NBC getting it right

I missed the second episode of Bionic Woman Wednesday (I was at work and forgot to tape it), but never fear! You can watch some shows at NBC.com for free. So I caught the episode online today, which was nice because I could watch an hour long episode in 42 minutes (with only a few Target commercials added in). After last year's disappointing season, NBC seems to be getting some things right. Capitalize on the success of Heroes with a show like Bionic Woman (and several other scifi related shows) and give me the chance to catch missed episodes online. Good idea.

But on to the episode. It started out with a news report of the small town of Paradise, Idaho, population 201, that was being quarantined for unknown reasons. From there we go to Jaime, fresh from her boyfriend's funeral, getting smashed at a bar. In her sadness, she takes a random guy to the bathroom for a sexual encounter. It goes bad when she throws him against a stall too hard and breaks his rib.

From there she leaves and encounters a woman about to jump from the top of a building to kill herself. With her enhanced speed and strength she is able to save the woman. Now she wants to try the 'saving the world' thing. But she has ground rules for her new employers:

• She has to be in by 7pm for dinner with her sister
• She can't work weekends
• Her sister has to be covered on her health plan
• She has to be at her sister's talent show later in the week

Without necessarily agreeing to any of those terms, she joins and starts training.

She quickly learns that her new technology doesn't mean much if she can't use it.

Jae Kim, the man that trained the first Bionic Woman (Katee Sackhoff) teaches her that someone skilled enough can beat her. She has to learn how to use the technology within her.

Shortly after the beginning her training she learns that the residents of the Idaho town were exposed to a chemical named DMC-30 that had been developed by the people that created her bionic technology. Everyone in the town is dead. She accompanies Ruth Treadwell to the town to discover what exactly happened.

What they find is a ghost town, 200 residents dead with just one survivor. The survivor tells them that trucks drove around the town the night before, circling the town. They soon learn that Paradise was a test run for a larger biological attack against multiple US cities. With the help of Jaime, the team is able to stop the threat. Though shaken up, Jaime realizes that this is what she wants to do.

Through all of this Jaime is going through the drama of trying to raise her little sister (played by Lucy Hale). Her sister is going through troubles at school and keeps threatening to go live with her father. At the end of the show Jaime makes it back in time for her talent show and convinces her to stay with her.