I said on the forum earlier that I was watching Bionic Woman tonight with my cynical head on.
Turns out I had nothing to worry about. Within the first 15 minutes they impressed me with the casting of Miguel Ferrer, the actor who played Robocop’s yuppie creator back in 1987. It was such a nice touch, linking two stories about damaged humans becoming cyborgs.
I was dreading Michelle Ryan faking an American accent and being generally lame as Jaime Sommers. She exonerated herself perfectly though. OK, maybe some of the fight scenes were a bit girly, with arms flailing everywhere. I fully expect more professional punching going on in future episodes!
The story lines up so much for future episodes. Jaime is a bartender who’s studying at the same time and also looking after her mad-at-the-world younger sister. Her boyfriend is her professor, and at the start of the episode she reveals that she’s pregnant.
The moment doesn’t last long. One their way back from a night out, a truck smashes into their car and demolishes it. Jaime’s body is shattered. She’s taken to a military facility where they rebuild her with state of the art bionics. When she wakes up she’s freaked out that she’s got robotic body parts and that she’s lost the baby. She also discovers that her boyfriend is somehow involved with the facility.
Later on she meets the person who caused the accident - the MK1 bionic woman who is utterly psychotic. The two fight, but the other woman escapes.
Anyway, enough with the round-up. What I loved about this was the really gritty, dark photography and the tension that runs throughout the episode. Not only is there enough action to keep you interested, but Bionic Woman excels at creating an all-round story. Jaime has a personal life, and that runs parallel to the story. Compare that to action heroes of the 80’s - Michael Knight, The A Team - they didn’t have messy private lives to complicate matters.
This juggling of action/adventure and complicated private lives is what makes good drama great. So far, Bionic Woman (and Michelle Ryan, to eat my words) is shaping up to be a great series. She’s not invulnerable, and she hasn’t yet discovered the full extent of her new abilities. There’s still much for us all to discover.
Post a Comment