Bionic Woman

This is Part IV of a list of Top Ten Things That Hurt Bionic Woman.  Click here for Part I, Part II, and Part III.

4.  The Backlash.  As David Eick knows better than most people, a remake of a beloved scifi television show from the 1970s is bound to generate controversy.  There are people who still have not forgiven him for bringing back Battlestar Galactica, for making Starbuck a woman, and for the myriad of supposed scifi sins that he and the new BSG cast and crew have supposedly committed.  So you would think that he would be prepared to handle the backlash about Bionic Woman, and use it to an advantage for the show.  However, that does not seem to be the case.

Bionic Woman has had more than its share of controversy, and the show does not seem to handle it well.  There was the initial outrage from classic fans and television purists who were outraged that Jaime Sommers was being "reimagined" at all, much less in such a dark and potentially degrading fashion.  Then there was the outrage from the Battlestar Galactica faithful who were furious that Eick was allowing BSG to end, partially in order to focus his attention on a new scifi show they were sure would "suck."  Then was the protest from the deaf community about having a hearing person play a deaf girl (based on the original pilot, which showed Mae Whitman as a deaf Becca) and the even louder protest when the show recast the deaf girl as a perky teen without a disability.  There was the protest when the show replaced Mae for the cute, slimmer, sleeker Lucy Hale from critics who said the network was "dumbing down" the show before it even aired.  The gay community became outraged when Isaiah Washington got cast on Bionic Woman the same week he was fired from Grey’s Anatomy for making a gay slur, and the bad press from that debacle followed the show throughout the summer.  Not to mention the people who were angry the show made no attempt to look like San Francisco, the folks who were angry that the show underused Katee Sackhoff, and the people who were just angry the show was on the air at all.

There is no question about the fact that Bionic Woman pisses people off.  Why probably depends on the demographic, but the show seems to be an equal opportunity offender.  And yet, Bionic Woman does not seem to be able to channel this press into ratings … all of its controversies seem to make the show lose, rather than again, viewers.  Which is why the backlash from various sources, and the show’s inability to weather the storm, is so high on this list of things that have hurt Bionic Woman.

3.  The Writer’s Strike.  It just could not have come at a worse time fro the show.  After floundering through October, Bionic Woman was finally getting its sea legs when the strike began.  Jordan Bridges’ adorable Tom added some romantic tension, Michelle Ryan seemed to be really settling into the role of Jaime, and things appeared to have calmed down enough on the set to allow the writers to focus on fixing the scripts.  If the cast and crew had been able to work for one more month, perhaps they would have been able to fix some of the glaring inconsistencies and finalize the answers to some of the glaringly unanswered questions regarding Jaime’s abilities, her future, her role at Berkut, and everything else.  We support the writers, but there is no question that the strike has hurt Bionic Woman.

To read Part V of this list, click here.