Bionic Woman: Gritty as expected. Nice fx. Decent acting. While the Evil (or Morally Questionable) Government Black Ops Thang is hardly new, nor is the Rogue Experiment That Had To be Covered Up Thang, not to mention the whole Young Doctor Uses Unauthorized Techniques On His Dying Girlfriend Thang, it works well enough (so far) that I’m willing to come back for more. Though, annoyingly, NBC (or whoever it is) seems to be about 1-2 minutes earlier than the rest of the world. DVR adjusted.
Doctor Who: “The Sound of the Drums” Part 1 of 2 — the Series 3 finale. Grand stuff. The Master (yeah, I’ll go ahead and say it) in rare form. World-wide conspiracy and danger. The unspoken implication that Earth is in danger precisely because it is valued by the Doctor. I am dying to watch next episode — and I don’t want to, as it’s the series finale. *sigh*
Painkiller Jane: Wrapping up Season 1 with the sort of interesting-but-not-very-clever sort of way the series as a whole has been handled. I’ve wanted to like this a lot more than I have, but aside from some interesting premises and villains-of-the-week, it’s been hampered by cliches and conventional writing — and the last episodes at NICO have been even more lame than the rest. I’ll watch next season — if there is one — but I’d rather watch Dresden Files any day.
Torchwood: Ianto’s turn in the emotional wringer, with plenty of backstory tossing about and Captain Jack doing a Jane Vasco better than Jane ever has. Witty, dramatic, and steadily improving, even if both Torchwood and Painkiller Jane seem full of people who really ought to know to shoot first and clean up the messes later.
I tried to watch The Bionic Woman. After about 20 minutes I hit my threshold for cliches substituting for ideas and switched it off. In addition to characters whose personalities seemed to shift dramatically whenever the writer came up with a cool line that needed to be uttered, it was too loud and shrill for my taste. Once again, style trumps substance. I will not be back for more.
I did manage to sit all the way through the Reaper pilot. I’m still not certain if it was supposed to be funny. Regardless, Kevin Smith’s slacker stereotypes just hold no appeal for me whatsoever.
For a season that held so much promise, it’s shaping up to be no better than the status quo. Looks like it’s just Heroes and the Law and Order franchise for me again.
I think there are some interesting possibilities with BW — esp. the idea of what is human, what does cybernetic augmentation do to affect that condition, what is perfection, etc. (Interesting parallels between that and Torchwood this week, too.) It was actually a serious thematic element in Martin Caidin’s original Cyborg (which was turned into the $6MM Man with just a few whispers of that plot element in the pilot).
The BW premiere was not without some serious flaws, not least of which were the various plot cliches (not to mention dialog cliches) strung together. The protagonist goes from being utterly freaked out to boldly in control of her capabilities way too fast (implanted subroutines notwithstanding), and any black ops worth its salt would possibly string her along but would drop boyfriend-doctor into a very, very deep oubliette very quickly on about a half-dozen occasions during the episode.
But there’s enough potential there to bring me back a few times more.
Yeah, I gave up when she went from being completely freaked out to standing confidently and smugly in front of the one-way window saying “Boo” to her watchers, without any intervening steps.
The opening scene also made me think that the writer is too big a fan of Weapon X and/or X-23. That character and Jaime’s sister both annoyed me to distraction. Neither one did or said anything that sounded remotely original.
From what you say, it seems as if any redeeming qualities came in the latter part of the show. It’s too bad they couldn’t put them where they would hook the viewer early on.
As I mentioned, NBC started the show 1:30 before my DVR kicked in, so I missed the entire initial Wolf Creek scene (my watching started, literally, with the “Three Years Later” bit). Interestingly, missing it didn’t really affect the show.
Jaime’s sister is … at least for the single episode … a very annoying plot device.
The episode (and the initial scene, which I’ve now watched) is at NBC.
You’re not done with the Doctor? Oh no! Must. Restrain. Self.
The fourth episode of Torchwood didn’t work for me, though moments were tense and Jack’s master plan was highly amusing. I think my problem was Ianto’s grimacing. I just couldn’t take him seriously.
It was a bit too constant, yes. I could understand his anguish (esp. as he seems(ed) to be a person who keeps a calm facade all the time), but he had the angst at a fevered pitch the entire ep.