely stupid vapid and implausible aspects, to the really bad acting, if one can even justify it as "acting," to Jaime Sommers huge loft in NYC, laughable because it would run about four million or so for such a thing, but hey, it's "fantasy" I guess, and you're living in a fantasy if you think this show is anything more than garbage.

I think this "re-make" can be summed up in one observation: the premier episode was just an hour. Therefore, it was just another episode. Problem is, you can't lay the foundation for what is obviously supposed to be a blockbuster series in just one hour. Much less a re-make that is marketed to draw in everybody over the age of 40 who watched the original "Bionic Woman" and "The Six Million Dollar Man."

As a member of that demographic, I was left very much wanting. The premier was basically a "wham, bam, thank you, m'am" undertaking. It was like the producers were going down a checklist:

Introduce Jamie Sommers - check. Have her dating Rudy Wells - HUH?!? Show her catastrophic accident - check. Give her her bionics - check. Show her shocked reaction - check. Show her anger at what happened to her - check. Make her an OSI agent - check. Run closing credits - check.

Heck, they probably had ten minutes left over when they finished the list, which would explain the obligatory (for this day & age) bedroom scene. And that's indicative of how much the new writers care about the original show.

If they want to attract and hold those of us who were fans of the original as kids, why not acknowledge that history? Give this Bionic Woman a different name, have her learn that bionics have been around for over thirty years, and that Steve Austin and Jamie Sommers were the patriarch and matriarch of the cyborg community. Make it "Bionic Woman: The Next Generation". That would dovetail a lot better with Katie Sackhoff's character of "Bionic Woman Gone Bad".

Be bold. Be creative. Give hardcore BW fans something to sink their teeth into.

But no. All we have is, as another commenter coined, a "cookie-cutter" hybrid of other "super woman" genres of recent vintage. Basically, "BWINO" - Bionic Woman In Name Only.

I'll probably give it a chance for a while - if I remember it's on.

I don't know.

I was expecting a lot and it didn't deliver.

The one thing I do miss is the special effects noise that was made when Lee Majors and Lindsey Wagner ran. You know - Dadadadadadadada.

I was waiting for it and nothing.

And this BW seemed a little too upset at her boyfriend for saving her life - you would think should be grateful for being alive and put back together.

She could of been dead and/or no legs, arm, eye or ear.

I hope this show improves, if not - gone!!!!

I don't know - maybe I was looking for something and just wasn't there.

They seem to build on the characters of others beside Jaime. You know, she was like an after thought to the story.

Let's wait and see..

Yes, I said fun to watch. Will it win any awards for writing, acting, cinematography, effects, lighting, or music? Probably not, but then so what? It's still fun to watch. I admit having never seen Battlestar Gallactica, so I can't give you any comparisons but then why would I, they are not even in the same genre, sure they are both science fiction but that where it ends and it'd be silly to compare them just because some of the actors were in both.

It is a natural to compare this to the original show that was hugely popular back in the 70's, but... except for the bionics and her name there really isn't any similarity. It's a new show with new characters and modernized.

Sorry Oscar.

A great show? No. A good show? Maybe, a few more episodes will tell. Either way it's entertainment and I liked it.