Series Premiere Review: Bionic Woman

Bionic Woman [s1 ep01]: "Second Chances"

*** Spoiler Warning ***

Key Plot Points of Season Premiere

• Jamie Summers is a 24-year-old bartender in San Francisco. She's the legal guardian of her teenage sister named Becca who, for some reason, has a court order saying she can't use a computer that's hooked up to the internet.


• After revealing to her boyfriend that she's pregnant during dinner, they get into a drastic car wreck. Jamie loses the baby, both legs, and an arm, eye, and ear from her right side.


• Jamie's boyfriend is part of a secret organization specializing in nanotechnology. To save Jamie's life, he uses his security clearance to have anthrocytes implanted in her body. The anthrocytes form for her new body parts. The legs and arm kick in almost immediately. The eye and ear don't come online until a few days later.


• It turns out that the woman driving the truck that collides with them is the first bionic woman (making the wreck obviously intentional for not-so-obvious reasons). The first bionic woman, named Sarah Corvus (Battlestar Galactica's Katee Sackoff) had a relationship of some kind with another member of the nanotech organization.


• Sarah visits Jamie at the bar around the time Jamie's bionic senses come online. Later, after Sarah shoots Jamie's boyfriend, the two get into a fight on a rooftop in the rain.


• Jamie agrees to work with the nanotech organization but only under her terms.

Opinions and Observations

• To be honest, there's not much to comment about yet. The pilot episode is almost all setup, not a lot of character development. There are hints at a larger conspiracy going on, but it's not obvious what direction that'll take yet.


• Jamie and her boyfriend don't have a lot of chemistry.


• Jamie reacts negatively to the concept of bionic parts inside her. Sure, it would be strange and disorienting, but the alternatives would be either death or a life lived with only one limb, one eye, and one ear. You'd think she'd have a smiggen of gratitude. Other than having the first bionic woman, who seems half psychotic, following her and beating her up, having bionic parts isn't so bad.

Hopes, Concerns, or Expectations for New Season

• Although the pilot episode was not spectactular, it has potential. Now that all the setup is out of the way, I hope we see more character development and more depth of storytelling in future episodes.