The nytimes.com have a great interview with ‘Bionic Woman’ creator, David Eick. Here are some of the juicy bits:
Eick on his hopes for the series:
“I’d like people to leave room for the possibility that a show called ‘Bionic Woman’ is going to reach deeper than they might expect. We’re not doing Chekhov, we know that. But I do think we’re definitely pushing the theme in some really compelling and sort of meaningful directions.
“In a way you want the title to work for you, to get people to watch the show, but at the same time you don’t want it to act as the kind of thing that makes people feel like you don’t deserve to go into that more serious territory. I hope people will leave room for the possibility that a show called ‘Bionic Woman’ can be great.
Eick on ‘Bionic Woman’ in comparison to ‘Battlestar Galatica’:
“When Ron Moore and I first started talking about ‘Battlestar,’ it was in December of 2001, right on the heels of 9/11. And we saw ‘Battlestar Galactica,’ at its heart, as a story about desperate people in the aftermath of a holocaust, searching for a way home. So our intention was to write a drama that reflected our times that just happened to be called ‘Battlestar Galactica.’ ‘Bionic Woman’ is a more sociologically contemplative idea, which is, simply: ‘Are the rules different for women? When their desire is to be a professional success and an emotional, domestic, interpersonal success, how do we judge that differently than we might a man?’ ”
Eick on his inspiration:
“I was raised by a single woman, who was an entrepreneur, so I knew the force of a successful female businessperson who’s also a successful mom. And I wondered why we hadn’t seen more of that on television.”
Eick on Sarah Corvus:
“Sarah was a good way of showing this as a cautionary tale. And if you look at the storytelling tools of the great science fiction writers, it’s all about be careful what you wish for. H. G. Wells and Ray Bradbury are always talking about that which we create eventually destroying us unless we heed the warnings. And Jaime will have to make moral choices that may or may not move her down the path toward becoming another Sarah.”
Eick on the ‘Dark’ themes of ‘Bionic Woman’:
“I never thought this series should be as dark as ‘Battlestar,’ it would be impossible to maintain the heaviness of the pilot, which is about a girl getting pulverized by a Mack truck, barely surviving and struggling to come to terms with this incredibly traumatic thing. You can’t do that story every week. Sometimes she has to feel that this is exhilarating, sometimes it’s terrifying and sometimes it’s just fun.”
Read the entire interview here.