Test Pilot: Bionic Woman

The ONLY reason I am going to watch it is because Starbuck is in it. I will give it a chance, because Katee Sackoff is awesome, but only one chance! Hope its good. . .

I am going to check out the pilot - I'll see if it can pull me in.

James - have you received the pilot for "Chuck"? The commercial that aired this week on NBC rather intrigued me.

First off, GOD DID NOT INVENT THE INTERNET!!!
Man invented GOD
Second, Great ANOTHER remake, what's next M*A*S*H* in Iraq, or better yet A "dark and gritty version of Barney Miller ?!?! The Sad thing is there is now a demographic of "Bionic" veiwers (AKA Iraq War Veterans) who were the real "Expendable Government Property" and know first hand the horror of looking beneath the bedsheets to find artifical legs. This will be a wonderful reminder for them of their loss and struggles.
Thirdly, Vancouver is the Sci-Fi capitol because SFX postproduction is the speciality of the Vancouver Industry (Torontos' is the M.O.W.) the currency exchange rate is still in the U.S.' favour (marginally mind you), Canadian unions are easier to work with, Canadian Talent works Cheaper, and the myriad of incentives like tax breaks, Labour Laws, Documented workers, Lack of garbage, gangs and graffitti, etc.etc are you an intern or somones nephew? because in case you didn't notice you're writing for TIME not the high school paper or your own blog. smarten up dumbass!!!

@idigress: I have received Chuck, even watched it, but in that stick-in-in-the-DVD-player-while-doing-other-work mode I often use while previewing pilots. I'll give it a proper viewing before I Test Pilot it. My fleeting impressions were funny / really implausible, so if they were correct it's a question of whether the former defeats the latter.

@Jonathan: as a rule, do not judge ANY show based on the SFX in the pilot. They spend millions more on pilots than on regular episodes. Remember Dark Angel? The pilot looked like a James Cameron movie. The subsequent episodes looked like a teen drama on The N.

@anon: "in case you didn't notice you're writing for TIME not the high school paper or your own blog. smarten up dumbass!!!"

Mom? Is that you again?

You a schmuck,

You should go back and check out the '70's shows (Seasons 1&2 of each series out on DVD so far). Yes, they had the typical bad science and implausible plots of SF shows back then. But the thing they got right was that the issues surrounding the bionics were not simple or easy. The shows asked questions about the price and value of progress, the line between humanity and technology and the costs of blurring that line. And the Nixon-Watergate era of mistrust in Government was in full force, especially in the early movies.

Televisionary (http://www.televisionaryblog.com) has been running reviews of the fall pilots since the upfront announcements back in May, including Bionic, Pushing Daisies, Chuck, Cane, etc.:

http://televisionary.blogspot.com/search/label/Pilot%20Inspektor

Discovered his blog a few months ago and he's become daily reading.

Hey James - me again. I don't know if you remember or not (or care) but I really was disappointed with this one. I agree on the hospital scene, but everything else throughout just did not work. I think it was the writing more than anything. At first, I thought the acting was what was throwing me off, but maybe the actors just weren't given anything good to say. Everything seemed to be poised to be a Caruso-ish one-liner.

Also, I am not a Battlestar Galactica watcher, but is that blonde the one they call Starbuck? If so, I thought she was terrible in this. Again, every line out of her mouth appeared to be incomplete without a tip of the sunglasses. I don't know - maybe I went into this one hoping for too much, but I didn't like it.

Again, I am really hoping Chuck does well as that, plus Dirty Sexy Money, were the best of the ones I saw (again, I only have seen NBC's and Abc's so far).

@Wayne: you wighed in on the ABC pilots, right? I may have been more favorably disposed toward Katee Sackhoff because of BSG (yes, she's Starbuck). Mrs. Tuned In thought the acting was poor down the line.

There wer little off-notes in the script throughout. The scene where the little girl sees Jaime running and says, "I just thought it was cool that a girl could do that, that's all." Why not just put up a chyron saying "THIS IS A FEMALE EMPOWERMENT SCENE," you know? Nike ads are more subtle than that.

@James - yes, I weighed in on the ABC ones and a couple of the NBC ones as well.

Yeah, I forgot about that line. The one that stood out the most was the "I do things my way' line at the end. The whole interaction scene between her and the cop was just a little too, erm, grizzled? for me.

Again, I really had hoped high for this one...It had a cool premise, but failed in way too many accounts. I am just thinking of which I will actually make a point to watch and which shows I won't. I can't see this one making the cut, whereas DSM (yeah, already abbreviating this one, suckas), Chuck, Pushing Daisies, and possibly Journeyman will.

Anonymous,

Perhaps you should change your name to AnonymASS.