SPOILER ALERT: That ringing in your ears is telling you to watch Bionic Woman before you read this.
NBC Photo: Alan Zenuk
Say this for the producers of Bionic Woman: they seem to have paid attention over the summer to the criticisms of the pilot. Too bleak! people complained. Too humorless! Well, between the revised pilot and last night’s episode, the I.T. guys tried to give Jaime Sommers a humor upgrade, as well as a (rather sudden) desire to join up with the good guys and start kicking butt to save humanity.
I give them credit for trying. In general I liked the tonal, lightening-up touches. Sometimes they succeeded, like when Jaime and Ruth burst in on the teenager brushing her teeth, who asked, “Can I spit?” through a mouthful of toothpaste while staring down the barrel of Ruth’s gun. Likewise the deadpan “We’re with the Department of Agriculture,” and Jaime injuring that poor guy during a bionic bathroom hook-up. But I’m not sure Michelle Ryan is up to mixing humor, emotion and action, Jennifer Garner-style, and scenes that should have clicked–like fielding the cell-phone call from her sister in the middle of a firefight–came off like tone-deaf Alias.
I’m willing to give it some time, though. In the bigger story-arc sense, the show is making a mistake if it tries to strip away too much of the moral ambiguity from the “private group” that created Jaime, whatever it is, and in particular Jonas, who was so menacing in the pilot. There may be wheels within wheels in here, of course, as suggested by the duplicity of the new character played by Isaiah Washington, the beneficiary of Ben Silverman’s inexplicable admiration. But if Jaime too easily shrugs off the creepy, body-snatching aspect of the group and becomes a team player–especially, to continue the Alias comparison, without some counterbalancing SD-6 intrigue–this could get dull quick.
Again, though, I have to give the producers credit for being willing to make changes–and given that the pilot got the best premiere rating of last week, they could just as well have stood pat. Did the software upgrade work for you?