Bionic Woman

Here’s an interesting video interview with Will Yun Lee.  Will plays Jae Kim on BW and has been assigned to teach Jaime Sommers what it means to be a bionic woman and how to integrate her biological traits with her newly programmed bionics.

I like his character Kim, however, learning that he is friends with Washington makes me like him just a little less.

Katee Sackhoff has gotten lots of great write-ups for her portrayal of Sarah Corvus, the “first bionic woman” and dedicated nemeses to Michelle Ryan’s Jaime Sommers, but there is another character I like almost as well - Nathan.  Each week, Jaime and Nathan engage in playful, flirty banter that has really taken on a fun, fan perspective recurrence.  Nathan starts most scenes with the “What have you done to my ear, toe, etc.” question after Sommers has damaged her bionics.  Sommers reminds Nathan each time those body parts belong to her. 

Nathan is played by veteran tv actor Kevin Rankin.  Many fans will recognize him as Herc from Friday Night Lights. 

In Bionic Woman, we know practically nothing about Nathan, not even his last name, except he is the go-to-guy when Sommers is having technical difficulties.  He is a sort of Q to Sommers.

I’ve pulled together a couple of clips.

This clip comes from 1.02, “Paradise Lost”.  Sommers is having problems with ringing in her bionic ear and Nathan fixes the problem with an unconventional technique.

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Katee Sackhoff as the evil Sarah Corvus delivers one of the best lines in the new Bionic Woman during the pilot, “Second Chances,” announcing to Michelle Ryan as Jaime Sommers that she is indeed the “first bionic woman.”

After making this shocking pronouncement, Corvus playfully concludes, “Ta Da”. 

Fan gear pops up around every show and Bionic Woman is no exception.  Inspired by this classic Sarah Corvus dialogue, t-shirts in different styles and colors bearing this iconic phrase are now available. 

Fun stuff.

More t-shirts, gear and the YouTube clip after the jump.

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When we first met Becca, Jaime’s little sister, she was supposed to be a paranoid girl with few (if any friends). She was originally written as a “socially isolated” computer hacker who grew up going to protests and had no tolerance for the traditional structures of society. In the first episode we learned that there was a court order preventing Becca from using a computer, and she and Jaime seemed locked in a cross purposes pattern of angry fighting that seemed unbreakable.

With each episode, however, we see Becca morphing away from that type of character and more towards the stereotypical cute and confused teenager. She’s obsessed with over priced jeans and show tunes, participates in the theater at her school, and has more than a passing familiarity with alcohol. While we have never seen her friends, we know they exist because she was caught smoking pot with them at school. And as of last week we learned she has enough transformed from being a socially isolated computer hacker to having the social cravings to pick up random guys and engage in heavy petting (leading towards casual sex?) in the back of cars in alleys.

If all of that is not confusing enough, Becca inexplicably has her computer back as well and seems to use it regularly and in front of Jaime without Jaime having comment or concern. Perhaps that is because the New Becca rarely speaks of protest groups or hacking urges, she seems less likely to use her supposedly superior computer skills to snoop than to make slide shows of family photographs or pimp her MySpace page.

The constantly shifting portrait of Becca is becoming a detriment to the show. Becca is supposedly designed to be Jaime’s connection to the real world, a contrast to her dark and shadowy days at the Burket Group and her surreal life as a Bionic Woman. The show clearly envisions the emotional ties between the sisters to be one of the emotional points of the show, and it has worked amazingly well considering how little we really know about Becca.

But this will be become less effective as each episode passes and Becca’s character becomes more strained. How much can the audience care about a character we know so little about? And if the tether that keeps Jaime tied to the real world is untied, how grounded can Jaime really be?

It is frustrating because the character of Becca has a lot of potential. We have speculated before that Becca’s gifted computer skills could be a huge asset for Jaime in the future, and talked about how Jaime’s entire characterization depends on her having this familial connection.

Much like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Jaime depends on her personal relationships to keep her focused on what is important. And much like Buffy’s frenemy Faith, it is Sarah Corvus’ lack of relationships that leaves her lost in the confusing whirlwind of her rapidly ending life. Becca could be the grounding point for Jaime, but not if the Bionic Woman writers continue to take her down the path of Dawn, the whining brat of a sister that Buffy was suddenly saddled with in Season Five. It took Dawn exhibiting some admirable traits of her own for Buffy fans to care about her, and it is going to take some consistency and some competence for Bionic Woman fans to really care about Becca and her relationship with Jaime Sommers.

Jaime Sommers, Lucy Hale, Becca Sommers, Bionic Woman, sister, hacker, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Faith, Dawn

Bionic Woman episode 1.04, “Face Off” was a bit disjointed, but it did give us this fun scene and line of the week.

The setup:

Michelle Ryan’s Jaime Sommers has broken one of her bionic toes while spying on her sister, Becca.  Jaime heads to the Wolfe Creek facility to have Nathan fix her toe.  Nathan flirts with Jaime each week and while he is working on her toe, she accuses him of being more than a little interested in her feet.  Nathan’s reply is classic.

Sommers:  Do you have a foot fetish?

Nathan:  Actually, no, Jaime, I do not, I’m pretty much just a simple boob man.”

Usually people think of David Eick’s other show, Battlestar Galactica, when they talk about timely topics on television. But Paul Krugman of the New York Times thinks Bionic Woman is also a reflection of modern times, based on his recent comments:

Bionic Blackwater

After a hard day’s teaching, a guy’s gotta flake out a little. So I watched Bionic Woman last night — and found myself thinking about, yes, privatization.

I’m pretty sure the original, 1970s Bionic Woman worked for a government agency. But this version works for a private contractor - she even gets assigned to protect the daughter of a tycoon who gives the company a lot of business. Yet this private company seems to be empowered to go around killing people. And nobody seems to consider this at all unusual, or legally dubious.

I guess TV writers just pick up on the Zeitgeist.

A lot of people are hollering doom and gloom about Bionic Woman’s ratings right now, but it is still one of the top twenty-five shows on television and the top new show on NBC. According to a list up on Televisionista.com, Bionic Woman’s ratings are better than The Office, My Name is Earl, Deal or No Deal, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Law & Order: SVU and a host of other television staples.

Roco at Bionic-Blog articulates many fans fantasies about the palpable sexual tension between Jaime Sommers and Sarah Corvus playing out on screen … perhaps as a ratings boosting kiss for sweeps week?

Remote Access describes what a lot of fans are feeling after the first month of Bionic Woman: they are not giving up yet, but they have not gotten addicted yet either. Ryan McGee agrees that it is too soon to give up, and continues to be optimistic abut the show’s future in spite of three out of four sub-par set up episodes.

Head over to Pink Raygun to check out their Battle of the Bionic Women, a series that pits the classic show against the modern version point by point.

And last but not least, Entertainment Weekly ranked Michelle Ryan’s Jaime Sommers number 12 on their list of 22 Butt Kicking Babes. Jaime’s in good company with spygirl Sarah Walker from Chuck, modern day thrill seekers Charlie’s Angels, River Tam from Firefly & Serenity, Trinity from The Matrix, and Sarah Connor from The Terminator. Interestingly enough, Katee Sackhoff’s Kara “Starbuck” Thrace from Battlestar Galactica apparently kicks more butt than Jaime because she makes the list at Number Four. Number One on the Butt Kicking Babes list is the ferocious Ellen Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver in the Alien movies. You’d better get away from her, you bitches!

Bionic Woman, NBC, ratings, Blackwater, episode, Sarah Corvus, Jaime Sommers, Charlie’s Angels, River Tam, Firefly, Serenity, Chuck, Sarah Connor, Alien, Sigourney Weaver, Katee Sackhoff, Starbuck, Battlestar Galactica

Episode 1.04 “Face Off” was not quite as good as last week’s episode, “Sisterhood,” but there was one scene that was campy fun- Katee Sackhoff being wheeled through the Wolfe Creek underground facility. 

The setup: Katee Sackhoff as Sarah Corvus has just been captured by Jae Kim and he is taking her back to the Wolfe Creek facility for interrogation and repair.

Watch this clip and tell me the writers weren’t deliberately paying tribute to Rober Harris’ Silence of the Lambs villain Hannibal Lecter.

Did anyone catch the magazine Sarah Corvus was reading just before a cool fight scene broke out?

It looks like Bio Magazine.  Any guesses?

Episode 1.03 “Sisterhood” really kicked the series into high gear and provided Katee Sackhoff with some great lines.  My favorite is this clip. 

The set up:

Michelle Ryan’s Jaime Sommers has just turned down Katee Sackhoff as Sarah Corvus’ request to become a live test subject.  Corvus explains that she has no longer has feelings.  Despite the request, Sommers tells her no and this line comes just as Corvus storms out the parking garage where this scene took place.

Sarah Corvus:  “It feels pretty dramatic to me.  Not that I can actually feel anything, but I can intellectually imagine that that feels pretty dramatic.”

The worst line of the episode naturally was delivered by Isaiah Washington.  Washington was unfortunately cast as Antonio Pope.  Pope is an employee of the Berkut Group and assigned to train Sommers and prepare her for fighting terrorists and bad guys.

The set up:

Sommers and Jae Kim have just completed a sparring match.  Washington hurls this one liner at her before they spar.  The line is stupid and Washington is horrible.  So, it is my worst line of the week.

Antonio Pope:  “All right boys and girls, I’m about to get analog on your ass.”

Bionic Woman episode 1.03 - “Sisterhood” raised a question that I have wondered since watching the pre-air pilot back in July:  Is Molly Price’s character, Ruth Truewell a lesbian?

I certainly hope so!  How fantastic to have a strong smart character that happens to be a lesbian on a prime-time show.  We don’t know that much information about Truewell yet, except she is smart, efficient and can multi-task like crazy.  So far we have seen her perform psych exams, impersonate a federal agent, and make a bomb on the fly.  After making the mistake of hiring serial bigot Isaiah Washington, NBC could make great strides with the gay community having one of the main Bionic Woman characters be an out lesbian.  Many at AfterEllen.com think Molly Price makes a great role model and compares her character to Mariska Hargitay’s Det. Benson on Law & Order:  SVU. 

Bionic Woman is turning into a great show and this possibility makes it even more interesting for me.  Of course, it is NBC, so I won’t hold my breath.

The most intriguing character in the premiere episode of Bionic Woman is Sarah Corvus, the first bionic woman and the bad ass that Jamie Sommers fights in that famous rainy rooftop scene. Commentators like to describe Sarah as Jamie’s evil nemesis or her archenemy, but after watching the pilot it is hard to believe the dynamic between the two characters is that simple.

Sarah does not seem evil so much as confused and lonely. She may want to kill Will Anthros, but she does not seem to wish Jamie Sommers any real harm. If she did, Jamie would be dead in that bathroom in the nightclub where the two first meet. And when she fought Jamie on the roof, she was not going for the throat as much as checking out the new girl in town.

When Jamie asks “What do you want?” and Sarah replies “Honestly? I’m not sure,” Sarah is telling the truth … she is not sure what she wants. Sarah is not quite the wolf that Jae makes her out to be, but she is not mature and grounded either. She drifts, she reacts, she is looking for friends and simultaneously afraid of closeness to others.

Sarah Corvus reminds me quite a bit of another lonely girl, also confused and overwhelmed by the isolating nature of her super abilities: Faith, the rogue slayer on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.

Like Sarah Corvus, Faith electrified Buffy viewers by showing them what their heroine would be like if she refused to play by the rules. All of that physical prowess can be dangerous, and it would be easy for a smart, sexy, fearless woman to play by the “want, take” mantra that Faith tried to teach Buffy in a famous episode. But those rules only work for people who don’t care, which is why Sarah and Faith represent what could happen without the relationships that keep the Jamie and Buffy tethered to reality.

Bionic Woman producer David Eick describes Sarah Corvus as the potential dark side of Jamie, a cautionary tale of what Jamie could become if she gives in to the temptations that come with her new abilities. This echoes Buffy producer Joss Whedon’s description of Faith, as the woman Buffy could have been if she did not have the support and love of those around her.

Like Eliza Dushku, who played Faith, Katee Sackhoff can switch from needy and fearful to hard and vicious in an instant. One can easily see her, like Faith, fighting along side the heroine in one scene and against her in the next. It will be interesting to watch how Jamie’s relationship with Sarah Corvus develops in future episodes, as the two certainly have more to gain by working together than apart.

Sarah Corvus, Bionic Woman, Jamie Sommers, Faith, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, David Eick, Joss Whedon, Eliza Dushku, Katee Sackhoff

Liz at Glowybox raised an interesting proposition in her review of the Bionic Woman pilot - is there going to be enough “eye candy” on BW?  Sure, Michelle Ryan and Katee Sackhoff are beautiful women, but what about the men? 

After watching the pilot, the only visual “taste” of possible eye candy is Chris Bowers  shirtless for about 60 seconds.  He’s got a nice body and looks decently in shape, but he’s not gonna cut for the whole series.  Since we didn’t see Jae Kim shirtless, the verdict is still out on him.

I’ve said before that BW has a natural built in audience with the gay and lesbian community and one of the ways to cultivate gay men is to add more men with sex appeal.  Bowers and Kim didn’t show any potential in this department from the pilot.

And Isaiah Washington will never cut it visually or mentally with the gay community.

What do you think? Does a shirtless Will offer enough sex appeal to carry the series, or is he a little limp in the sex appeal department?

Katee Sackhoff’s amazing hair at the TV Guide Party last Sunday won her kudos from Hairstylewatch.com.

In Vancouver? Bionic Woman is filming street scenes this week, according to The Vancouverite.

A Colorado television station has an interview with the woman who played the toddler that was rescued by Max, the Bionic Dog, in the clip from the original series we posted on Tuesday. Like us, she was struck by the 1970s idea of leaving a toddler in a car alone and a German Shepherd in a car with the windows rolled up … with all of our modern safety obsessions, Max’s rescue task on the new series would have to be more complicated to be as impressive as it was thirty years ago.

In related news, at least one cast member has threatened to leave the show if they bring back the Bionic Dog. Miguel Ferrar, who plays shadowy Jonas Bledsoe on the show, recently told The West Australian that he would see the addition of a bionic pup as a blow to the credibility of the modern version of the show. As it is, he expects the show to be one of the best science fiction shows ever made. We like your optimism Miguel!

Bionic Woman, Vancouver, Max, Bionic Dog, German Shepherd, Colorado, Katee Sackhoff, Miguel Ferrar

Ruth Truewell is one of the most intriguing characters in the Bionic Woman pilot. The NBC website, however, contains no biographical information for this character. Instead, the website only shows the biography of Molly Price, the woman who plays her. This is interesting given the vital role that Ruth plays in Jamie’s first few days as the Bionic Woman.

WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW

Ruth’s role at the Berkut Group is unclear, but she seems to be well-respected and involved in the mental evaluation of Jamie (and perhaps other employees as well). As the pilot progresses, it is Ruth’s assessment that Jamie is well-grounded and mentally strong that leads the other members of the Berkut Group to begin to see Jamie as a potential asset instead of a potentially disastrous liability.

It is Ruth who sides with Will, Jamie’s boyfriend, and convinces Burket chief Jonas Bledsoe to let Jamie escape. It is Ruth who convinces Jae that she could take a different path than the lethal one chosen by an unstable Sarah Corvus. And it is Ruth who chooses to treat Jamie as a woman instead of as a machine. It will be very interesting to see, as the series progresses, how the relationship between these two characters develops … and what more we can learn about the mysterious Ruth Truewell.

Ruth Truewell, Bionic Woman, Molly Price, Berkut Group, Jonas Bledsoe, Sarah Corvus

Becca Sommers is Jamie’s troubled little sister, a computer hacker who the pilot reveals has a court order against her forbidding her access to computers. According to the NBC website, Becca was much closer to her parents than Jamie because she was born during the Mount Pleasant riots in D.C. and her parents took that as a sign of her revolutionary future. So they took Becca around the country with them to various protests, while Jamie was left alone at home.

Becca’s nomadic lifestyle during her formative years forged her love for junk food, changing places, and laptop computers. It also caused her to have trouble relating to kids her own age, because she really had no experience with them until she went to school at age six. The first time she got caught hacking was in the fourth grade when she was caught in the school’s mainframe, then a couple years ago she was caught hacking into a government site and prohibited from using the web at all.

Becca’s bio also talks about her uncanny ability to tell when someone (especially Jamie) is lying to her, her attraction to protest groups and social anarchists, and her general isolation from kids her own age.

It should be interesting to see how the character of Becca develops over the course of the series. The writers clearly have a plan for the character, and I hope that it is sooner rather than later that Jamie and Becca begin to work together — rather than against — one another. But given the description of Becca’s character that hope may be in vain.

Bionic Woman, Lucy Hale, Jamie Sommers, Becca Sommers, hacker, anarchist