Movie and Television Reviews

Follow up:

About as poorly made as possible for a major network, the New Bionic Woman disappoints in every way. Instead of the serious but lighthearted original, The NBW attempts a Battlestar Galactica-Bourne fusion. By that I mean the government is covert and ruthless in a bad way as in Bourne Identity, and the tone is dark and humorless with a tinge of horror like in BG.

Except for the haircut, Bionic Woman Classic is better.

The plot isn't very complicated: Jamie Sommers (Michelle Ryan) is a bartender with a hectic life. She has to take care of her bratty teenage sister (in a beautiful house, by the way) and gets pregnant by her brilliant surgeon boyfriend. When they crash, Will Anthros (Anthros? Oh brother!), her boyfriend, fixes her up. It's more like an upgrade, actually, and it's accomplished with the use of “anthrocytes” or little buggers that help heal Ms. Sommers. Her IQ (very unprogressive) and something else makes the director of the agency in charge of androids want to recruit her. Of course, Jamie says “no” and tries to escape. She goes back home (they'd never look there!), but her life has been upended.. The penultimate scene has a battle with her predecessor, Sarah Corvis, for no apparent reason. She can't escape her fate, however, and agrees to work with the government. Somehow, she knows that she has to kill people. I suspect it's because "I'll bury one guy after another" sounded too good.

The actors are all fine, although it's getting annoying that Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck on BG for a total of two BG actors- the other being Aaron Douglas who's Chief Petty Office Galen Tyrol on BG), who plays the bad semi-android Sarah Corvis, gets every kick-but female television role. Corvis was the first android experiment, and she didn't work out, obviously.

The dialog is all smart-alack, tough guy utterances and retorts, “pretend I'm interested in your opinion and tell me.” The action is quite boring with the special effects not really more effective than the original. The obligatory civilian-reaction scene is flat and uninteresting.

Message/ Politcs:

The government is medium-bad. Jamie recognizes that they're not as noble as the bureaucrats that'll run health care in 2009 but not too evil to work for if she can't live comfortably. I have no clue who the bad guys will be. Maybe it'll be the remnants of the Goa'uld or Cylons.

Cast:

Series Directed by
Michael Dinner (2 episodes, 2007)

Series Writing credits
Laeta Kalogridis (14 episodes, 2007)
David Eick (13 episodes, 2007)

Series Cast

Mark Sheppard ... Anthony Anthros (14 episodes, 2007)
Michelle Ryan ... Jamie Sommers / ... (14 episodes, 2007)

Lucy Hale ... Becca Sommers (14 episodes, 2007)

Kevin Rankin ... Nathan (5 episodes)

Miguel Ferrer ... Jonas Bledsoe (2 episodes, 2007)
Chris Bowers ... Will Anthros (2 episodes, 2007)
Molly Price ... Ruth Treadwell (2 episodes, 2007)

Will Yun Lee ... Jae Kim (2 episodes, 2007)

Thomas Kretschmann ... The Man (2 episodes, 2007)

Aaron Douglas ... Prison Guard (2 episodes, 2007)

Katee Sackhoff ... Sarah Corvis (2 episodes, 2007)

Leela Savasta ... Shawna Tyler (2 episodes, 2007)