Roush on Bionic Woman, David Eick and Battlestar Galactica
Question: I have to admit I had high hopes for
Bionic Woman, considering that the executive producer was
David Eick, who had a hand in revamping another 1970s show,
Battlestar Galactica, into one of my favorite programs. The addition of
Katee Sackhoff as a villain, as well as the casting of some other great TV veterans, should have sealed the deal on this show, but after tuning in for the premiere, I was sorely disappointed. Besides the obvious reasons (none of the characters were appealing and the storyline was incomprehensible), I was also disappointed by the disappearance of the deaf sister from the show's preview and the strange borrowing of
BSG scenes, some shot-for-shot. Do you think this show's run is going to have any influence on the production of
Battlestar's new season? I would hate to see
BSG suddenly start having absurd amounts of expository dialogue in the middle of a girlfight.
— Alexandra K.
Matt Roush: I doubt
Bionic Woman's success or failure will have much of an impact on
Battlestar Galactica's final season. At least let's hope not. But I will say that you are hardly alone. The tone of my mail was like this one from Carol R. of New Jersey, who opened with: "I do not know how you can tell viewers this new
Bionic Woman is the best new show on TV." First of all, I have no idea where Carol got that idea. I've made it pretty clear
Pushing Daisies is my favorite new show, and in my book
Bionic Woman takes a backseat way behind more instantly likable shows like
Chuck and
Reaper. Carol goes on to rant, "The plot made no sense, the action was disjointed, the acting was lousy, the scenes were dark, and the nanotechnology... come on! Stupid, stupid, stupid. I had hoped it would be good, but I can assure you I not only will not be watching, but I've told everyone I know not to bother, because it stinks with a capital S. NBC should bring back
Crossing Jordan, but they're too dumb for that!" Actually,
Jordan was toast with or without
Bionic Woman. Time to move on.
