Bionic Woman

April 27th, 2008 · No Comments

I was at Wal-Mart today buying some food and saw the first (and only) season of Bionic Woman on the shelf in the DVD section so I went ahead and picked it up since it was only about $22 or so. I’m not sure how many episodes there actually are since the show was canned due to the writer’s strike and not having uber Nielsen Ratings.

I’ve gotten through 3 episodes so far and the show really rocks. It reminds me a lot of what a weekly show about Neo from The Matrix might look like. The chick has super human strength, can jump huge distances, self heal really fast, has super-human hearing and vision etc. Definitely like one of the characters from The Matrix and/or Superman.

The visual effects are pretty good and kept fairly low-key after the first couple of episodes. One thing that struck me as funny in the first episode was that I thought it was a Battlestar Galactica re-union as the main villian (another Bionic Woman, earlier model) is played by Katee Sackhoff of Starbuck fame from BSG. Chief Tyrol (Aaron Douglas) from BSG also played a minor part in the first episode. Then, in episode 2 when they were in this town that had been taken out by biological weapons they had Battlestar Galactica playing on the TV when they walked in.

After I looked up the show on IMDB.Com though it became clear why: David Eick was executive producer for both Bionic Woman and Battlestar Galactica so it makes sense that he would utilize some of the same actors/actresses and give a nod to his own show. I love when TV shows integrate real pop culture references though instead of making them up. It really helps to ground a show firmly in reality as we are watching a show and inside that show, BSG is playing which seems “normal” somehow. Another show that uses this to good effect is “24″ where they have the actual FOX News channel playing since FOX produces 24 and is able to use their own stuff. It is a lot better than having say, the BNN News or some other made up channel playing in the background as the crisis unfolds.

I’d encourage anyone who likes sci-fi sort of shows to pick up Bionic Woman as it seems pretty neat and action packed. I think fans of comic book type story lines (such as people who like Smallville) will also like this show. Sadly it was canceled so we won’t get to see any more of it but it is good for a few hours of entertainment as a standalone series.