GlobeandMail.com suggest the seasons new shows, such as Bionic Woman, owe their stay of execution to the pending writers strike:
We’re six weeks into the fall campaign and the new TV season already seems gone and forgotten, or at least not very noticed. Beyond middling buzz and decent ratings for the Grey’s Anatomy spinoff, Private Practice, and the fantasy drama Pushing Daisies, the new season has not elicited a single hit. Where is this year’s Heroes?
Still, while there are no instant smash hits, the misses are more likely to stick around this season. The threat of a writers’ strike has inspired more tolerance among U.S. broadcasters, since the looming labour dispute would immediately shut down production of all scripted shows. As a result, the big American networks have put away the cancellation scythe, for the time being.
They have a point – is it coincidence that hardly any shows have been cancelled so far? However I do believe that BW is the best of this seasons new shows and it’s certainly the one with the most potential and so it perhaps deserves a chance more than most. As for ‘Heroes’, of course that was a breakout hit last year, but people had been saying “where’s this years LOST?” for a good few years before ‘Heroes’..so it swings and roundabouts. Furthermore ‘Heroes’ hasn’t been that great so far in it’s crucial second season – and that’s coming from a Heroes fan. So the market is very unpredictable even at the best of times – it’s often unfair (albeit fun) to compare shows which land in different seasons.
GlobeandMail place BW firmly in their ’season misses’ section and add:
Bionic Woman (Wednesday on NBC and E!) dark remake of the seventies series, Bionic Womanis slowly building its audience in the U.S., and is performing well in Canada, where it airs on E! in Toronto and Vancouver. But where’s the love? The series suffers from the miscasting of British actress Michelle Ryan in the title role. Most of the time, she appears angry and resentful. Oscar Goldman would not approve.
Since when was ‘building an audience in the U.S.’ and ‘performing well in Canada’ a bad thing? Sure, it’s development may be slow but at least it is improving, which is surely a positive? As for Michelle Ryan, I personally don’t think that she has been miscast..I’d blame some of the writing and behind the scenes reshuffling. As for her character being “angry and resentful most of the time”..well what do you expect? – she’s just had her personal rights violated, is now part machine and has had her whole life turned upside down..I think I’d be somewhat resentful and angry. As Ferrer would say:
“This isn’t your mom’s Bionic Woman”.
Of course BW is by no means perfect, but I think they have been a bit unfair, especially since they’ve placed ‘Gossip Girl’ as a ‘hit’ above BW. You can read the whole article here.
