The Bionic Woman Series Premiere: All Fluff, No Substance

Scheduled to officially premiere on September 26, 2007, Bionic Woman, NBC's remake of the 1970's classic, promises to intrigue, but somehow manages to miss the mark. Opening with a series of fast paced scenes alternating between the present and the past reminiscent of the camera work seen in Keneau Reeves' The Matrix, the director has taken an enormous risk. The viewer will either love it or hate it. Action packed, filled with high tech gadgets and flashy camera work, the premiere has all the makings of a great series...almost.

Bionic Woman fails miserably in character and plot development. At the end of the hour, the viewer has learned the basic premise of the show and little else. Jaime Sommers, a bartender, and her boyfriend, Will, a lecturer at the local University, are in a horrific accident. Will brings her to the Institute (where he really works) to perform cutting edge surgery to save her life. Upon awakening, she has gained superhuman powers and, in typical comic book style, an archrival, the first bionic woman, Sarah Corvus.

Nagging questions such as why is Sarah Corvus trying to kill Will and why is Jaime Sommers raising her sister, Becca, are left unanswered. To be fair, the series halfheartedly attempts to address these issues. Cryptic conversations occur between Jaime and Becca in regards to their father and Sarah Corvus interacts multiple times with the man who wants Will dead.

Ironically, Bionic Woman's fails to delve into the characters' personalities due to a misguided effort to pack too much information into its hour premiere. The viewer learns a plethora of superficial information about each character but nothing to make him fall in love or hate any one character.

The emphasis of any premiere should be the quality of the information not the quantity. Bionic Woman focused on quantity and, thus, failed dismally. However, it is still too early to summarily dismiss this series. It has the potential to be a good series - plenty of action, innovative camera work, and good actors and actresses - if the characters are adequately developed.