Bionic Women and the Men Who Save Them

By Jason Snell – September 26, 2007

Jaime Sommers (Michelle Ryan) is a normal woman, or at least as normal as a beautiful woman who works as a bartender, and acts as parent to her teenage sister, and is dating a supergenius scientist, can possibly be. (At least she’s not dating a retired astronaut named Steve Austin.) But it all changes for Jaime when she’s fatally injured in a horrible car accident.

Just when you think Bionic Woman is going to be one of those shows where a ghost or an angel speaks to people, though, she’s saved by her supergenius scientist boyfriend (Chris Bowers), who happens to be researching nanotech robots and high-tech military limb relpacements. A few nanobots and amputations later, Jaime is whole once again — but this time with the power to throw you across the room, jump across rooftops in a single bound, and even see with super telescopic vision.

Of course, this is all fairly familiar territory. Lately we’ve seen several examples of silly old-school sci-fi premises translated into modern versions that improve on the original, most notably Battlestar Galactica and Doctor Who. (And most notably not Flash Gordon.) Now it’s time for NBC to dust of the old Lindsay Wagner series, dispense with the fembots and the bionic dogs, and turn Bionic Woman into an action drama with more in common with Heroes than The Six Million Dollar Man.

As is pretty much the case with any modern sci-fi series, there’s a government conspiracy bubbling beneath the surface (though with the Sept. 6 departure of producer Glen Morgan of X-Files fame, it might stay beneath the surface). Adding a necessary spark to the proceedings is Galactica’s Katee Sackhoff as Sarah Corvus, the first Bionic Woman. Suffice it to say that hell hath no fury like a Bionic Woman scorned.

It’s always hard to gauge the prospects for long-term success of sci-fi series. Bionic Woman’s pilot episode is good, but not great. Ryan is an interesting actress (she was great in this summer’s BBC America series Jekyll), though Sackhoff steals all the scenes she’s in as Jaime’s nemesis. The fact that Sackhoff has signed a deal to be a regular character on Bionic Woman (while finishing the final season of Galactica) suggests that the show’s producers recognize what a charge Sackhoff brings to the show. Whether the show can find the right balance between superhero adventure and leaden government conspiracy talk, however, remains to be seen.