Bionic Woman

After many months of anticipation, it was exciting to be able to watch the Bionic Woman premiere on broadcast television! I had seen it twice before, and it was much, much better the second and third times.

The first time it was distracting to realize that I had seen about 75 percent of the show already through preview clips and advertisements. That made it hard to absorb the show as a story, and also made the things that had irritated me in the clips (the screaming!) even more magnified.

So it was nice to be able to watch it again and focus on the story and the characters. Because once you toss aside all of the expectations for the show, Bionic Woman is pretty darn good.

There is a lot of blood in the first few moments of Bionic Woman, and the violence is emphasized even more by the feral look of a crouching Katee Sackhoff. After more blood, we quick cut to Michelle Ryan slinging drinks, looking less dangerous and less vulnerable than Katee’s wolf woman, and then heading into a quiet elevator. Nice that they show the new sister sleeping on the couch, then the name “Lucy Hale” then Michelle putting a blanket over her new sister.

The following scenes are all to set up later things … Jamie and her sister do not get along. Jamie’s sister has a court order barring her from using the computer (which sounds overly broad to be legal, but never mind), Jamie talks to her boyfriend and prepares for a date.

The dinner scene is one of my least favorite scenes in the entire pilot. When Jamie tells Will she is pregnant, I can see why they cast Michelle Ryan because she is very charming at that moment. Then when Will tells Jamie he is in love with her and wants them to get married, I secretly want Katee Sackhoff’s wolf woman to show up, rip his head off, and start cackling. Well, that may be a bit violent for the candlelit setting but you get the idea: I don’t really like Will, and and I don’t like him and Jamie together.

Then comes the car wreck, with the eighteen wheeler smashing into the quiet couple and flipping their car repeatedly. This is another flaw with the pilot, the crash comes way too soon. According to TiVo, they give us seven frakking minutes of character development before they give us a violent car wreck. It does grab your attention, but it is too soon for the audience who has not bonded enough with Jamie and has not formed an attachment to the idea of her living instead of dying.

The scene that most viewers are familiar with is now on the horizon, the one where Jamie wakes up after her operation and screams her head off. It is definitely my least favorite scene. It is worth enduring, however, because it is after this scene that the show seems to feel it has completed its obligatory moments and it actually starts to get good. The rest of the episode sees the tone shift from setting up the premise of the show to setting up the future episodes, and that is where the fun begins.

From here we start to see more of the characters that will be working with Jamie in the future, and they are an intriguing lot. I am especially fond of the psychologist, Ruth Truewell, played by Molly Price, and the trainer, Jae Huang, played by Will Yun Lee. Their dynamic together and with the other actors is quietly powerful and I hope to see more of them in future episodes.

We also the first meeting of Jamie and Sarah Corvus, as Sarah comes to visit Jamie at the nightclub where she works after Jamie “escapes” from the facility. This is also when Jamie’s eye and ear implants come online, which makes her sick, and when we see the push & pull of Jamie and Sarah’s relationship take place. Jamie then experiences her weapons systems for the first time, which leads her to Will’s apartment where they proceed to have very boring sex before Sarah Corvus shoots him. The amazing rain fight scene follows, and then Jamie lays down the law to Jonas with “If we do this, we do this my way.” The end scene by the ambulances is the one that gives me the most hope for the series, as it indicates further potential, and complexity, for the characters.

I am rating the pilot 7.4 out of 10.

Bionic Woman, Jamie Sommers, Michelle Ryan, Katee Sackhoff, Sarah Corvus, Ruth Truewell, Molly Price, Jae Huang, Will Yun Lee, Will Anthros, Lucy Hale