i was excited when i heard that they were doing a re-make of The Bionic Woman…i mean you would have to actually TRY REALLY REALLY HARD to make that lame and stupid…it’s the Bionic Woman for cyring out loud.  yeah.  right.

these people apparently tried REALLY REALLY HARD.

i cannot believe how bad this show is.  the writing is terrible and cliched and the acting is just the most wooden and flat out bad acting i have seen…well maybe not ever…but certainly in a long time.  also, while i blame this mostly on the writing and the acting something has to be said for the fact that there is not one interesting character in the whole show (except the ex-bionic woman played by Katee Sackhoff) and the relationships and chemistry are respectively, totally unbelieveable and totally non-existant. 

a reason that i thought it would be fun to see a retelling of the Bionic Woman is obviously because our effects technology is so much better these days, but these effects sucked.  i mean they were just awful…the “super fast running” being the worst of it.  i admit that i’m not a fan of CGI i think it often looks fake and out of place, but some films and television shows dealing with superpowers or “enhanced humans” have found ways to use it to their advantage (X-Men and even better – X2; Heroes mostly does an excellent job, etc.) but this was just bad decision after bad decision on the CGI.

back to the wooden acting…Michelle Ryan was absolutely the worst part of this show i’m sorry to say.  the writing and story certainly wasn’t doing her any favors, but she lacked the charisma and acting chops to make it better than it was. there are many actors out there that manage to turn crap into watchable stuff because they are skilled, not so here, she was unbearable to watch, and surrounded by almost as unbearable performances.  the relationship between she and her boyfriend was downright laughable.

i’m sad to say that this episode was credited to a woman writer.  i suspect with all the drama and rumors related to this show she got a thousand notes and changes, so perhaps it’s not her fault, but i was originally happy to see a woman writing the show, as i thought that would help the handling of some of the larger feminist issues but sometimes i guess it just doesn’t matter. 

there was this moment last night while watching Bionic Woman when i stopped making sarcastic comments and sighing loudly and thought “maybe i’m totally off base.  maybe i’ve become a complete pretensious snob that can’t see the forest for the trees…maybe this is actually not bad and i just can’t tell.”  then i watched a little bit of the show following it, Life, which was pretty damn good, strong acting, strong writing…and as i was watching it i realized, “no.  i know exactly what i’m seeing and this show Life is a perfect example of how good television can be (in a pilot even) and The Bionic Woman is a perfect example of everything being done wrong”.  it’s good to realize you’re not crazy.  thank you Life for cementing that fact, and i’ll be tuning in to you Life next week – Wednesday at 10pm NBC – to see if they can keep it up.  interesting stuff.

one last thing about my dissappointment in Bionic Woman.  this is such a minefield for cool stuff that has deeper meanings to go on.  the idea of two cyborg women, one that is making herself more machine by the day so she has to be less “woman” and one who wishes she was back to being more “woman”.  the feminist issues here are interesting and the idea of the badass cyborg (that is more cyborg than our lead character) sometimes getting her ass handed to her by a cyborg that’s got more “soul” left is all interesting stuff.  i can tell from this first epsiode though, they won’t begin to scratch the surface of this and if they do, they’ll screw it up.  and with crappy shows like this out there, the superhero bubble will burst all the more quickly, and so interest in my “hard to market” novel will wither and die.

that’s right, in the end, it’s all about me. 

charisma-less Bionic Woman Michelle Ryan, above.

cast of nbc’s Life, above.