Hey folks, a couple of bits and pieces for you today:

Syfy Portal report that original BW series star Lindsay Wagner believes the “re-imagined” version is too violent:

“It’s very much like what the shows are today … kind of dark and broody and violent,” Wagner said. “It’s not at all what we were doing. We were doing a show for kids intentionally and making it fun in such a way that adults could enjoy it, too.”

It’s interesting that she would say that because personally I thought the series would be alot ‘darker’, especially after hearing Miguel Ferrer repeatedly say that “this isn’t your mom’s Bionic Woman”. But I guess from Wagner’s point of view the show is alot more violent than the original version that she starred in. What I like about this new version is the ‘comic-relief’ that has been incorporated over the past few episodes, in particular the Nathan / Jaime combination has added another dimension to the show, which has helped to balance the ‘gritty’ appeal with shades of ‘humour’.

This is interesting, apparently the use of the Apple iPhone in last weeks episode, “The List”, was all wrong – the wrong way around to be precise. Did you notice? Can’t say I did. I would have thought the powers that be would be water tight on the use of technological gadgets in the show, but maybe they were testing us to see whether we’re paying attention? We’re still watching guys, don’t worry! ; )

TV fodder give last weeks ‘List’ episode the thumbs up whilst comparing it to an episode of Mission Impossible. They suggest that the episode was helped by, what they call, the ‘dropping of dead weight’:

Personally, I think it was pretty good. The show seems to work a lot better when they drop all the dead weight, i.e. all the supporting characters like quiz-master Ruth, one-note Jae and Mr. YawnFest Isaiah Washington. The plot made sense and had a somewhat logical conclusion. The tone felt a lot like old Mission: Impossible episodes, which works for the format. The writers should definitely amp up the espionage portion of the show, and maybe team Jaime up only with new boyfriend Tom.

This is an interesting point – whilst I don’t consider Ruth, Jae or Antonio to be “dead weight”, I have been slightly frustrated with the under utilisation of Ruth (who deserves a far bigger role in my humble opinion) and the rather ‘one-tone’ use of Jae Lee, who often leaves me wondering what else Burket pay him for when he’s not taking Jaime ‘beyond the demo’. Don’t get me wrong, I like Jae..when he’s good, he’s really good. I’d just like to see these characters used in a more..whats the word? ..‘constructive’ way. Anyway, it’s good to see a positive review!

G4 TV have a rather funny Bionic Woman parody called “lesbionic” – check it out here.

Ryan over at WBW.com has a recap of Nathan’s  (“The Tech Guy”) -  performance in last weeks episode. Nathan is fast becoming one of my favourite characters and I take my hat off to Kevin Rankin!

That’s all for now – apologies for those of you waiting for the next Caption Contest, Episode Investigations and my review of “The List”. I’ve been especially busy this past week but I hope to have some more content up sometime on Tuesday. Cheers folks.

iF Magazine love Michelle’s real British accent and make an interesting point in that perhaps it would have been ‘fun’ to have a British Bionic Woman! They also give the episode the thumbs up and give special mention to Kevin Rankin (Nathan) and newbie Jordan Bridges (Tom).

Ryan McGee over at Zap2it, gives an interesting review. He’s clearly frustrated with the show but like many people he realises that the show has so much potential and wonders how it can be like “Felicity” one minute, yet so darn cool the next minute. I think consistency (or lack of) is the thing he’s getting at. He also suggests that all of last nights best moments didn’t directly feature our lead girl, Michelle Ryan. Ouch.

TVSquad says that the episode wasn’t terrible but point to the cliched nature of Jaime’s assignments as a weakness. They also mention that the one liners were better this week. On a side note, they also ask whether NBC will be releasing the Jaime Sommers ringtone on their site anytime soon – hey, it will happen, lol!

But more importantly, what did YOU think of the episode? Let me know by voting in the current poll (in the side bar) and leaving any opinions or views in the comments or via email.

Incidentally, I believe there is no new episode next week due to Halloween, so lets hope this episode has left us all with lots to talk about, lol.

I think I’ve been a bit too hard on Bionic Woman. It’s not that this week’s episode made me think, “By Jove, I’ve been looking at this show completely incorrectly! This is genius on par with ‘Hamlet’, ‘Metamorphosis’, and the later film work of Corbin Bernsen!” But I do think I brought a Battlestar Galactica mentality to this show, which wasn’t quite fair. Had a Battlestar producer, had some Battlestar actors, and even had the Battlestar modern remake in its favor.

But Bionic is its own, very flawed beast, and while it’s insanely far from perfect, there are some honest-to-goodness cool things amidst a currently mediocre show. I feel almost as if we’re peeking in on a weekly workshop production of Bionic Woman, almost as if NBC is showing us an ever-evolving product and asking us for feedback. It’s a show in transition, and I never root against a show trying to find its feet. Well, unless of course if that show involves Freddie Prinze Jr., in which case I bust out my magic markers and get to picket sign making.

In this week’s episode, “Sisterhood,” Sarah Corvis once again took center stage, with her relationship to the Berkut Group, the Anthros family, and Jaime herself coming into slightly clearer focus. Turns out that being Bionic Woman 1.0 has its drawbacks, what with the initial bionics causing her nervous system to go on the fritz unless a member of the Anthros family supplies her with a drug fix.. Watching Sarah go through withdrawal, and then shoot up, then shake like a leaf, then shoot up again, I thought two things:

This better not end up like Trainspotting, with a bionic baby crawling on the ceiling. This is why I never buy the first generation of any electronic device.
Anthony Andros, founder of the Burket Group, father to the possibly duplicitous Will (more on that soon), has convinced Sarah that Jaime’s bionics are the key to curing her fatal condition. The title “Sisterhood” centers around three such relationships: between Jaime and her younger sister Becca, Sarah and her younger sister (who died in a crash seemingly simulated when Sarah crashed into Will and Jaime), and Sarah and Jaime, connected through their unique biologic/electronic composition.

Sarah has been working for Anthony from the beginning (albeit through an intermediary until now), which begs the question: why did Anthony want his own son dead? Did his son ultimately sell him out? Will himself is no longer above reproach, even though he was so deadly dull in the pilot episode that they decided to write him off the show with the world’s first lethal shoulder wound. Between the secret files Jaime found last week, and Sarah’s assertion this week that Jaime was groomed for years as the heir apparent to the faulty first model, and you have an Anthros clan whose yearly family picnic you’d do well to avoid.

The “grooming” aspect is one I find interesting, and well worth exploring in the show. (I prefer this to “I’m going to tell Hillary Clinton you’re violating my human rights, Mr. Miguel Ferrer!” or whatever stupid line they made Michelle Ryan utter tonight.) I find all this grooming especially interesting due to Becca’s bit of dialogue about their great grandmother, who had a genetic disorder that nearly killed her around Jaime’s age. I wonder if this particular genetic disorder is what started the work of the Berkut Group in the first place? Perhaps Sarah was just in the wrong time at the right place, with the Anthros family unable to risk the first procedure on the woman who could truly make their bionic work flourish.

But what does it mean to “make their bionic work flourish”? I’m wondering now about Antonio Pope, aka, Dr. McHomophobe-y, and his responsibility for just how Sarah turned out. When first we saw her in the pilot, she was essentially feral. And tonight, we had him encouraging Jaime to unleash her inner “animal.” With Papa Anthros out of the picture, don’t assume there aren’t those still in the Berkut Group following his orders. Keep a close eye on him.

Read more here.

Zap2itwant to see more struggle between Jaime fighting for her independence and the Burket Group trying to exhibit control over her. They believe that unless the show improves, it will be cancelled by February.

nj.com compare Isaiah Washington’s character, Antonio Pope, to the deceased Will Anthros.

Media Musings describes the episode as “OFF THE CHAIN”, whilst acknowledging the pitfalls of writing off a show based on it’s pilot.

But more importantly, what did YOU think of this episode?

It’s a nice bite-size podcast and worth checking out if you have a spare 10 minutes or so. But if you don’t, fear not, as I’ve broken-down most of what he talks about:

-He criticises the use of the word ‘Pilot’ for the title. I’ve gotta agree it is pretty unoriginal. On the other-hand it didn’t do LOST any harm..though they were clever enough to actually mould some deeper meaning into it (LOST fans will know what I mean..)

-He hopes that BW goes more the way of the updated Battlestar Galatica than the updated Flash Gordan. Flash Gordan..whatever happened to that?

-He gives the Pilot episode the thumbs up and says that the show is “on a good first step”. Like many people, myself included, he likes to idea of exploring how far we augment ourselves before we become machine and lose our humanity. Other themes that he liked were the military experimentation and nanotechnology angles.

-He notes how Sarah Corvus embraces her ‘machine side’ and suggests that Jaime Sommers will have to find a “happy medium”. I agree, though I suspect that Sarah was once like Jaime..what changed to make her want to ‘strip away her weak (human) parts’?

-He also compare’s Michelle Ryan to Jeniffer Garner and says the likeness is “uncanny”. Gotta say I agree with him there..they’re quite similar, as is LOST’s Evangeline Lilly (Kate).

You can listen to the podcast here - don’t forget if you have an opinion on BW feel free to voice that opinion in the comments sections or in the new shout box (to the right).

Michelle Ryan portrays Jaime as rather unformed and bland, which makes sense at this stage in her development, but it’s less than riveting. The supporting cast, however, is excellent. Katee Sackhoff, after years of fighting Cylons on Battlestar Galactica, now gets to play one. Her Sarah struts across this story with dash and swagger. From her first words—”Tell me that you love me”—to her would-be executioner and lover (Will Yun Lee, of Fallen), to her final smirk at Jaime, Sackhoff owns this show. Mark Sheppard, a veteran of The X-Files, Fireflyand other SF classics, here appears as the acid-tongued criminal father of Dr. Will—more layers. And as noted, Miguel Ferrer’s thuggish Jonas packs a world of exposition in a few merciless lines and that patented scowl. Production values are high—the lab is full of clanky elevators reminiscent of the James Whale version of Frankenstein. The gray skies of Vancouver do for Bionic Woman what they did for The X-Files: imbue every scene with a brooding light and a sense of looming disaster. The music by Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman (Wendy and Lisa, former band mates of Prince) sells the emotional subtext with a refreshing lack of pop-tune tie-ins.

There isn’t much story in this episode, but that’s all right. We get an excellent introduction to the characters and the premise. In the hands of executive producers like David Eick, we can expect a grownup treatment of speculative subjects, something beyond the usual cartoon and comic-book approach. Like Jaime herself, not everything works yet, but for the most part, Bionic Woman has—you must pardon the expression—legs.

Read her full BW Pilot review here.

Show creators apparently hate technology, especially when used to successfully save lives. At what price, they want to explore, do we do so? A character who suffers terrible trauma must continue to suffer long after they have transcended their human weaknesses and been relieved of their pain. The price, we learn, is generally too high, and it would have been better if the character had just died. Because they did not die, they now must spend the seasons performing altruistic acts, to give back to simple unenhanced humans who are owed some unexplained debt. The moment the transhuman start enjoying her powers, she will be taught a terrible lesson.

This bionic woman is a creation of nanotechnology and cybernetics, packaged in a beautiful and indistinguishable-from-human body. A simple bartender enriched by her involvement with a man of education and science must now pay the ultimate price for becoming transhuman. We do not learn in one episode, of course, exactly what price she will pay during her upcoming ordeals, but we can be sure it will be gratuitously gory and tearful.

Modern medicine is marvelous and technologies in labs and on the horizon suggest great things ahead. We know from experience that most people in pain, experiencing great suffering, or nearing death, will, no matter what their prior belief system, embrace relief. Relief is so obviously joyful that relief as horror as depicted in fiction simply rings false, yet writers go back to that same dark well over and over again.

Could there be conflict in a depiction of a transhuman that was joyful and thankful for her transcendence? Absolutely. We have already seen one such character on television, albeit with her own moments of angst and depression and confusion. Her name was Buffy, The Vampire Slayer and she was always at her best when she gave into the morally valid pleasures of her power.

And Buffy Summers, of course, was partly inspired by another woman of incredible power who could, sometimes at least, enjoy her powers. She was the original Jaime Sommers in the original 1970’s Bionic Woman. If her joy was not always apparent, she was a superior role model compared to the current ungrateful incarnation. Until writers embrace the potential joys of transhuman existence, they will continue to “re-image” old material while popular storytelling continues to stagnate.

He also says that the show is a “disaster” and labels Katee Sackhoff’s portrayal of Sarah Corvus as ’painful’ and “badly acted”.

Whilst I did enjoy reading his article and can appreciate several of the points that he made, I disagree about the performance of Sackhoff and his calling the show a “disaster” – afterall, he’s only seen the Pilot..and that was far from being a ‘disaster’. As for his point about the show not celebrating the ‘gift’ of ‘transhuman’ abilities, I can understand his viewpoint, however doesn’t the show also have a responsibility to reflect the potential reality of such a ‘gift’? Afterall, most ‘heroes’ (if you will) are burdened with responsibility – “With great power, comes great responsibility” – being in a position of power is often a lonely burden..one could call it the ‘gift and the curse’ effect.

Yes, it would be nice to explore the joys of human transcendence and I’m sure that along the way Jaime will experience moments where she is at one with herself and ‘happy’ with her role. However, it’s much more fun and realistic to experience the light and the shade of the human condition..because that’s what life is often about..light and shade. Nevertheless, it’s a great piece and you can read all of it here.