Bionic Vancouver, or How Katee Sackhoff is the shit

Wednesday

8:00 Back to You (FOX)
Did I watch Frasier for Kelsey Grammer? No.
Did I watch Everybody Loves Raymond for Pat Heaton? No.
Why did I watch Back to You? Cause it was on FOX when I got home and I had half an hour to wait til Bionic was on. What I got was a great early 1990's sitcom. It was good for what it's worth, and though I do believe Ms Heaton will shine more in this than she ever did playing Ray Romano's wife (god how I hate that show...) it will take a while (and a certain type of audience) for this comedy to catch on. It feels dated somehow - I mean, how many multi-camera, 'filmed in front of a live audience' sitcoms do we have on right now? How many are successful? Back to You, though filled with great actors, and an impeccable production team, seems to tell us that it's because it's heyday has passed, and I am quite okay with that. I mean the punchline included a dead fish..? Dr Crane can surely do better than that, and I hope in weeks to come, he will.

Favourite Part of the Show: ... that forgettable, I guess.

9:00 Bionic Woman (NBC)
As if the impeccable production, the interesting (re)created concept of the Bionic Woman and the good looks of Michelle Ryan weren't enough of a draw for me, NBC added some Vancouver shots and the electric performance by Katee Sackhoff to win me over completely. But I have to admit, all those other things got me hooked as well (what else was I expecting when the amazing David Eick, of BSG fame was involved?). If we all didn't know the mythology before, I think NBC has done a good job of making the story behind 'bionic woman' well-known with an aggressive marketing push that goes back to Comic-con in San Diego (where that pic from Katee Sackhoff comes from): woman gets 'bionic-ized' (new legs, arm, ear and eye) after an accident leaves her almost dead. This reimagining of Bionic owes much to several strong female-centered shows that came before it: Buffy, Dark Angel and even BSG. Jamie Summers joins a select group of empowered females that battle evil - she's in good company, but she can also stand on her own. That last cat-fight with Katee is by far the best one we've seen since Katee herself battled an arrow-wielding Tricia Helfer, and before that we hadn't seen that girl-on-girl fighting action since Sarah and Eliza were duking it out for Slayer-of-the-year.
My favourite lines were by far those of the evil 'rogue' Bionic Woman - when have we seen such a good way to Time Out of a fight than light a cigarette in order to advance the exposition during a fight? Exactly. Plus, any woman who can wear that much lipstick and not look like a hooker is a pleasure to see (who knew Starbuck could be so evil?) This show is of course a fanboy's wetdream and all I have to say to that is that we are lacking in the hot boys department (if after the episode ended Will indeed died) - because I mean, if all I have to look at for eye candy is Isaiah Washington (don't even get me started on that baffling casting choice)... My point exactly.

Favourite Part of the Show: The self-aware scene with the girl in the car, who, after seeing Jamie running really fast says to her mom: "I just thought it was cool that a girl could do that." So do we, random girl, so do we...

Second Favourite Part of the Show: Seeing Vancouver. Everywhere. I can't even remember what city they're making it pass for, but it made me miss Koerner Library and even Buchannan Tower when I saw it in the background like 10mins into the show...Sigh