News - 'Bionic Woman' sister recast, healed

Just read an article on the change of actresses and abilities for the role of Becca Sommers on Bionic Woman. She's no longer played by Mae Whitman and she's no longer deaf.

I am not happy about this, for two reasons.

First, could it be any more obvious that they are trying to up the hottie factor? They dropped a short, average-sized, cute-but-punk actress and replaced her with petite, pretty, former tween pop singer Lucy Hale.

And how many beautiful women do they need? Can't anyone on TV be simply average? Michelle Ryan (Jamie Sommers) is very pretty. She's also, in Hollywood parlance, "voluptuous." This means she actually looks like she eats three squares a day and fills out a C naturally. Is that their problem? A little insurance against people who find the bionic woman "fat"?

Secondly (and most egregiously), they took away Becca's deafness. They say it doesn't serve the plot anymore. Since when does deafness have to be a plot device?!?! Is Jamie Sommers' skin color a plot device? Can't she just have a deaf sister and know sign language without it being a special thing? Could they not just communicate that way and nothing be made of it? And if they felt compelled to have it be utilitarian, fine. Make Jamie insist that her bosses give her sister bionic hearing. Have her sister argue with her about the identity aspects of it. Just Google cochlear implants' divisive effect on the deaf community and you've got material for a month. It was not rocket science to think of that. Took me three seconds.

I am SO disappointed about this move. I was looking forward to seeing a disabled character with depth, who wasn't played as a saint and had a giant chip on her shoulder that wasn't related to her disability. Not gonna happen now.

I'll watch Bionic Woman for all the other reasons I said I wanted to earlier: Female empowerment; promising lead actress; great fight scene potential. But I'll be more skeptical about it. They'll have to impress me to keep me coming back. And Lucy Hale had be better be good.

Preview - Bionic Woman 2007 (A-)

Starring Michelle Ryan, Miguel Ferrer, Katee Sackhoff

I plan to preview a few shows from the upcoming TV season that I find interesting. So here's the first one. Be forewarned: This is a really extensive trailer that's essentially a 5-minute distillation of the pilot movie. So if you don't want the episode spoiled, skip past the clip!



This re-imagination of one of my favorite childhood shows, The Bionic Woman, looks pretty cool. It certainly has greatness potential. With what little I can see, Michelle Ryan seems to be doing a commendable job so far with a role that has tons of 1970s-pop-culture-icon baggage. The "realness" upgrades could easily trip her up in writing that makes her merely another angsty superchick but I truly hope this doesn't happen. And her American accent is darn good. Most Brits play it safe with a flat, generic accent but she's doing a regional one! I can't quite figure out which, though.

Sadly, solo female action heroes almost never bring in huge numbers on the big or small screen, regardless of the quality of the material. Buffy The Vampire Slayer, though it was popular for a WB show and a huge critical success, routinely came in the bottom 50 in the Nielsens. Alias (which struggled for all of its five years on a major network) opened with two of the best seasons of any show ever then fell into a funk of ratings-desperate plotting and schedule changes and limped to a closure that would not have been afforded most other shows. I'm afraid the same gender bias may hurt this show's chances as well. And that' what it is. Bias. If I took the same show with the same writing and production and reversed the genders, it'd be an instant hit. Please send our young women a better message than this. It's shameful.

NBC is either extremely confident about Bionic Woman or is taking a huge gamble, hoping it and the superhero-related Heroes will boost their ailing flagship network. It may perform better on a niche channel, though. We'll see.

Final trailer score: A minus