Bionic Woman Not So Super?

Photo from Wikipedia.com

I was always a big fan of the 70s "super hero" shows, like The Six Million Dollar Man, Wonder Woman, The Incredible Hulk, and The Bionic Woman. So, I was jazzed when I found out that NBC was "reimagining" the series for fall, making it darker and more realistic. The scenes they've been showing make it look really cool. Sadly, if this article is to be believed, it may be a bust.

Too bad, it seems like a can't-miss premise. Maybe they'll get it fixed by fall.

[Excerpt]

ABC (sic--it's NBC) revisits, reimagines 'Bionic Woman' for fall

Here's another great-idea-that's-not.NBC's fall remake of "Bionic Woman."

Make that "reimagining," if you want to echo the nomenclature of the same company's new-and-much-improved "Battlestar Galactica" series unreeling on its Sci Fi cable sibling. That current drama is intelligently adult, thematically ambitious, steeped in moral dilemmas, and much truer than ABC's 1970s original to the darkness of its concept's core premise (a civilization nuked by its own robots must battle that run-amok handiwork in order to survive).

So now, this fall, NBC and that same Universal production studio present us with a new "Bionic Woman" that, likewise, tries to be more adult than its '70s ABC predecessor. That family fave's simplistic good-vs.-evil adventures starred Lindsay Wagner as the injured body rejuvenated by a couple of high-tech limb implants giving her superpowers, as signified by some belovedly el cheapo slo-mo/eerie-sounds effects designed to make her normal-looking persona seem extra strong/fast/cool. NBC's new "modern" remake starring British babe Michelle Ryan is certainly more advanced technologically in terms of what it depicts medically/physically and how it's rendered cinematically. The storytelling has also evolved, into something much darker, in both tone and look, than its kid-friendly predecessor. This take is definitely more morally ambiguous. And certainly "complex."

Which is not a good word to see a writer put in quotes.

This "Bionic Woman" is a mess. Its pilot hour - currently being reworked - is simultaneously bland, frantic, dreary, in-your-face and way too hardcore sci fi to succeed on a mainstream broadcast network. What critics have seen so far is bereft of the subtle humor or fancifulness that might lure the casually surfing fan. Meanwhile, it piles on way too much contrived detail about its bartender heroine and the professor boyfriend who's secretly inventing bionic technology for a mysterious organization that resuscitates his dying gal pal who's then horrified by the "improvements," yada yada yada.

Read more at: Newsday.com

For a glimpse of the actual show, go to: NBC.com