Damn, We Could Have Had Monkeys!
Lost in the controversy over the recasting of Jamie Sommers’ sister is the news that when NBC jettisoned the deaf character on Bionic Woman, they also ditched the monkeys.
Apparently the new Jamie was originally going to be a lab worker, not a bartender. And her unusually strong connection with the monkeys in the lab was going to be explained by her deaf sister. Jamie’s familiarity with sign language helped her communicate with the monkeys, bringing a whole new depth to her character. The character of Jamie’s sister would add additional darkness and internal conflict to Jamie, and the concept would add a whole plethora of potential monkey moments into the show as well.
And then NBC ditched both the depth of character and the monkeys. As you can see from the above photo of a monkey with Natalie Portman, this was truly a great loss for the show. BuddyTV explains why the decision to recast Jamie’s sister will hurt the show and the characters, noting that “Jamie’s deaf sister would have symbolized the unfairness of the bionic technology being used for warfare, all the while providing the new Bionic Woman with a secret self-loathing that would play out at the very sight of her sister’s struggles to fit into the world.” And we could have had monkeys!
monkeys, Jamie Sommers, Bionic Woman, NBC, deaf, sister, Natalie Portman, recast, television, sign language
August 30th, 2007 at 9:38 am
Nice post Margie! I was initially disappointed when I heard that Mae got axed. However after seeing the preaired Pilot, I didn’t think that her chemistry with Michelle was ‘right’ (though perhaps that was down to the script and perhaps it would have worked better once reshot?). So I can see the logic behind the decision, especially now that the monkeys are also gone.