If tonight’s pilot offers any indication, BIONIC WOMAN promises to be a great series. Although the source material was not the most auspicious, the new show succeeds by updating the premise with a contemporary sensibility and taking the material seriously. The premier episode offers up the requisite action, but more important it draws us into an invovling drama with solid characterizations and dialogue that sell the science fiction element in a way no techno-babble could ever hope to achieve. tells an intriguing story, marred only by the conventions of the form (i.e., the story exists not to resolve the conflicts but to leave them wide open for future adventures.
The story kicks off with teaser of a security team taking out a beautiful blond woman named Sara Corvis (Katee Sackhoff), who has apparently lost the ability to control herself since receiving bionic implants. Years later, bartender Jamie Sommers (Michelle Ryan) is dating Will Anthros (Chris Bowers), a college professor who lectures on reconstructive surgery. Jamie is critically injured in an”accident” when Corvis (who turns out not to be dead) drives an eighteen wheeler into Anthros’ car. Anthros turns out to be an important gog in a secret government program to create a bionic soldier; without authorization, he has Jamie taken to the facility, where he operates, replacing her injured legs, an arm, and eye, and an ear. The remainder of the episode portrays Jamie’s coming to terms with her new abilities, leading to an inevitable confrontation with Corvis. Along the way, we are introduced to Thomas Kretschmann as a mysterious Man who engineers a prison escape for Will’s father, Anthony, who seems to be responsible for Corvis’ apparent return from the dead. We also meet Jonas Bledsoe (Miguel Ferrer), the head of the bionic project, who makes it clear to Jamie that he expects cooperation in exchange for the millions of dollars of government-funded equipment used to reconstruct her body.
A summary does not do the episode justice. What makes the story click is the economical storytelling. Writer Laeta Kalogridis has an impressive knack for tossing off major plot developments and emotional issues with a few deft lines that tell us much more than the few mere words literally say. (When Corvis reports back to the Man about her attempt on Will’s life, the two villains skip the details in favor of playful banter. Asked how it went, Corvis replies, “Like a ride at Disneyland,” to which the Man responds, “Which one?”)
The script is complimented by Michael Dinner’s direction, which milks the scenes for their emotional impact without wringing them to death, and by the cast. Krestschmann shows up just long enough to remind us that he’s too good to be trapped playing evil Germans; Hollywood really should give him something better. Sackhoff does a good job in the venerable tradition of villains you love to hate, having fun with the role without descending into camp. Miguell Ferrer does another variation on his officious prick persona, this time dialed up to dangerous. And Michelle Ryan is quite appealing in the title role. She’s pretty enough to be telegenic, but her face is not quite perfect, lending a believable human quality to her appearance. All of which would not amount to much if she couldn’t act; fortunately, she can.
It is pleasing to see the the show’s creators seem to have learned some lessons from their predecessors. The old version of THE BIONIC WOMAN was a spin-off from THE SIX-MILLION DOLLAR MAN, which was based on the novel Cyborg by Martin Caidin. Both of the old TV series used the premise of bionically enhanced humans as an excuse for simple-minded comic book action, with the titular characters using their superpowers on a weekly mission to defeat evil villains. After a couple of made-for-television movies with some aspiration for adult appeal, actor Lee Majors expressed approval when the hour-long SIX-MILLION DOLLAR MAN television series opted to de-emphasize dialogue in favor of action, which would appeal to kids, and THE BIONIC WOMAN followed a similar path. Bionics was pretty much equated with invulnerability, and the episodes tended to be filled with ridiculous action that would have killed any human being, no matter how many electronics they had wired into their arms and legs.
What was lost in all this was the central idea in Caidin’s novel, which was that, as advantageous as bionics might seem, there would be a powerful psychological block that would make it difficult for a human being to accept that he still was a human being when half his body had been replaced by mechanics. At the end, when Steve Austin survived a trek through miles of desert without shelter or supplies, the point was not merely that he had successfully completed a mission; it was that this trial by fire had taught him to accept himself.
BIONIC WOMAN clearly has this concept in mind. Jamie is not happy with her new situation in life, but she has to learn to deal with it. The point is emphasized through her confrontation with Sarah Corvis, who is Jamie’s dark doppelganger – intoxicated with her lethal power and eager to use it. The question then becomes: Can Jamie learn to use her power without succumbing to it in the same way? Obviously, the answer has to be yes, but it is interesting to watch her negotiate her path, which is threatened not only by Corvis and the Man but also by Jonas (who makes it clear that if she doesn’t play ball, she will be terminated – although why he thinks he will have more success terminating her than with Corvis is not clear). And of course, waiting in the wings is Will’s father (whose brief screen time her is meant to suggest a psychopathic villain of Hannibal Lecter proportions).
Hopefully, all of this will play out without succumbing to the convolutions that wrecked once-great shows like THE X-FILES, which got so wrapped up in the convolutions of its conspiracy story that unraveling them became a hopeless task. As much fun as the BIONIC WOMAN is, the pilot does suffer from the television imperative to keep elements alive for future use. So for example, Will is injured but we have no doubt he will recover; in a film or a book, his death would be the dramatic turning point that forces Jamie to break with his government operation and strike out on her own. Likewise, the climactic confrontation with Corvis must end in a draw, so that the character can be around for further mayhem down the road.
BIONIC WOMAN also improves on the action (which in the old days consisted mostly of running in slow motion). The episode gets points for showing Jamie actually hurting herself when she oversteps in her early attempts to leap tall buildings in a single bound. The script offers lines of dialogue about artificial “anthrocites” injected into Jamie’s bloodstream, which enhance and heal the remaining organic parts of her body, thus solving one of the problems that afflicted the old show (you were always wonderng why the impact of those bionic limbs were not ripping Jamie’s tendons and muslces to shreds).
The effects and fight choreography do a good job of conveying a human with enhanced strength and speed, but one does question whether someone with bionic powers would necessarily be adept at martial (why bother to learn when you can rely on pure strength to subdue your opponent). This question particularly rankles during the face-off between Corvis and Jamie. Corvis has had more time to adapt to her powers, but she has never had to deal with an equal opponent before. There should have been more of an effort to show her adjusting her style, showing that for the first time in years she would have to employ skill, not just brute force. Instead, the scene opts for quick cutting of close-ups as arms and legs collide with shattering force – the one time where the visual element fails to do full justice to the drama.
When the original BIONIC WOMAN aired, heroic female role models were relatively scarce in the science-fiction genre. Since then, we have had Warrant Officer Ripley in the ALIEN movies and Sarah Connor in the TERMINATOR franchise, not to mention all their many imitators. There have also been numerous other attempts to portray cyborg-enhanced humans wrestling with the existential question of whether one’s identity survives when one’s body is radically changed (think of ROBOCOP and the excellent Japanese anime films and OVA, THE GHOST IN THE SHELL).
The new BIONIC WOMAN is much closer to these more recent sci-fi outings. The comparison to GHOST IN THE SHELL is particularly apt: like the cyber-cops in the anime film, Jamie has been augmented not only physically but mentally – brain implants have enabled her to use her new powers without having to train to develop the necessary skills. GHOST IN THE SHELL used a similar idea to raise an question: when not only your body but your mind have been altered by machinery, what – if anything – is left of you? We will have to wait to see how or whether BIONIC WOMAN answers this question, but we have a hint in Corvis, who brags about seeking more and more bionic enhancements to remove the parts of her that are “weak” (i.e., human). Presumably, further episodes will detail Jamie’s attempt to retain her humanity despite her inhuman robotics.
Along with the science-fiction component, BIONICE WOMAN loaded with elements designed to guarantee popularity. It contains all the angst one would expect from a series these days (there are no happy superheroes anymore – think of BATMAN BEGINS, BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, SMALLVILLE, etc.), and it definitely wants to pull the family-values heart strings (Jamie is supplied with a younger sister, so that we can see her struggling to negotiate a difficult relationship, acting as a surrogate parent). As contrived as this may sound, the pilot episode is proof that talent trumps all, and commercial calculations still work when they are handled with panache.
11 Replies to “Bionic Woman begins strong – TV Review”