I’ve been watching NBC revamped Bionic Woman TV show now for three weeks, and it’s gone from bad to worse. Producer David Eick, who worked on the terrific revamp of Battlestar Galactica, promised us a show that would deal with what it means when women are equals with men. Instead, we’ve got a bionic lady — hero Jaime Sommers — who is forced to work for the company who created her bionic implants because they paid so much money for them. They’ve installed a GPS tracker in her brain, and watch a live feed streaming from her bionic eye in order to keep her in line.

As if those indignities weren’t enough, she gains her superpowers because she’s dating a guy who works at the secret bionic lab. When she gets into an accident, he rushes her into surgery against her will, turning her into a killing machine (and property of his bosses). I’m feeling the female power, aren’t you?

There’s another bionic lady on the show, Sarah (played by Katee Sackoff, so great as the macho Starbuck on Battlestar), who suffers an even worse fate. She’s also doing the dirty with one of the guys from the bionic lab — I mean duh, how else do women get their powers? At least she’s gone rogue from the lab, but we’re reassured that her bid for freedom is actually because her implants have driven her mad. Though at one point she teaches Jaime how to disable her GPS tracker, the two women cannot form an alliance because, well, Sarah is insane. No female bonding or solidarity for you, primetime TV watchers! If you want to read more of my rants about the retrograde gender politics in this future-looking show, you can read my column.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 16th, 2007 at 8:52 am.
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