TV to See: Can They Rebuild Her? The Remake of “Bionic Woman”

In the original late ‘70s series, perky, blonde tennis pro Jaime Sommers (played by Lindsay Wagner, probably best known today as the spokeswoman for Sleep Number Beds), received bionic prosthetics for her ear, arm and both legs after a catastrophic parachuting accident. After some difficulties—the initial rejection of her bionic parts, some brain damage and the loss of her relationship with fiancé Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Man—Jaime adjusted to her new lifestyle and had numerous wacky adventures battling fembots, aliens and assorted assassins.

But contemporary film and TV execs seem to have determined that audiences don’t want their action heroes to be perky and wacky; they want them dark and moody. (Hey, it works for Batman, doesn’t it?) The reinvented Jaime Sommers (played by Michelle Ryan) is a frustrated brunette bartender raising her troubled teenage sister. When a truck slams into her car, her scientist fiancé arranges for synthetic replacements for Jaime’s destroyed body parts. Freaked out by her new superpowered physique, her indentured servitude to the mysterious organization that funded the cyborg procedure, and various indications that her subsequently murdered fiancé had been plotting all along to experiment on her, Ryan’s angry rebel is a far cry from Wagner’s happy camper.