Bionic Woman Premiere

So I got to watch the premiere of Bionic Woman Thursday (I was at work Wednesday night and missed it) and I have to say I wasn't disappointed. The scifi worked for me, the plot worked for me, and I like the setup for the season.

Now, what did it get right?

• Michelle Ryan, who plays the Bionic Woman, is attractive and isn't too bad of an actress either. It probably helps that she's British. I think one of her strong points is her ability to control her facial expressions. The way she blinks, the way she moves her eyes, seemed important in the first episode, and I thought she did well.
• Katee Sackhoff, Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica fame, plays an original bionic woman who kind of went nuts. She attacks our hero, not really knowing why she is doing it. So there's potential there for conflict and shifting alliances.
• It also doesn't hurt that Sackhoff has a fan following already, and with BSG going off the air soon, a large part of that audience may transfer to this show.
• Jaime Sommers has a sister she takes care of. Unlike the original, this sister certainly isn't deaf, but she does have issues and Jaime has to be a mother, sister, caretaker, and now superhero.
• Miguel Ferrer (Crossing Jordan) rounds out the cast as the head of the company that creates the Bionic Woman. So, they surrounded our hero with a good cast.

What did the show get wrong? Well, in this episode, not much. We see Jaime, who is a bartender that takes care of her younger sister, has a boyfriend who wants to marry her, and learns that she's pregnant. Boyfriend takes her to dinner, and on the way home their car is hit y a semi. Jaime loses her right eye, right arm, and both legs. In addition to her new hardware she is injected with a sort of super-blood cell (I forget the name) that helps her heal faster (think Wolverine). She also loses her baby. This isn't really addressed for the rest of the episode, and the show may just forget that she was pregnant, but I'd like to see the hardship of losing her child come back at some point. The show promised that it would be about a real woman facing real world problems as much as a superhero show, so I'd like to see those things explored as well.

As for the ratings, Bionic had NBC's strongest Wednesday ratings in the 18-49 demographic since The West Wing in 1999. According to scifi.com, Bionic "was also the TV seasons best drama debut in the demographic to date."

So, will Bionic Woman make it? Well, it's off to a good start. But Studio 60 started well last year and then just tanked. But I think it will do well as long as it doesn't degrade into some silly 'chick fights bad guys' show. Keep her real and respectable and I think it will do fine.