By Brandon Nolta

I don’t think Jaime Sommers (Michelle Ryan) knows how lucky she is. Here she is, survivor of a car accident that would have killed virtually anybody else, but in her case, opened the door on a whole new career. Now, thanks to the bionic technology developed by her late boyfriend Will Anthros (Chris Bowers), she’s a $50 million living weapon who gets to travel to exotic locales like Paraguay for work. How awesome is that?

Anyway, Jaime and her trainer Antonio (Isaiah Washington) are in that South American paradise to try and rescue an American doctor. Oddly enough, though, her trainer purposely sets off an alarm and gets them both captured, meaning either there’s something else going on or … well, there’s obviously something else going on. Ooh, there’s going to be violence. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Sarah Corvus (Katee Sackhoff) is in custody, tied up and pissed off. Jonas (Miguel Ferrer) tells her he can fix her tremors and anxiety issues, if she gives up Daddy Anthros. Needless to say, after the lead salad she got the last time, she’s not particularly trusting.


Unfortunately for the doctor, the reason he was captured turns into a reason for him to get killed, when the flash drive he was ordered to decipher turns out to have a buttload of info on bionics on it. Jaime decides on the spur of the moment to spring the good doc instead of letting her trainer kill him, and then the fun begins. She gets shot during the escape, and while the doc’s pulling the bullet out, he tells her that the info on the drive indicates her bionic parts are good for five years, and their failure will crash the system … meaning her. Not the best news she’s had all day.

Double-crosses, gunfire, tears: oh, my. There are all sorts of fun going on, and yet, I just can’t bring myself to be enthused. Narratives are still rushed, themes and plot threads are piled on top of each other, and for some reason, all the characters except Corvus seem kind of pale in this episode. Not physically, but in terms of who they are, nobody seems really drawn in or focused. The exception is Ms. Sackhoff; she brings a very intense physical presence to the scene, so much so that she seems more real than anyone else just by being in frame. Her acting is spot-on, which just makes this BSG fan more eager for Starbuck et al to return to the screen sooner than later.


Ryan’s slowly reshaping Jaime into her own creation, but she’s not getting any help from the storyline this week. Ferrer seems to have been sidelined by a strange reluctance on the writers’ part to let him be the gruff antiheroic type he does so well, and everybody else is just wallpaper. Hopefully, all this talent won’t go to waste in the coming episodes. BIONIC WOMAN has a lot going for it, but unless they’re going to devote a few episodes solely to Sarah Corvus and let Sackhoff’s uber-badass portrayal take the place of writing and character development, the writers better pull their heads out and start concentrating more on actually writing for a change. Hold your breath and see what happens.