In which Amy laments the fact that Bionic Woman is not nearly as good as it should be
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- October
- 18
Sigh.
Each week, I eagerly await Bionic Woman.
Each week, I watch it, time-shifted, so I can fast-forward through all the commercials.
Each week, as I hit “erase” on my remote at the end of the episode, I find myself sadly unfulfilled.
The action’s cool. The acting’s decent. The story’s not too bad.
But it’s just lacking something.
I don’t care about Jaime Sommers. I really don’t care about her sister, Becca. I don’t care what Will’s father is doing. I don’t care about the bad guys of the week. I don’t care what Antonio Pope’s ulterior motives are.
Do I care about anything? Well, Katee Sackhoff is acting her butt off as the first Bionic Woman, Sarah Corvus. In fact, her interactions with Jaime are the best part of the show each week. (You hadda laugh when she’s wheeled in to the underground bunker last night, a la Hannibal Lecter but without the face mask, sees Jaime and greets her like an old friend  “You look great!” she exclaims like an old, dear friend of her bionic buddy.)
Corvus’ relationship with her long-suffering estranged boyfriend, Jae, is as well-done as anything on TV today. They truly love one another, but they each have their jobs to do. They’re torn, almost daily, between their feelings for one another and what they must  or, at least, feel that they must  do.
I’m so over Jaime’s whole, “I deserve to know the truth!” whining bit, but it’s not Michelle Ryan’s fault. She’s not being given much to work with here. She’s even doing her own stunts, for the most part.
I’m not going to dignify last night’s episode with a whole recap; here’s the short version:
Becca lies to Jamie about studying; she’s locking lips with some guy in his car (no way Becca’s only 15). Blah, blah, blah, don’t lie to me, I need to trust you. Whine, whine. Shock! Jaime lied to Becca about where she was going when she headed down to Paraguay to rescue some CIA freelancer captured by some terrorists (the big P hasn’t signed anti-terrorism treaties with the U.S., so it’s a Bad Country). Becca tells Jaime she needs to be able to trust her big sister. Group hug. Oh, in between, Jaime decides Antonio shouldn’t kill the guy they came to save even though said guy has seen the encrypted info he wasn’t supposed to on that flash drive. What was the info? Jaime’s specs. She has five years to live. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Jaime whines to Jonas. He promises not to lie anymore.
That was basically the plot. The other subplot was Sarah Corvus being captured and being offered a cure from her impending death (which it turns out Jonas can’t provide, anyhow) in return for turning in Will’s dad. She doesn’t go for it and  shock!  manages to escape, using Jae as a human shield. But first she tells him she loves him.
Too bad I can’t say the same about Bionic Woman.
Jaime Sommers may have five years on her clock, but Bionic Woman has just a couple more episodes on this girl’s DVR.
Photos courtesy of NBC.ÂÂ
This entry was posted
on Thursday, October 18th, 2007 at 3:36 pm by Amy Vernon.
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Maybe they made a casting mistake. Maybe Sackhoff should have gotten the lead role. She really is amazing. I don’t know, but I do agree this show is seriously underachieving. I too want to like it. I’m reminded of how I felt a year ago about Studio 60, a completely different kind of show but also one that failed to live up to what it seemed it could have been.
They’d better play up Sarah’s storyline if this show is going to last a full season. Either that or they could bring back the Bionic Dog from the original series. People do like animal shows.
Don’t care much about the character of Sarah Corvus, she’s a little too over the top for my taste and she’s already overstayed her welcome. As for Michelle Ryan, i think she’s great in the role but the writing is letting her and everybody down in this series. They really need to change the direction of the show to truly save it.