Smallscreen Reviews

The Reilly Report: Bionic Woman and Sarah Connor Chronicles

By Maura Reilly Sep 4, 2007, 16:14 GMT

“Sisters are doing it for themselves.” 06/06/2007 - Michelle Ryan - © Solarpix / Photorazzi

06/06/2007 - Michelle Ryan - © Solarpix / PhotorazziThis year the focus of so many new shows is women; sassy and powerful women. From “The Cashmere Mafia” to “Lipstick Jungle” and the following two programs offer a respite from the seemingly endless teen night-time soaps we’ve had to endure for the last couple season. Oh, “Gossip Girl,” don’t get your designer panties in a twist, I’ll get to you later. (Also, let me say at the outset that I’m discussing pilots and things like casting will most likely have changed from the time I’ve watched the pilot and when it goes to air. I will mention if I have prior knowledge of any changes. ) Bionic Woman on NBC: “We have the technology. We can rebuild her.” Ok, I’m mixing my million dollar metaphors here. But we don’t have a new Steve Austin. What we have is a new Jamie Sommers. Everyone's talking about this one and there was a fair amount of buzz about it at Comic-Con. This time around Jamie Sommers (newcomer to American TV, Michelle Ryan) is a good natured young woman, works in a bar to support her deaf sister who's come to live with her. Her boyfriend is this uber-geek who is a professor at a local college but has a sideline job working for a super secret government agency that is creating bionics. When Jamie is in a horrible accident (or was it an accident?!) he saves her using this new technology. As Jamie adjusts to her new hardware she comes to find out that she wasn't the first bionic woman and her predecessor has issues. I thought it was an interesting story with pretty cool characters and character actors like Thomas Kretschmann, Katee Sackhoff (who has signed on as a recurring role, yeah!), and Miguel Ferrer. I have two issues: #1 - the film quality looks like it should be on Sci Fi channel on Friday nights. Hopefully that's just a post production fix and it will look better when it hits the airwaves; #2 - Mae Whitman (whom I really like) plays the deaf kid sister and I have a problem with hearing people playing the deaf. Though I’ve been told they recast the sister as a hottie so I guess that issue is gone but gives rise to another one. But overall I enjoyed the pilot and look forward to seeing how it pans out. For me, the second coolest idea for a show this season is Fox’s mid-season replacement The Sarah Connor Chronicles, (I think the coolest idea is ABC’s Pushing Daisies). "Chronicles" is based on the characters Sarah and John Connor from the Terminator films. Judging from John’s age it takes some time between the second and third movies, (in other words after Ed Furlong, before Nick Stahl.) Sarah keeps moving from small town to small town to protect John from the danger of assignation and detection by the government, oh, you know the drill. They are given an opportunity to right a wrong from the past that may hopefully avoid Armageddon. John would be happier just meeting a cute girl. The pilot starts off incredibly strong. Honestly the first 10 minutes had me hooked. There are loads of special effects. I'm interested to see what the budget was for this one.

The cast is first rate: Lena Heady (300’s lone female) as Sarah, Thomas Dekker (Zack from Heroes) as John, and Summer Glau from Serenity/”Firefly”. Many sci fi TV fans will recognize director David Nutter's name. He's the pilot King I swear, having done pilots for “Supernatural”, “Smallville”, “Dark Angel” and “Roswell”. The key with this one will be keeping this momentum for a whole season, or half a season as is the case here.