THIS show is such a total loss that you couldn’t rebuild it for $50 million or $100 million.
Fifty-million dollars happens to be the price quoted in this new “Bionic Woman” series for rebuilding this young woman, Jaime Sommers (Michelle Ryan), after she is critically injured in a sudden car wreck.
The hefty pricetag – for a new eye, ear, arm and two legs – is a lot more than it cost for the same components back in the ’70s when TV’s first bionic man, Steve Austin (Lee Majors), cost $6 million and the first bionic woman, also named Jaime Sommers (Lindsay Wagner), cost about the same.
However, the modern-day price makes sense once you allow for inflation plus costly advances in technology.
Inflation cannot explain why the producers of the new “Bionic Woman” have decided to make a show that is so dark and depressing that it made me want to slit my wrists.
They’ve embarked on a storyline that explores the alienation and uncertainty Jaime feels after being saddled with all these electronic gizmos without her permission while she was unconscious and half dead.
To make this scenario as sad and dreary as possible, almost every scene in this show is filmed at night, in the rain or underground – wherever it is just dark enough so that you can’t see everything that’s going on.
There’s even another bionic woman running around, a statuesque blonde (Katee Sackhoff from “Battlestar Galactica“) with a big chip on her shoulder. She and Jaime have a ridiculous fight – in the rain, at night, on a roof – after which blondie gets away presumably so she can return again and again and again.
This show is so cliched that it actually contains one of those scenes in which a camera makes a slow, 360-degree circle around Jaime as she gazes skyward.
In another scene, in which poor Jaime is seen on the edge of a rooftop either contemplating suicide or a jump to the next building, the producers have chosen to play Sia’s “Breathe Me,” the song used in the unforgettable final sequence of “Six Feet Under” in 2005 – one of the most moving sequences ever produced for television.
Hey, “Bionic Woman” producers, get your own music. And tell Miss Bionic to cheer up and count her blessings – all 50 million of them.
“Bionic Woman”
Tonight at 9 on NBC/4