Jamie Summers is NBC's Bionic Flatline

Everyone remembers The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman, Lee Majors and Lindsay Wagner, were the hottest sci-fi duet in the nation. People loved seeing the couple team up to stop the bad guys. So, perhaps it should never have been a surprise that NBC would try and recapture those good old glory days. However, they should have given more thought to the structure of the storyline.

The original storyline was as follows:

Jamie Summers suffers a freak skydiving accident. This was actually a spinoff of The Six Million Dollar Man, so the organization that saved Steve Austin once again decided to save another soul. They fixed her left eye and ear, giving her exceptional sight and hearing. They gave her a new arm and legs, which provided her with super strength in one arm and was able to run at incredible speeds. Jamie Summers became the first woman with bionic abilities. She is then trained to use her abilities to assist the government in their investigative operations.

The adapted storyline is amended to this:

Jamie Summers is a bartender, who is involved with a scientist/professor. Her father has left her little sister in her care and we are led to believe her sister has had some legal problems involving a computer. The scientist works for a secret division of the government and has created a bionic woman before. The original bionic woman has psychological problems which rendered her a risk to the program and has been terminated. Unfortunately, a former scientist in the program kept her alive. The original bionic woman kills a truck driver, using his truck, and attempts to kill Jamie's boyfriend. Jamie informs her boyfriend she is pregnant and he proposes to her, but the truck cuts the pregnancy short and forces the scientist to rebuild Jamie Summers. After the initial trauma, Jamie decides she will work for the agency, but on her own terms. Yada, yada, yada.

There are numerous problems with this version of the Bionic Woman.

With the technology available today, special effects are crucial for the success of any sci-fi release. Heroe's was a great example of good special effects. There are times in the Bionic Woman, when you feel like you are witnessing the rebirth of Superman The Movie, which I am quite sure many of us recall how funny looking it was when Clark Kent is racing the train. I hate to say it, but these special effects reminded me precisely of that. Today's standards will not tolerate flaky looking special effects like that. Therein lies my first problem with this Bionic Woman.

Next, original fans of the Bionic Woman will want to see the Six Million Dollar Man return. Stating the obvious, bartenders are not exactly what people look for in a hero. Sure, they are great listeners, but come on...a bartender and a professor? That sounds like the beginning of a joke. That is like comparing caviar to bean dip. The background concept is severely lacking here.

Thirdly, NBC's Heroes is a standout performer. If NBC had acquired the rights to the new Battlestar Galactaca, that series may never have seen the light of day. Perhaps, because they passed on Battlestar Galactaca and saw the success it is having on the Sci-Fi channel, that is why NBC took a chance on the Bionic Woman. Personally, after viewing the pilot episode, I do not believe this will have the pandemic effect that Heroes has cultivated. The script is lifeless and the acting is similarly atrocious. I think this could have been a major success on the Sci-Fi channel, but I do not think it is going to float on primetime television.

Check it out if you must, but I can almost 100% assure this Bionic Woman is going to be a major failure for NBC.