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Rating:  -
I grew up on the original "Bionic" shows, both loosely based on the novel, "Cyborg." I stress loosely...not that the novel was all that great, as it rambled along.
However, the original shows, while entertaining for children, got bogged down in idiotic ideas like bionic dogs and bionic teenagers. I think there was even a bionic sasquatch.
Anyways, this new incarnation featured a beautiful woman who could act. The storyline was a bit choppy, but they were playing up to the "mystery" behind everything. Her character was well written, possessing the real life personality a woman would have from her background, thrown in with some nice sci-fi sass, and some actual character development in the form of her family life (something lacking in most adventure sci-fi shows).
Michelle Ryan did a wonderful job. And as guest stars go, Katee Sackhoff was perfect, playing the "badguy" with emotional issues, all centered around the bionics and the breakdown in the technology.
The only sad thing was the show couldn't show the bionics, as the original show had.
But at least it was not campy cheese or (in the case of the original Six Million Dollar Man) who was the flavor of the week. (let's face it, fembots are cheezy)
Rating:  -
Though the pilot is promising if rushed in terms of plotting, BIONIC WOMAN rapidly squanders its best concepts and becomes a second-rate ALIAS clone (maybe they should have called it ALIAS 2.0). Fault can't be placed on the cast, who give it their all, but more on the show's writers and producers, who can't seem to figure out where they are going with the show, or what episode of ALIAS they want to steal from next. Like BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, BIONIC WOMAN shares little other than its name with its predecessor. Unlike GALACTICA, it is unable to find its own identity. Its plotting is hurried at best, awkward and disjointed at worst. There is some potential in the relationship between Sarah Corvus (GALACTICA's Katee Sackhoff) and Jaime Sommers (Michelle Ryan), but Corvus' presence is over-used and rapidly grows tiresome. Everything else, from Sommers' the struggling to live a "normal" life with younger sister to the shady past of the organization and people she works for to the random globe-trotting missions is ripped so directly out of ALIAS that I'm shocked Sydney Bristow hasn't shown up to teach Sommers how to REALLY kick some tail and not be quite so annoying and hypocritical.
Imitation is supposedly to be the highest form of flattery, so I suppose JJ Abrams should be very flattered by David Eick and Jason Smilovic's imitation. Too bad it doesn't even begin to compare with the original.
Rating:  -
They did it again. NBC manages to take another good show and let it go. Not that I am even keeping count but I am still stuck on E-Ring, then went Journeyman and now Bionic Woman. Chuck was barely safe! I won't be watching any new shows this season because just when they get good they get gone!
Rating: -
With so much real quality television around, I suppose it's inevitable that some just don't quite make the grade. And in an age when writing on television on TV is reaching such high standards, it's a shame that in the end it's the writing that lets this down.
It's also worth remembering that if you plan to purchase this, it is only EIGHT episodes - yes, that includes the pilot. So Jaime Sommers is in a car accident, gets her limbs, eye and ear replaced with superior bionic parts by a covert group who go around saving the world each week. Hangers on include her younger sister who lives with her and knows nothing of her secret life, and later, a boyfriend. And for character development, well, in 8 episodes, that's all we have time for, folks. Think of it as Alias, with added bionics, minus any of the charisma.
Acting is fine - Michelle Ryan hits the required notes of all American woman, and woman who you believe can throw a punch, but somehow never quite convinces of having the superior IQ of the character - again, mostly the writing and not her fault. Miguel Ferrer is the boss, to add Hollywood clout. Let's face it though, If Miguel Ferrer is who you turn to to add clout.. well. Need I say more. One of the highlights is a story arc with Isaiah Washington who turns out to be the most believable character in the series, and a delicious cameo over several episodes with Katee Sackhoff, from Battlestar Galactica. Since the producer of this series also brought that series to the screen, it is especially disappointing that it is on story and writing that this series stumbles.
So we have a fairly hum drum series which relies completely on its high concept, and lacks pazazz. All the same, it's worth remembering that 10 years ago this would have been a welcome addition to the TV schedule... it's not a bad series - it just has such strong competition these days, that why wade through sloppy scripting and lazy character exposition?
Rating:  -
Don't bother with this. BIONIC WOMAN failed miserably for obvious reasons, reasons that had nothing to do with the 2007 writer's guild strike:
Michelle Ryan is very pretty, but she does not have the acting style or stage presence of a physically dynamic, athletic action hero. She belongs in comedies and historical soap operas. The only dynamic female presence on the show was Katee Sackhoff, and she was playing a villain! It's not a good sign when viewers clamor to see less of the heroine and more of the villainess!
All of the support characters were repulsive. There was no one to root for. The younger sister (who looked, ridiculously, like she could almost be Ryan's age; why didn't they hire an actual 14-year-old?) was an annoying brat. The boss was cold, harsh, dark, and cynical. The scientist/surgeon boyfriend was a liar. The company she worked for was a creepy paramilitary group based on Blackwater, that everyone was hearing bad things about in the news. Why watch a TV show featuring nasty characters you hope will soon be arrested by the proper authorities?
The show was dark, ugly, didn't have enough action, and too much RAIN. I want to see admirable, sympathetic lead characters in a weekly adventure TV show, even though flawed. But combine a bland lead actress with an overpowering female co-star, unexciting SFX, unappealing support characters, an amoral story structure, and zig-zagging show direction, and don't be shocked when viewers abandon it by the millions. Which they did. Once they got rid of Sackhoff, they didn't even have good villains, and villains are what make a superhero story.
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