CBR Live! Archive
Saturday, Quick and Dirty
Not the luckiest week ever, here in the Hatcher household.
I won't bore you with the specifics. Suffice it to say there's been a whole litany of stuff: More medical things, an unexpected deadline panic at another magazine I work for, an ongoing computer problem that's making us a little nuts (I've been doing columns on other people's computers for the last month, including this one) ...and now not one but TWO different columns have had to be pushed back because important components of them -- like, interview answers -- have been unavoidably delayed. One hopes that by next week all of this will be ironed out and the Friday column will actually go up on a FRIDAY like it's supposed to.Â
In the meantime, that means that today is going to be a quick hit-and-run kind of a piece; a little unfinished, it's the notes I had on NBC's new Bionic Woman.
By way of preamble, I should say I was very much looking forward to this. Probably with more anticipation than any revival warranted, really, since it had a huge hump to get over given my fond childhood memories of the original Steve Austin novels and television show. (Those are recounted here.)
 
So, two weeks in, my provisional verdict is -- not bad, but not great. It wasn't disappointing, exactly, but it's clearly still very much a work in progress.
And speaking of work in progress, here are the stream-of-consciousness notes IÂ made while I was watching, in no particular order. First, the pilot:
...Interesting. Bionics are potentially crazy-making? That's an idea Martin Caidin played with a tiny bit in Cyborg but never went back to. What WOULD those new inputs feel like? Hmm. Wonder if they'll run with it.
...Jaime and the bionic doctor are an item? I sense this isn't going to last. Too hard to work around from week to week.
....Huh. Laeta Kalogridis wrote this -- she adapted Birds of Prey for the WB a couple of years back. She made the Huntress a young hip bartender chick who's unwillingly saddled with the responsibility of caring for a teenage girl. Now here's her vision of Jaime Sommers: a young hip bartender chick unwillingly saddled with the responsibility of a teenage girl. What is it with Laeta and bartenders?
...Nice to see Miguel Ferrer again. I wonder if anyone else is speculating that this is the job his character took after he quit bossing Bridget Fonda in Point of No Return. Jesus, I am a huge nerd for wondering that. It's probably just me.
...The parts Ms. Kalogridis didn't crib from Birds of Prey appear to have been cribbed from La Femme Nikita, now that I think about it. So it's Jaime as Nikita. Could work, but... I dunno, seems unnecessarily dark to me. Too much "not your mother's Bionic Woman."
...Katee Sackhoff is stealing every scene she's in. Best line in the show: Katee's bored, "The FIRST bionic woman. Ta da."
...No Rudy Wells, no Oscar Goldman. Oh duh, then they'd have to pay the Caidin heirs for Steve Austin as well as shelling out to use "Jaime Sommers" and "Bionic Woman." Still, I miss Oscar. Maybe they'll do some stunt casting with the old crew for sweeps or something. They're all still around, a bunch of them just did BionicCon in L.A. Speaking of creator credit, where the hell's Kenneth Johnson's name? How does that work? Seems like they'd have to give him SOMETHING... maybe it's whipping by in the end credits too small to see. I really wonder why they bother with end credits, when no one can read them any more, the way they split the screen.
... The effects are gorgeous but I guess we aren't going to see very much in any single episode. Makes sense, they're probably expensive. The story's going to have to get better than this though; if we can't see more spectacular effects that means the scripts have to carry the load. But so far, that's not happening. All felt very by-the-numbers, as though it's been stitched together from other shows.
....So bionic doctor's dad is actually an Evil Bionic Doctor? Is he Katee Sackhoff's builder? Does that mean he MADE her crazy and evil? And he's escaped and hiding out in the mountains? It would rock my world if he set about constructing an evil army of bionic Bigfoot monsters up there. Come on, NBC, go ahead and go there. Embrace your Kenneth Johnson heritage, don't run from it! Bigfoot! Fembots! A bionic German Shepherd! Reimagined for the new millennium!... Jesus, I am a HUGE nerd. Still, that sounds more fun than bionic Nikita.
And this week's entry, "Paradise Lost":
...Glen Morgan is working on this now? X-Files alum. Wonder if he's got anything to do with the whole gray rainy look of this show. Must be a Vancouver thing.
...A small hick town full of dead people a la Steve Austin's "Population Zero"? Coincidence? Probably. Dare I hope for a pissed-off scientist and his death ray?
...Wait, we're at the funeral? The young boyfriend doctor didn't survive the shooting in the pilot episode? Last week it looked like he did and he's even in the cast publicity photo. Well, I knew it couldn't last.
...So Miguel Ferrer's all "You owe us" and Jaime's all "no way, I scorn authority." Yawn. Can't we think of a new angle here? What happened to all the TV spy agencies staffed with heroic people doing good things for good reasons? The ruthless corrupt government angle is really, really tired at this point.
...Not enthralled with the whole younger sister thing. This is going to be a big hassle story-wise. There's a reason they quetly dropped Jaime's schoolteacher idenity on the old show...it's too big of a pain to work around. The secret-identity plot wasn't a good idea on the original Bionic Woman and it's not going to work here either, I bet. Either the sister gets recruited and let in on the spy stuff somehow or she gets killed.
....the agency regulars are getting a bit crowded. We started with the bionic doctor, the blonde lady, the Asian trainer, and now Isaiah Washington alongside Miguel Ferrer.
 
That's too many people filling a role that's supposed to serve primarily an expository function. As it stands Jaime's getting pushed out of her own show. Keep Miguel Ferrer because he's cool, maybe Isaiah. Asian guy's got a subplot with Katee Sackhoff, play that arc out and then dump him. They've already dumped the doctor. Blonde lady can go. That leaves Isaiah and Miguel. That would be about right.
...used to be all the tech guys were modeled on Q from the Bond movies. Now it looks like they're all modeled on Hollywood's idea of the SF geek demographic. First Marshall on Alias and now Jaime's guy. Cute gag with the ear getting fixed by smacking her head but it doesn't make sense. What if she gets bumped like that in a combat situation? Sparks fly and she goes deaf? Dumb. Don't sacrifice interior logic just for a gag, people.
....Interesting riff with the fight choregraphy being exposed as pre-programmed.
 
Does that mean Jaime can be programmed with other motor skills? Could she be given the abilities of a ballerina or a tennis champion, or even fine hand-work skills like cutting diamonds or safecracking or something? I will bet a year's pay against a jelly doughnut that no one thinks of this, it's just doubletalk so Jaime can plausibly do wire-fu, but it's an intriguing idea.
...Michelle Ryan is having to work way too hard at making Jaime interesting, because the writers aren't giving her much. Reading What Color Is Your Parachute? Please.
Nevertheless, she makes Jaime far more likable than she should be given what she's been doing. As if we haven't got enough bitter confused self-loathing twentysomething protagonists on television. Hollywood, making your good guy constantly flirt with self-destruction isn't always "depth." Repeat it endlessly and it's just "annoying." Still, she's keeping up with all these power actors around her. Holding her own with Sackhoff AND Ferrer.
...The eye glows when she is using it? Cool. Great job on the running and the building save. Effects really are first-rate. "How'd you do that?" "Um, Pilates." That's a nice shout-out to the old days.
...Couple of nice bits with blonde lady and Jaime talking. But you could slot Isaiah Washington in there just as easy. You cast all these different people as Jaime's bosses, you better have stuff for them to do. Have we even heard the blonde's name yet and what sets her apart from the other government-boss people?
...Wait a minute. First it's a military quarantine, then a CDC quarantine, and now it's... completely messed up. Where'd all the other government people go? Are they soldiers or what? Perimeter breach by who? How'd it get to be just Jaime and her blonde boss and the girl survivor being stalked by these phony Marines? Why does Jaime assume they're hostile? The radio conversation only talked about 'getting and holding' them. Shouldn't she try talking first? And why didn't she carry the girl and run at bionic speeds instead of both running at normal speed?
 
A two minute sequence that is so confusing I'm completely out of the episode trying to figure out stuff that someone should have figured out already. Like the writer.
...Cell-phone call from Jaime's sister at the wrong moment. Cameron Diaz did this joke better in the first Charlie's Angels movie. Another instance of story logic sacrificed for a gag. Not promising.        Â
...I like that Jaime is overpowered by the Marine at first because he's trained and she's not. At least that fight was well-choreographed.
....The agency people are mean, the job calls for ruthlessness, we get it. Blonde lady blows a lot of them up with a grenade and then Isaiah Washington tortures the survivor. Isaiah Washington clearly learned his stance on the rights of the accused from 24's Jack Bauer. Torture actually is a poor interrogation technique resulting in a lot of bad leads, according to every study I've ever seen. But it establishes Isaiah as a badass, I guess. Does it matter that it also establishes him as stupid?
...Wait a minute. That's it? That's all they're going to tell us about the bad guys? They're just, what, generic survivalist terrorists that stole a bioweapon? Round 'em up, load 'em in a truck and we're done? Miguel Ferrer and Jaime growl at each other a little more and that's all. Not even a big bionic fight at the finish, I guess the bit with the one phony Marine is all we get. Once again Jaime Sommers is practically pushed out of her own show by all these spy types. Producers, nobody is watching this show for the spy stuff, okay? It looks too much like 24 and we are here for bionic superhero things. So do some.
...Nice enough bit at the end with the younger sister, but that reconciliation sure happened quick.
...So far it still feels like stuff that's been stitched together out of pieces of other shows -- Nikita, 24, Buffy, a couple of others. Too generic. But the Katee Sackhoff stuff is promising. Maybe if they actually let Michelle Ryan be the star of her own show and build on the conflict with Katee it will get better.
*
And that's what I am left with, two weeks in. That's what notes for a column look like before they get to actually be one, but honestly, just looking at them as they stand I think you get a fair picture of how the show's doing. So far it's got some very promising things and some really stupid ones, impressing me as being wildly uneven. It averages out to just a solid C-minus overall, nothing to get too excited about. We'll give it a couple more weeks.
And NEXT week, I hope to be back on schedule with a working computer and a couple of interesting interviews. See you then.
- Posted on October 6, 2007 @ 08:30 PM
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18 Comments
Argo Plummer
October 7, 2007 at 12:33 am
I agree with most everything you said--not enough screen time for Jamie, too many cliches, why a younger sister, too many "authority types", and that so far I think it is all right--watchable, but not great. I do see potential.
However, I have to disagree with your Katee Sackhoff comments (and you are far from the only one to espouse this opinion)...I think she has been terrible so far. I have found her performance, especially in episode one, to be over the top (not in a good way), unbelievable, and uninteresting. I think I like episode 2 more than 1 largely because she has less to do.
Oh well, just an opinion. Let's see where this goes...
Chris B
October 7, 2007 at 3:35 am
You're absolutely right. People don't want to see a bad (really, really bad) knock off of 24. We want to see Jaime wreck $#@*. A lot. And do... you know, other bionic stuff. So far, that aspect of the show (the HOOK, for crying out loud!) has not impressed at all.
Every little bionic thing that Jaime does doesn't have to involve high tech (expensive) special effects. The original certainly had just a fraction of the budget that this one has. They made do with break-away padlocks, faux steel, styrofoam bricks, etc. And you know what? A lot of times it worked just fine! They could have Jaime do a lot more if they just stopped trying (very unsuccessfully, IMO) to make your jaw drop with every bionic scene.
I disagree with the first poster about Sackhoff. Sarah Corvis is the only remotely interesting character so far. I suspect that Katee's acting only appears so over the top because she's surrounded by people who are, quite frankly, so painfully dull. And there's only so much these poor actors can do with that sucks-by-the-numbers dialogue.
I liked the "what if I give you $20 a week?" line, though. That made me chuckle.
Graeme Burk
October 7, 2007 at 5:42 am
My feelings on Bionic Woman are quite similar to yours, Greg. I think its biggest problem is that its woefully miscast: Katee Sackhoff would have been perfect to play Jaime Sommers-- she's the only cast member to have any real charisma and would not only have been a worthy successor to Lindsay Wagner (who was superb in the '70s-- lest we forget the original series is one of the only genre-based series to ever win an Emmy! For best actress!) but I think helped define Jaime in terms of the character here as well. I can see why they didn't go that route--having the character who plays Starbuck do that probably isn't a good career trajectory for Katee-- but I wish they had.
I hated the pilot. For me, Bionic Woman was Battlestar Galactica without the compelling characters or Ron Moore's creative direction (and I suspect one informed the other there). I'm a huge fan of David Eick and Ronald Moore's revisioning/revamp of Battlestar Galactica, but here it felt like every complaint I heard from die-hard original BSG fans coming true: take an iconic 70s series and make everything dark and drab and depressing in the quest for 'realism'. It's Dan DiDio television.
I take issue with that on two levels: I think it was easier to do such a revamp with BSG because, let's face it, BSG was a bit of a joke and it only lasted 13 episodes and aside from the iconic look of the Vipers and the Cylon centurions there was a lot you could just ignore. But The Bionic Woman lasted three seasons, was the spin-off of an equally popular show, the actress who played her became a superstar from the show. It won Emmys it had critical and ratings success and as a show, yes it was of its time but it was also actually pretty good. It was an interesting fusion of adventure show, spy serial and women's drama (you could air those episodes on Sci-Fi, USA or Lifetime and not alienate any of the audiences-- the truth is we don't make TV with that kind of broad appeal anymore). I think overall that's less easy to dismiss than Galactica.
But I just think the show doesn't work well on its own terms. Oooo shadowy government organization fighting things citizens don't normally see...how 1993. A naive young woman suddenly imbued with tremendous legacy who acts as a fish out of water in a shadowy world...gee, haven't seen this before.
Plus, I go back to my original problem: the only character to have any charisma is Katee and she's the villain.
The second episode went a long way toward making the show interesting to me: certainly it tried to get away from the gloominess and attempt to straddle the different camps the original series did a little more, but I'm not sure if it was enough.
Just two side notes: It's funny, but I think Miguel Ferrer's Jonas is Oscar Goldman in all but name. In the pilot, he's the Oscar of the original Six Million Dollar Man pilot and the Martin Caidin novel: a heartless bastard who sees himself 'owning' the bionic agent. In the second episode, I can see them moving toward the TV series Oscar, which is no bad thing.
The other side note is that, basically the reason why Oscar is Jonas and there's no Rudy Wells is that Universal owns the Bionic Woman concept outright as well as the Jaime Sommers character. All the characters from the novel Cyborg are part of some weird contractual dispute as to who owns the rights. (though this may have been resolved) It keeps getting in the way of reviving The Six Million Dollar Man and putting it out on DVD in North America.
All I can say is that if this is the trend that Universal is going with in terms of reviving its series, I think I'm glad that the Quantum Leap revival completely and utterly stalled...
Ryan H
October 7, 2007 at 7:08 am
I agree with you too. There is enough interesting stuff and a couple really solid characters to ring me back for a couple more weeks. God knows it wouldn't be the first TV series that needed a few episodes to figure out what it is doing.
I feel like part of the problem is that they seem to be rushing to set up a 90's style episode-of-the-week status quo instead of the more serialized format that most of the better modern shows use.
Randy
October 7, 2007 at 11:27 am
Pet peeve here - The character name on this show is Jamie Sommers, not Jaime. Jaime is a Spanish male name (pronounced HAI-meh), like the brother of Gilberto Hernadez.
Strangely enough, IMDB actually has the spelling you mention in the cast listing at this link:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0880557/
But if you click on the name link, it takes you to a character page with the normal spelling for Jamie.
Randy
October 7, 2007 at 12:09 pm
I'm an idiot who assumes too much. Apparently the current version does spell the name Jaime. Seems weird to me, but that's how they spell it.
Ian Astheimer
October 7, 2007 at 1:26 pm
There's Torchwood, I suppose, although they're not really spies, and I'm not entirely sure all their reasons are good (mainly because I'm not sure what all their reasons are).
Or, maybe it was simply renamed "Journeyman."
Greg Hatcher
October 7, 2007 at 3:42 pm
It IS weird, I suppose, but that's the way it's always been spelled in all the official press and licensed materials, even back in the Lindsay Wagner days. You'd have to take it up with Mr. Johnson.
Luis Dantas
October 7, 2007 at 5:20 pm
The matter of programmed skills was elaborated upon back in 1977 in a full episode of "The Six Million Dollar Man", although it wasn't actually related to bionics at that time. The episode was named "The Ultimate Imposter", and it apparently was supposed to lead to a spin-off series (that failed).
Perry Holley
October 7, 2007 at 6:23 pm
No comments re: the show (as I haven't watched it, although Dawn has, and her feelings echo yours), but I just wanted to say that Dawn & I hope that the medical stuff you mentioned in the Hatcher household gets resolved smoothly and without any further complications.
Hmm... from what you descibe, I almost wonder if the writers aren't lifting a few pages from the old Cyberpunk 2020 role-playing game - shadowy amoral corporations, cybernetics make you crazy, programmed skill chips, etc.
TF_loki
October 8, 2007 at 1:54 am
Haven't seen it yet (probably have to wait a couple of months for a UK broadcaster to pick it up) but my big question is Is it better than Jake 2.0? That was fun little show...
Greg Hatcher
October 8, 2007 at 9:12 am
You can watch full episodes online at nbc.com, TF, if you are so inclined.
And thanks, Perry. It's probably a false alarm but since our scary surgical spring they test Julie for EVERYTHING and there was a spot on a picture somewhere. We'll know more on Friday.
Matter-Eater Lad
October 8, 2007 at 10:21 am
"It’s Dan DiDio television."
No, that would have had Oscar Goldman shooting Steve Austin in the head, raping the corpse, and Dan Didio giving interviews about how mature bionic TV shows were for dealing with such mature subject matter maturely, because they're mature.
markus
October 8, 2007 at 11:02 am
Re: bionics make you crazy
That's what happens to people born deaf or blind if they're "fixed". It's not so much the interface as that their brain never learned to process that sort of stimulus in the appropriate depth and in adulthood neuroplasticity ain't what it used to be.
Which incidentally is why it's so vitally important to diagnose hearing problems as early as possible.
Either way, presumable the implants in the show are super-smart and can filter out the relevant stuff and present it to her unmodified cortex. (This does work for hearing aids by favouring the range of frequencies normal speech happens in and also taking certain signal characteristics into account by Ms. Summers runs world class facial recognition software inside a tiny chip in her eye.)
Bryan Long
October 8, 2007 at 1:00 pm
TF, I'd pick the sadly short-lived Jake 2.0 as the superior show, but it substantially differed in tone from Bionic Woman. Jake was a fun romp, while BW is very focused on "realism." Now compare Jake 2.0 to Chuck, and you've got a more apples-to-apples matchup (for the record, I'd still pick Jake, but Chuck is coming along nicely, and I reserve the right to change my vote).
I'd also hope that BW's "realism" extends to the bionics. Even as a kid it bugged the heck out of me that Jaime (incidentally, that was indeed how her name was spelled) and Steve used to pick up cars and whatnot. It was perfectly clear to me that the car would rip off the bionic arm. I used to think "Would it kill them to update that bionic graphic in the opening credits to show reinforcements built into their skeletons?" (Yes. I am a geek now, and I was then.)
Caidin's novels did not include superstrength -- Steve could run far and fast, and throw a mean punch (steel-jacketed fist), and even leap a bit, but no hoisting cars (Caidin's Austin relied far more on gadgets built in to his limbs).
So far, BW is presenting a slightly more "accurate" physical representation of bionics (as in the fight with the Marine), although I'm dubious about the hearing range of two miles. Seems like she'd pick up a LOT of ambient noise, plus there's a 10-second delay for sound to travel 2 miles, so I'm not sure of the utility there.
I have the same problem with Superman's super-hearing -- besides ambient noise, most comic writers can't be bothered to find out that sound travels at about 720 mph and do the math (that means the bullet almost certainly hits its target before the sound ever reaches Superman). Also, my understanding is that your brain tracks sounds by analyzing the time differential between when the sound reaches either ear, so Jaime couldn't use it to locate the sound's source, since one ear would effectively be "deaf." If I'm wrong about that, somebody set me straight.
Sorry, all that sounds awfully critical. I can't shut it off. On balance, I'm positive about the show, and I'm still on board with Bionic Woman for a few more episodes.
TF_loki
October 8, 2007 at 2:49 pm
Thanks for the help Guys!
R2D2
November 25, 2007 at 9:16 pm
I think Katee Sackoff should play Jaime! She should have the lead! She has a strong and commanding, no nonsense presence on screen! She was fantastic in Battlestar Galatica also!
R2D2
November 25, 2007 at 9:21 pm
Correction on the incorrect spelling of Sackoff it should read "Sackhoff". Before I forget, what kind of name is Jaime Summers anyway? It sounds weak and happy go lucky. Could they have not picked a name that had some strength and punch to it?! Seriously, Jaime Summers?! What a joke.
Anyway that's my opinion on the name.