By Brandon Nolta

Once upon a time, in the land of TV show rehashes and reimaginings, there was a pretty young bartender named Jaime Sommers (Michelle Ryan). Her life was not a luxurious one, but it had its upsides, such as dating handsome professor and surgeon Will Anthros (Chris Bowers). Things change quickly, though. Soon after discovering she was pregnant, Jaime and her beau were hit by a truck, driven by a homicidal blonde with some aftermarket modifications named Sarah Corvus (Katee Sackhoff, biding her time until BATTLESTAR GALACTICA starts up again).

This is where Jaime discovers that her boyfriend is involved in bleeding-edge nanotech body augmentation, a discovery she makes when, in order to save her life, Dr. Anthros replaces her legs, right arm, ear and eye with bionic prosthetics, not to mention replacing a significant percentage of her blood cells with nanomachines. The fact that these bionics grant Jaime radically enhanced strength, reflexes, speed, stamina and scanning capabilities turn out to be little compensation for the interruption of her life, a fact she makes immediately clear by skedaddling from the high-tech medical facility where she’d been rebuilt.


Of course, such life-changing surgery ain’t free, and the head of the bionic project (Miguel Ferrer) wants to dragoon Jaime into working for the government. Meanwhile, Sarah is still on the loose, and not only is she not wrapped too tightly, but she’s also way more bionic than Jaime. All of this, and there’s still thirty minutes to go in the pilot. Bring on the hot bionic violence!

There’s a lot going on here, and not all of it makes sense. There’s a definite sense that the show creators are cramming in as much as they possibly can, probably ‘cause they’re afraid they’re going to get axed. If they keep rushing through the narratives like this, they will; we barely get to spend five minutes with Jaime and Will before the accident, and then it’s pell-mell through the plot. As a result, the dialogue feels stilted, characterization is limited, and I got the strong sense there were scenes filmed that I didn’t get to see but the actors were relying on for character history. It’s like watching a play starting in the middle of Act 2.

However, there’s a lot of potential here. Michelle Ryan, last seen by me as a lovely lab assistant on the wonderful BBC show JEKYLL, is an appealing heroine, and Miguel Ferrer is his usual badass self as the Oscar Goldman stand-in. For BATTLESTAR GALACTICA geeks, there are no less than four familiar faces from the show (no surprise, since a) everybody films in Canada now, and b) David Eick, one of BIONIC WOMAN’s executive producers, is an executive producer for BSG). The show is stuffed with strong actors, an intriguing premise and plenty of untapped potential, including the hints that the rest of Jaime’s body may get better, stronger and faster due to the aforementioned nanotech in her blood. While the first episode is too hectic and choppy to be an effective standalone episode, it gets the job done in terms of setting the stage. If Ms. Ryan and her cohorts can build a fan base with all due haste, we might get to see more bionic tomfoolery beyond NBC’s half-season order. Plenty of time to see if Lindsay Wagner’s up for a cameo.