Bionic Woman: Do Not Disturb

Jaime: "Antonio used to say 'a briefcase is never really a briefcase.' "
Jonas: "Yeah, well, Antonio's dead."

I usually highlight a good, funny line of dialogue or exchange, but the above is so laughably bad I had to place it right at the top.

So let me get this straight: Jaime, who doesn't want her sister to know about her spy life because she doesn't want to put her life in danger, brings her along on an assignment to drop off a mysterious package to a mysterious stranger? Yeah, that's a good idea. And then she slips up and gives away info that the bad guy isn't supposed to know that she has, blowing her cover.

I believe I said this before, but I'll say it again: Jamie Sommers is the worst agent in the world.

This continues to be a baffling show, but one that's entertaining. For every single "what the hell?" moment, I get moments like the banter between Nathan and Jaime which is funny, or the scene with Jonas killing the guy posing as the valet. Good stuff. But Michelle Ryan continues to have the personality of a coffee mug, and her sister just brings the whole show down. I find myself screaming at the television, WILL YOU PLEASE JUST TELL YOUR SISTER YOU'RE A SPY?! It's going to come up at some point, and it will probably save her life if she knows what to look out for (strangers coming to the door, weird packages, whatever). Jaime thinks she's protecting little sis when in reality she's putting her life in danger week after week.

And I love the opening scene, with the entire secret organization at a bar saluting the life of Antonio Pope (Isaiah Washington). The scene didn't ring true at all, because I doubt most of these people (except Jaime) would hang out in bars, there was never any hint of any closeness between these people, and it just seemed tacked on to give some continuation to the story of Pope's death. Besides, you'd think they could afford a bar in that deluxe HQ they spend all of their time in.

The plots continue to be somewhat intriguing, but they all end up leading nowhere. Like this episode. Jaime finds out that the sullen, emo-looking guy that her little sis meets at the lodge is the son of a man that needs to be assassinated. That could be an interesting (if contrived) story, but all I get are lots of running around and serious looks from bad guys following them. I was truly, truly, truly hoping that the son would actually turn out to be a bad guy too, helping his dad, and he'd pull a gun on Jaime, but that never happened. And if I can say, if Jaime needs to call her boss, maybe she shouldn't borrow some guy's cell phone. He can now hit "redial" and find out all about the secret organization and maybe even her bionic-ness.

But again, I can't sit here and say it's so bad that I won't continue to watch. I've had shows like that before, but I enjoy this show even though it has, well, bionic flaws.

Bionic Woman: Trust Issues

Jaime Sommers: Worst. Spy. Ever.

Seriously, I don't care how much money has gone into her, I'd fire her right now, send her back to bartending. She follows a bad guy with a suitcase and then gets distracted by a cell phone call from boyfriend Tom? She couldn't just not answer it or maybe tell him she'll call him back? What is she, 14? She's probably also mad that she's has to, like, totally work and everything, at the same time there's a new Gossip Girl on The CW!

Not only is she distracted by a cell phone call, it leads her to cause a car accident just to get the suitcase back, thereby risking a lot of people seeing her. Couldn't she just keep running and follow the car until it stops? Which leads me to ask, what is with her running anyway? Sometimes she seems to be able to move as quick as The Flash (the scene where she got the upper hand on Tom's cohorts), other times she just seems to run as fast as a really good sprinter. It's really inconsistent. Same thing with her arm strength (she can't pull herself up on a roof with the same bionic arm she picks up other people with and bends giant fans?) and her hearing. But they probably wouldn't have long missions on the show if her powers were consistent, and I'd have to watch 5 minute webisodes on nbc.com.

More bad spy stuff: when little sis asks her and Tom how they met, Jaime says she bought a timeshare. Huh? What a lousy lie to tell your sister that you live with. What, you wouldn't have mentioned that earlier? She just seems really inept. The worst spy since Maxwell Smart. At least he solved cases by accident most of the time. Jaime's ineptness causes the death of her partner.

That's right, Isaiah Washington is killed by an old girlfriend assassin at the end of the episode. Maybe he would have lived through the bullet wound in his gut if Jaime didn't just stand there and looked like a confused supermodel while he was on the ground dying (and why didn't she run fast to get the assassin?). I didn't expect Washington to be off the show so quickly, though it was painfully predictable that the whole "Antonio Pope is a bad guy" plot was going to turn out to be a red herring (another lame deduction by Jaime - she's on a roll!).

I wonder what exactly the point is in killing Pope. I mean, Jaime has already gone through the death of her fiancee' (also by an assassin's bullet - she's bad luck), so why bring on yet another company guy for a handful of episodes just to kill him off? Probably because Washington only agreed to do a certain number of eps? I guess all those plans for a spinoff series involving Washington's character are off, eh? I don't think this plot development had the emotional impact they were hoping for because there wasn't enough character development with Pope.

Despite all this - and I can't really explain my reaction - I still kinda enjoy this show. It's not going to show up on my "Best" list at the end of the season and not on the "Worst" list either. It's just an action show that I don't mind watching for a hour every Wednesday night.

Bionic Woman: The List

Bionic Woman continues to struggle to find its footing, with a fairly fun episode that suffers from some rather glaring inconsistencies and continuity problems. While Jaime and Tom have some great chemistry together, complete with snappy dialogue and some nicely orchestrated action scenes, the show seems to be uncertain what to do with the other characters.

After the last episode with Jaime in college and not seeing, talking to or worrying about Becca the entire time, with "The List" Becca's back in the story (while Pope is now oddly absent). Jaime set it up so that Becca would call Jonas in case of an emergency this time (whereas last week she just left her sister alone without anyones support and hoped she didn't call and hear her British accent?). While it's a nice twist that Jonas bailed Becca out this episode and didn't tell Jaime about it, it would be better if the show was consistent in its portrayal of Becca and Jaime's relationship.

Nathan talking to Jaime is another element that seems to be portrayed inconsistently. In this episode, he was able to quickly tell her -- somehow -- that the black wire is the one to cut to disable the bomb on Tom's waist. But last episode they were only able to talk on the phone, as Jaime bionic-jumped from roof to roof, and Nathan actually complained that she didn't have a Bluetooth headset. If they've set up some way for Nathan to get messages to Jaime without talking to her, that's great, but it'd be nice if the audience could see that, instead of Nathan just talking and Jaime magically hearing him.

The sequence in Paris at the end seemed to be a complete failing in continuity, as the team packs up and Jonas is there. Wait -- wasn't Jonas in San Francisco, bailing out Becca and driving her home just about an hour ago? Jaime called him, saying they need $8 million in less than an hour to get the list and, right after he hung up, he picked up Becca. So after he had a chat with her on the ride home, he then flew out to Paris? So at least 12 hours later (providing time for Jonas to fly out there), Jaime, Ruth and Nathan are just finally leaving the abandoned warehouse in Paris with Jonas already there and Tom just arriving (and saying, "You saved my life today"). It doesn't make any sense, and feels like sloppy writing, where they wanted a scene with Jonas and Jaime but forgot they would need to do it over the phone.

Overall, though, the fun, well-written parts of the episode outweigh the poorly conceived, inconsistent moments. Nathan is a decent comic relief, Jaime seems to be becoming more confident and capable in her bionic skills, and the Berkut Group is effectively being set up as a super-secret organization that can get things done when the CIA or anyone else isn't able to. The inconsistencies and discrepancies in the series so far can likely be attributed to all the behind-the scenes turmoil, rotating out writers, producers and showrunners. The potential is still there for this to be a very cool show if the same person or people keep running it for more than an episode or two at a time.

Bionic Woman: Sisterhood

Bionic Woman is all over the place. That's in general not a good thing, and yet there are certainly parts of the show that are good... And other parts, not so much. This episode had a couple of different plotlines going on for Jaime. The first began when she was asked to be a "bionic babysitter" and guard the teenage daughter of a man who'd made some Serbians angry enough to kill family members in retaliation.

Meanwhile Sarah was popping up in Jaime's life on an increasingly frequent basis and proving to be quite a mess in the process. She apparently had been staying with Will's father, Anthony, in scenes in which she was barely holding it together, yet other times when she confronted Jaime she was quite focused. Granted, there was some dialogue referencing her frequent mood shifts, but it was hard not to wonder if the scenes with Sarah and Anthony were originally intended for another episode, because they seemed so far removed from the rest.

Still, the material with Jaime and Sarah together was pretty strong. Sarah told Jaime that essentially, Will was a bad man, and someone who'd used them both. It was good to see some acknowledgement that Jaime lost her unborn child in the pilot in these scenes, as Jaime confronted Sarah about it, though it still didn't seem like she had nearly enough anger over what happened. It all makes Jaime so quickly sympathizing with Sarah hard to buy, and my guess is that if the producers could redo the pilot now, they would, because they likely didn't originally intend to make Sarah more sympathetic so quickly, and this is a major obstacle to that.

It's still not even clear why Sarah crashed that truck into Jaime and Will in the pilot. To kill Will? If so, why did she hit Jaime's side of the car and not his? Or did she want Jaime to be turned Bionic, knowing (as she revealed) that Jaime's advanced programming could possibly be the key to stabilizing Sarah and saving her life? The revelation that Sarah's sister died in a car accident just like the one she caused with Jaime and Will is interesting, but still doesn't explain everything.

The plotline about Jaime protecting the teenage girl seemed extraneous as the Sarah storyline ramped up and she began reaching out to Jaime for help, in her complicated way. But things actually came together nicely near the end as Sarah popped up in a nail saloon Jaime and the girl were in, just as some Serbian hitmen entered the scene. The sequence in which Jaime fought these men as Sarah calmly sat and thumbed through a magazine was exciting and funny, and both characters seem really at their best when playing off each other.

The show often seems to be skipping over scenes - I met the techie Nathan in one scene last episode, but here he had a phone call with Jaime where he's asking her out that had absolutely no build up. And what was up with Antonio Pope suddenly encouraging Jaime to let out the animal inside her? Again, just one or two scenes could have established him encouraging this, but as it played, he just walks up and antagonizes and attacks her, yelling at her to unleash the animal, and it played incredibly goofy.

Jaime's "Bring it on, bitch" line to Pope was probably the biggest clunker of the night, yet at the same time the show contained some genuinely funny banter, including Jaime's teenaged assignment nonchalantly asking the fairly butch Ruth "Are you a lesbian?" and Sarah's run of insults towards that same girl, including "Why don't you hang yourself or something?". Plus, the meta comment "Don't get me started on how objectifying this whole Bionic Woman thing is" was very amusing. It was also nice to see some genuinely warm interaction between Jaime and Becca for the first time - While perhaps a bit forced, the scene in which the two sisters goofily dance together (with Sarah spying on them) was a cute one.

Right now the show is extremely disjointed, and feels like the mixture of dueling creative minds all the behind the scenes upheaval has hinted at. Still, it remains watchable and often entertaining, even if it's constantly going back and forth between being cleverly entertaining and ironically entertaining. This was hardly a boring hour of television, it was just muddled.

Bionic Woman: Paradise Lost

The show is taking baby steps, but the second Bionic Woman showed some promise. The fact that this is a show going through a lot of changes was clear thanks to some big examples of instant retroactiving of events from the show's own pilot, but in most cases, these alterations were the right way to go.

First off, what, Will's dead? Okay, Jaime's boyfriend was shot in the first episode, but it hardly seemed like a fatal injury and there was no indication that he was dead by the end, nor did she even learn that was a real possibility. All that taken into account, it was jarring to open the second episode with his funeral. On the other hand though, for the sake of the show at this stage, it's a good move. Will wasn't exactly an engaging character, and the show already has a better and much more intense "Can I trust this person?" love story with Jae and Sarah. Of course it's hard not to think that maybe Will actually isn't dead and will be popping up again at some point, but for now, the show must go on....

Currently Bionic Woman has a lot of campy content, which included Jonas's revelation that the Berkut Group is a clandestine organization dedicated to stopping rogue organizations… or something. Let's just say it was a lot of nonsense that Miguel Ferrer did his best with, but hey, if I can buy into SD-6 and G.I. Joe, I can buy into this. The show is also ridiculously unsubtle at times, such as the scene in which one of Jaime's friends gleefully wants to celebrate getting into Columbia Law, which hammers home the whole "Jaime is sad because she wishes that was her life" motif.

A lot actually happened in this hour, including the introduction of Jaime's new supervisor, Antonio Pope, played by Isaiah Washington. Ignoring Washington's off-camera behavior, he is a solid actor who definitely brought the appropriate gravity to the role. Meanwhile, Jaime began some serious training ("We're gonna need a montage!") with Jae, which lead to a nice reveal: The fighting Jaime showed off against Sarah in the pilot was the "demo", a program entered into her bionics that Sarah was using to test her. While not explaining everything Jaime did in the pilot, like how she disarmed the assailant in the alley, it did do a nice job of going back and saying no, she's not yet suddenly an incredible fighter.

This was explored further in the episode's threat of the week scenario, as Jaime and Ruth traveled to a small town decimated by a biological weapon. There was more silliness here -- a teenage girl who'd survived the attack and seemed entirely unaffected emotionally by the whole thing -- but also some fun bits, including Jaime's fight with a bad guy. Things went very badly for Jaime at first, who fought rather ineptly, hurting her hand when she punched him with her non-bionic arm, then getting her bionic arm stuck in a wall when she missed on another punch. It was nice to see her still trying to get this superhero thing down, and I then got some legitimately cool moments as she finally caught him with a punch, sending him flying, and then knocked him out with a bionic-kicked paint can to the head.

There's still a lot of work to be done on this show. Becca, Jaime's sister, seems very extraneous and forced into the story -- Jaime taking her phone call during the middle of the crisis was just lame, nice Tenacious D reference aside -- and she and Jaime's relationship seemed to turn from affectionate to ongoing major arguments on a dime. Yes, I know sisters squabble, but do these girls have serious issues or not? And more so, why should I care, when there's more interesting stuff going on?

Sarah returned again, and she and Jae proved to certainly have the Mr. and Mrs. Smith thing going - I've already seen him shoot her, but this time they ended up having sex. Sarah's revelation that she was "hacked" also is intriguing, since it seems to both hint at a bigger conspiracy at work, and also re-conceptualizes her as someone who appears regretful of what she did and perhaps not a true bad guy. Though why would she shoot Will then? Does she know something about him, besides the secret file Jaime discovers (way to ineptly hide it under a way too loose floorboard, Will)? Or maybe she just knew the character was kind of lame?

This is a show trying to find itself, but the good news is that this second episode is at least pointing in the right direction. Both the show and Jaime herself stopped being so dour, and the little glimpses of humor were welcome, such as Jaime telling Jonas "God you're a douche." And hey, Kevin Rankin showed up as the Berkut group techie! As a Friday Night Lights fan, that is never a bad thing.

Bionic Woman: Pilot

I finally watched the much buzzed about Bionic Woman debut. So does the show live up to all of the hype? Not yet at least.

British actress Michelle Ryan stars as the title character, who begins as an average bartender named Jaime Sommers - the character name is the same, but little else is similar to the 1970s series the new incarnation of Bionic Woman is based on. Jaime has been dating Will (Chris Bowers), a college professor who has a pretty big secret about who else employs him. This is revealed to Jaime in highly dramatic and traumatic fashion when she is in a terrible car accident, and Will brings her to the secret government agency he works for and uses their technology to save her, and in the process, enhance her.

Jaime wakes up to find out she's had much of her body replaced by new bionic body parts, giving her super strength, speed, sight, hearing, and more. This is not exactly great news to Jaime though, who is more than a little aghast at her new body, and less than cooperative with Will and those he works for, including Jonas (Miguel Ferrer), Ruth (Molly Price), Jae (Will Yun Lee). In the meantime, Jaime has a new stalker, a woman named Sarah (Katee Sackhoff), who was actually the person behind Jaime's accident; an event Jaime only has vague memories of.

The pilot to Bionic Woman is definitely a clunky one. There's a lot of rushed through and choppy exposition, such as a scene beginning with almost no build up, in which Jaime is telling Will she doesn't know why a brilliant professor like him would be with a drop out like her, in order to give the audience that information in a far too direct and less than subtle manner. There's also some semi-laughable dialogue like "We have to get you to rehab." "What for?" "Rehabilitation." Ahh, thanks for clearing that up.

So what works? Well, this is a sci-fi/action show, and taken on those terms, it's a fairly cool one. The accident that starts Jaime off on her new life is a startling and effective sequence. The Peter Parker-esque moments where Jaime experiments with her new powers by leaping from one building to the next work well. And some amusingly overdone grunts and shrieks aside, the fight scene between Jaime and Sarah that ends the episode is a strong one with some nice moments for both characters.

That being said, one nice touch in the pilot is that Jaime is not instantly a bad ass, and her super-leaps and other moves don't always go as planned, so hopefully as her character becomes more comfortable with her new abilities, Ryan will convey this blossoming in her performance. Among the supporting cast, the ever-dependable Ferrer stands out, bringing some of his trademark sarcasm to a role that evokes his similar one working on a cyborg twenty years ago in RoboCop.

"Remains to be seen" is the phrase of choice for Bionic Woman. Will this show find the right tone and style and come into its own? Watching the pilot, it's easy to see how Bionic Woman could easily be developed into something strong, or just as easily simply fail to come together. Here's hoping for the former to occur.