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The solution to what ails Bionic Woman (apart from more Katee Sackhoff): Let Michelle Ryan use the accent.
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Why, why is my flist and the Interwebs themselves not full of Bionic Woman porn fic?
Is this not the cracky girl-power* goodness for which fandom has been waiting.
*pause while I doublecheck that I typed that with a straight face*
In truth, I like my fannish glee to come in shades and varieties of broken: as a writer and all-around imaginative person, it leaves me places to go with the characters in my mind, OOC moments to fix, plotholes to close. In that sense, Bionic Woman reminds me of the "Choose Your Own Adventure" novels I used to read as a kid - so much potential, such shitty execution (Katee Sackhoff and Molly Price excepted for they are awesome like whoa). While Good TV is something to be savoured, as a viewer, I am forced to let the story and the characters unfold at a pace and in ways set by the storytellers themselves. And honey, sometimes that just takes too damn long. But at the same time, the view, once you get there, is fantastic.
Bionic Woman is more like the "Choose Your Own Adventure" novels I used to read as a kid - brilliant concepts, sucktastic execution. It is a show that begs to be rescued from the pile of suck by collective pop consciousness of fandom, polished up and set loose on the web to mutate and flourish. I suppose three weeks is too soon to expect this to happen (I did mention my problem with delayed gratification, right - i.e. the delay) and, to be honest, the majority of the episodes thus far have resembled a fannish Bataan - slogging scene after painful scene of bad writing, fetid dialogue, whinging sisters, plotlines so colossally contrived as to make Robert McKee wake nights in a cold sweat, and a directionless* lead actor for bare moments of cracky goodness both intentional (any time Sackhoff opens her mouth) and unintentional (the metatextual awesomeness of Isaiah Washington's beatdown in last week's episode).
*I mean that literally; I've been watching Jekyll - Steven Moffat, I want to have your babies - and Michelle Ryan's Katherine Reimer is everything Jaime Sommers should be - smart, pert, flinty, arrogant, over-confident and bit of a badass. Only Katherine is also well-written and directed. I'm pleased to see that Ryan actually has some chops - if only they'd actually give her something to work with.
Still, it would be nice if the intertoobz showed as much enthusiasm for faintly ridiculous, clumsily executed girl-centric action dramas as it does for the boys' own variety.
What about you, Intertoobz? What adds the crunch to your peanut butter?
Is this not the cracky girl-power* goodness for which fandom has been waiting.
*pause while I doublecheck that I typed that with a straight face*
In truth, I like my fannish glee to come in shades and varieties of broken: as a writer and all-around imaginative person, it leaves me places to go with the characters in my mind, OOC moments to fix, plotholes to close. In that sense, Bionic Woman reminds me of the "Choose Your Own Adventure" novels I used to read as a kid - so much potential, such shitty execution (Katee Sackhoff and Molly Price excepted for they are awesome like whoa). While Good TV is something to be savoured, as a viewer, I am forced to let the story and the characters unfold at a pace and in ways set by the storytellers themselves. And honey, sometimes that just takes too damn long. But at the same time, the view, once you get there, is fantastic.
Bionic Woman is more like the "Choose Your Own Adventure" novels I used to read as a kid - brilliant concepts, sucktastic execution. It is a show that begs to be rescued from the pile of suck by collective pop consciousness of fandom, polished up and set loose on the web to mutate and flourish. I suppose three weeks is too soon to expect this to happen (I did mention my problem with delayed gratification, right - i.e. the delay) and, to be honest, the majority of the episodes thus far have resembled a fannish Bataan - slogging scene after painful scene of bad writing, fetid dialogue, whinging sisters, plotlines so colossally contrived as to make Robert McKee wake nights in a cold sweat, and a directionless* lead actor for bare moments of cracky goodness both intentional (any time Sackhoff opens her mouth) and unintentional (the metatextual awesomeness of Isaiah Washington's beatdown in last week's episode).
*I mean that literally; I've been watching Jekyll - Steven Moffat, I want to have your babies - and Michelle Ryan's Katherine Reimer is everything Jaime Sommers should be - smart, pert, flinty, arrogant, over-confident and bit of a badass. Only Katherine is also well-written and directed. I'm pleased to see that Ryan actually has some chops - if only they'd actually give her something to work with.
Still, it would be nice if the intertoobz showed as much enthusiasm for faintly ridiculous, clumsily executed girl-centric action dramas as it does for the boys' own variety.
What about you, Intertoobz? What adds the crunch to your peanut butter?
Tags:
Bionic Woman (well Sarah Corvus, really) is so my new fannish squee object. My 'quick post before bed' turned into three hours and 3,000 words. Most of them on how BW puts forth some pretty damn regressive ideas about women in text that are kind of being subverted by the awesomeness of Katee Sackhoff's work as Sarah.
Sarah Corvus makes me very happy.
Sarah Corvus makes me very happy.
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Sunday night and I need to get to bed because I have class tomorrow, I have to start my jogging program and I'm flying to Bournemouth Tuesday, so there's stuff to do to make that happen as well. Also, I need to be up and about in time to cook breakfast for myself tomorrow morning (making lunch wouldn't hurt either). So, a brief note on recent activities and then bed.
This weekend was fairly quiet. Met fellow Int'ls from my course in Blackrock for coffee, dinner and then we went to the pub to watch France lose to England in the Rugby World Cup semi, which was a bit of a bummer, since I've developed a crush of Sebastien Chabal, the massive French forward with the long hair and scary prophet beard. R and I called him "Evil Jesus" and would exhort the ball to "Come to Jesus" and basically were silly. French defeat aside, it was a fun night.
Today was spent asleep and going up to town to see Black Sheep, a horror comedy about mutant, cannibal, zombie were-sheep. It was brilliant and gross as all hell - I watched most of the second half through my t-shirt.
On the way home, I grabbed a lamb schwarma (doing my part to keep the ovine population down) and the papers.
Recent media consumed: Grey's Anatomy 4x03, Pushing Daisies 1x02, Ugly Betty 2x03, Private Practice 1x03, and all of Bionic Woman (mostly on fastforward because, really, you think I'm going to watch Isaiah Washington be all fake mentory when I could be watching Katee Sackhoff chew scenery?).
So far, the clear winner of the season is Pushing Daisies, which managed to be sweet and whimsical for a second straight week. And there was a musical number to boot! PD deserves praise for going balls-out and giving Kristin Chenoweth a moment to shine.
I came to the realization while watching Private Practice that ( I don't give a shit about any of the characters )
As for Grey's Anatomy, ( while the episode was fine, why does Shonda Rhymes hate women? )
But when all seems lost, there's always Ugly Betty FTW. It just makes me happy, partly I think because even though there's a definite 'lesson' in each episode, the characters themselves remain human - even the camp ones - and there are no overnight conversions or "hallelujah" moments. Nothing comes too easily and it grounds the show's otherwise delightfully soap operatic tone in just enough reality to keep me interested and empathetic towards the characters. Also, Ashley Jensen is always spot-on brilliant and never fails to make me laugh.
Finally, there is NBC's Bionic Woman, which is nothing like the Lindsay Wagner version I grew up watching as a kid. ( I don't know if that's a good thing or not )
The current remake borrows the name and general premise (woman suffers tramautic injuries and is saved by cybernetic technology). The rah-rah 'Sisters are doing it for themselves' subtext from the original is almost entirely absent and, while this is probably a good thing, the fact that the titular character is a borderline whiny, directionless, amorphous creation who's most distinct characteristic to date is her attachment to the teenaged sister she's raising is most certainly not. Moreover it's apparently this Jaime's ability to nurture that distinguishes her from her nemesis, Sarah Corvus, the "first" bionic woman. Basically, 30 years after Lindsay Wagner first hoisted a VW bus about her head, this Bionic Woman tells us that a woman's "mommy instinct" is all that keeps her from becoming a dangerously deranged and detached killing machine.
Oh, yeah, we've come a long way, baby.
Fortunately, Western Civilization may be spared the worst of David Eick's dubious "feminist" impulses as a writer because the Bionic Woman pilot sucked ass. ( Does David Eick Hate Women? (spoilers) )
Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately if you're a BW writer, ( Katee Sackhoff is seven kinds of awesome )
Finally, I haz grafficks progrum. Oh, hi. I makes iconz now.
*It has to be noted that BW reportedly has one of the most unstable writers rooms in LaLaland; Jason Katims (Roswell, Friday Night Lights) has been brought in to take over and original writer Laeta Kalogridis (Birds of Prey) and then her replacement Jason Smilovic (Karen Sisco) have left the show and I suspect that pretty much everything presented in the pilot except for the fact that Jaime Sommers got bionic implants is now in play. Kalogridis is no loss - BoP was a disappointment from start to finish and her other credits include such great works as the Vikings vs. Indians steaming pile of shit, Pathfinder. Smilovic, otoh, was the head writer on Karen Sisco, Carla Gugino's short-lived Out of Sight spin off. While KS didn't entirely escape the 'strong woman in the office, fucking wreck in the home' stereotype, KS came closer than any other show of the last five years (except Veronica Mars) to portraying a woman in law enforcement who was both a kick ass cop (marshal) and actually happy and content in her admittedly imperfect private life. I would have been interested to see what he brought to BW. OTOH, Katims, despite some truly shit work in his background - like seasons two and three of Roswell - has shown a surprisingly deft and nuanced hand on Friday Night Lights. If Katims has anything to do with how the women on that show are portrayed - particularly Mrs. Coach (Connie Britton, who is six kinds of awesome in the role) - that can only mean good things for BW.
**You could argue, for example, that empathy is Superman's chief motivation - he cares and that's why he does what he does. He's also an iconic, well-rounded, full-fleshed character and even that doesn't preclude shit awful Superman stories from being written: see examples a) Smallville and b> Superman Returns, which I loved despite it's flaws.
This weekend was fairly quiet. Met fellow Int'ls from my course in Blackrock for coffee, dinner and then we went to the pub to watch France lose to England in the Rugby World Cup semi, which was a bit of a bummer, since I've developed a crush of Sebastien Chabal, the massive French forward with the long hair and scary prophet beard. R and I called him "Evil Jesus" and would exhort the ball to "Come to Jesus" and basically were silly. French defeat aside, it was a fun night.
Today was spent asleep and going up to town to see Black Sheep, a horror comedy about mutant, cannibal, zombie were-sheep. It was brilliant and gross as all hell - I watched most of the second half through my t-shirt.
On the way home, I grabbed a lamb schwarma (doing my part to keep the ovine population down) and the papers.
Recent media consumed: Grey's Anatomy 4x03, Pushing Daisies 1x02, Ugly Betty 2x03, Private Practice 1x03, and all of Bionic Woman (mostly on fastforward because, really, you think I'm going to watch Isaiah Washington be all fake mentory when I could be watching Katee Sackhoff chew scenery?).
So far, the clear winner of the season is Pushing Daisies, which managed to be sweet and whimsical for a second straight week. And there was a musical number to boot! PD deserves praise for going balls-out and giving Kristin Chenoweth a moment to shine.
I came to the realization while watching Private Practice that ( I don't give a shit about any of the characters )
As for Grey's Anatomy, ( while the episode was fine, why does Shonda Rhymes hate women? )
But when all seems lost, there's always Ugly Betty FTW. It just makes me happy, partly I think because even though there's a definite 'lesson' in each episode, the characters themselves remain human - even the camp ones - and there are no overnight conversions or "hallelujah" moments. Nothing comes too easily and it grounds the show's otherwise delightfully soap operatic tone in just enough reality to keep me interested and empathetic towards the characters. Also, Ashley Jensen is always spot-on brilliant and never fails to make me laugh.
Finally, there is NBC's Bionic Woman, which is nothing like the Lindsay Wagner version I grew up watching as a kid. ( I don't know if that's a good thing or not )
The current remake borrows the name and general premise (woman suffers tramautic injuries and is saved by cybernetic technology). The rah-rah 'Sisters are doing it for themselves' subtext from the original is almost entirely absent and, while this is probably a good thing, the fact that the titular character is a borderline whiny, directionless, amorphous creation who's most distinct characteristic to date is her attachment to the teenaged sister she's raising is most certainly not. Moreover it's apparently this Jaime's ability to nurture that distinguishes her from her nemesis, Sarah Corvus, the "first" bionic woman. Basically, 30 years after Lindsay Wagner first hoisted a VW bus about her head, this Bionic Woman tells us that a woman's "mommy instinct" is all that keeps her from becoming a dangerously deranged and detached killing machine.
Oh, yeah, we've come a long way, baby.
Fortunately, Western Civilization may be spared the worst of David Eick's dubious "feminist" impulses as a writer because the Bionic Woman pilot sucked ass. ( Does David Eick Hate Women? (spoilers) )
Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately if you're a BW writer, ( Katee Sackhoff is seven kinds of awesome )
Finally, I haz grafficks progrum. Oh, hi. I makes iconz now.
*It has to be noted that BW reportedly has one of the most unstable writers rooms in LaLaland; Jason Katims (Roswell, Friday Night Lights) has been brought in to take over and original writer Laeta Kalogridis (Birds of Prey) and then her replacement Jason Smilovic (Karen Sisco) have left the show and I suspect that pretty much everything presented in the pilot except for the fact that Jaime Sommers got bionic implants is now in play. Kalogridis is no loss - BoP was a disappointment from start to finish and her other credits include such great works as the Vikings vs. Indians steaming pile of shit, Pathfinder. Smilovic, otoh, was the head writer on Karen Sisco, Carla Gugino's short-lived Out of Sight spin off. While KS didn't entirely escape the 'strong woman in the office, fucking wreck in the home' stereotype, KS came closer than any other show of the last five years (except Veronica Mars) to portraying a woman in law enforcement who was both a kick ass cop (marshal) and actually happy and content in her admittedly imperfect private life. I would have been interested to see what he brought to BW. OTOH, Katims, despite some truly shit work in his background - like seasons two and three of Roswell - has shown a surprisingly deft and nuanced hand on Friday Night Lights. If Katims has anything to do with how the women on that show are portrayed - particularly Mrs. Coach (Connie Britton, who is six kinds of awesome in the role) - that can only mean good things for BW.
**You could argue, for example, that empathy is Superman's chief motivation - he cares and that's why he does what he does. He's also an iconic, well-rounded, full-fleshed character and even that doesn't preclude shit awful Superman stories from being written: see examples a) Smallville and b> Superman Returns, which I loved despite it's flaws.
Teaserwatch report: "Okay, Plan B."
Oh, my - did Michelle Ryan actually make me giggle? All right, we've gotten all the way through the teaser and already this episode is already a huge improvement over the pilot and last week. First of all, the lame job has been ditched and they threw in a sparring scene for good measure. Here's my advice to BWstaff - training sequences are key. As are 'gearing-up' montages. These are absolutely crucial to the asskicking genre (if you don't believe, even something as meta as Kill Bill involves a training sequence. E-sential) and your audience is going to be made up primarily of people who love and want to see these sequences. They are signifiers of the genre. So keep them in and keep them interesting. My other piece of advice is still MORE KATEE SACKHOFF.
First Commercial breakwatch report: "Let's see if the trust works both ways."
( We have spoilers implanted on our optics nerves )
Halfway watchreport: "Just go find Heaven so we don't have to go to war with Canada."
Out of context, that line is much funnier.
I'm just saying.
Added to the list of things that we can ditch from this episode is the American paternalism. Yeah, ruler of the free world, the peons get it. Move on already. Oh and look, borderline homophobic humour. Cheery.
( My Canada includes BW locations shoots )
Three-quarterwatch report: "I'm going to have to get analog on your ass."
Oh, bitch, please.
I'm not sure what program Isaiah Washington thinks he's in but could he please go back to it? He's harshing my buzz. Also, he's officially just dropped the biggest turd of a line read in this entire episode - including annoying Arms Daughter.
*fives seconds later*
I take it back. Michelle Ryan, you are so the whitest girl in Whitonia and that means there are certain phrases you really need to avoid. "Bring it on, bitch" foremost among them.
( And I will call him Mr. Stupidhead )
Fourth actwatch report: "I can intellectually imagine that that feels pretty dramatic"
( Sisters are doing it for themselves... Or not )
I do know one thing... soon, they will have an episode without Katee Sackhoff in it. I'm pretty sure that's going to be an episode that's unbearable to watch.
Oh, my - did Michelle Ryan actually make me giggle? All right, we've gotten all the way through the teaser and already this episode is already a huge improvement over the pilot and last week. First of all, the lame job has been ditched and they threw in a sparring scene for good measure. Here's my advice to BWstaff - training sequences are key. As are 'gearing-up' montages. These are absolutely crucial to the asskicking genre (if you don't believe, even something as meta as Kill Bill involves a training sequence. E-sential) and your audience is going to be made up primarily of people who love and want to see these sequences. They are signifiers of the genre. So keep them in and keep them interesting. My other piece of advice is still MORE KATEE SACKHOFF.
First Commercial breakwatch report: "Let's see if the trust works both ways."
( We have spoilers implanted on our optics nerves )
Halfway watchreport: "Just go find Heaven so we don't have to go to war with Canada."
Out of context, that line is much funnier.
I'm just saying.
Added to the list of things that we can ditch from this episode is the American paternalism. Yeah, ruler of the free world, the peons get it. Move on already. Oh and look, borderline homophobic humour. Cheery.
( My Canada includes BW locations shoots )
Three-quarterwatch report: "I'm going to have to get analog on your ass."
Oh, bitch, please.
I'm not sure what program Isaiah Washington thinks he's in but could he please go back to it? He's harshing my buzz. Also, he's officially just dropped the biggest turd of a line read in this entire episode - including annoying Arms Daughter.
*fives seconds later*
I take it back. Michelle Ryan, you are so the whitest girl in Whitonia and that means there are certain phrases you really need to avoid. "Bring it on, bitch" foremost among them.
( And I will call him Mr. Stupidhead )
Fourth actwatch report: "I can intellectually imagine that that feels pretty dramatic"
( Sisters are doing it for themselves... Or not )
I do know one thing... soon, they will have an episode without Katee Sackhoff in it. I'm pretty sure that's going to be an episode that's unbearable to watch.
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