Lesley Jackson leaps into the world of Bionic Jaime Sommers and is impressed with Michelle Ryans’ Krav Maga skills, but left slightly bored with the rest of the cast.
Now I confess, I am old enough to remember the original Bionic Woman with Lindsay Wagner and was most jealous of a girl called Carey Hutt at school, who had a Bionic Woman doll and wouldn’t let me play with it. It was ace, the doll wore a funky 70s blue jumpsuit and you could flip open her arm or leg to reveal the bionic bits. And I can still remember the theme tune to the Six Million Dollar Man with Lee Majors and those immortal lines, “we can rebuild him, we have the technology.”
So, it was with some excitement that I heard the Bionic Woman was to be remade with none other than our own British actress, Michelle Ryan (or as we know her, Zoe in Eastenders) at the helm. Excellent, I thought, back are the days when the super-duper Jaime Sommers would be running at 65 miles an hour, jumping up onto the roofs of buildings and hearing conversations a couple of miles away. However, one couldn’t escape watching the pilot on ITV2 without hearing the panning the remake had had in the press but I put my feet up and did my best to watch without prejudice.
The pilot episode of the new series begins with the shooting of the first, blond and evil bionic woman. Why she is evil we don’t know, but apparently she is slightly more bionic than our Jaime is about to be. We switch to our heroine, Jaime Sommers who is currently underachieving as a bartender whilst looking after her annoying and whiny little sister and going out with a university professor. From the start, we can see Michelle Ryan deliver a serious performance with a convincing Californian accent, which is more than can be said for her boyfriend who had more wood than Ikea. He was so boring I couldn’t be bothered to remember his name and after his passionless proposal of marriage to Jaime, one can only wonder how he managed to muster the enthusiasm to get his girlfriend pregnant in the first place. Thank God he died at the end as one can only congratulate the psychotic blond bionic woman for shooting him before I would have.
After being hit by a truck and discovering that she has been made bionic by her pointless boyfriend, Jaime has the mother of all strops and eventually gets to the good bit where she fights the evil and blond bionic woman. For want of a better phrase, this is where the programme finally starts to get good as we see the women flail their super limbs in a flurry of Krav Maga in a well choreographed fight scene. This is what we want to see more of, the Bionic-Woman-Kick-Ass because Michelle Ryan is quite good at it. Rather than mooching over the fact she has bionic legs, arm, super vision and hearing we want to see her in action. And let’s face it, if you discovered you had super powers, think how much fun you could you have!
Bionic Woman Interview
This remake of the 70s classic series has not gone down well in America and it is unclear as to whether it will run to a second series. This is not the fault of Michelle Ryan as she puts in a sound performance but rather the humourless script and po-faced co-actors. This is where the original series was more successful as you always felt that there was an element of fun about it, which made school children run in slow motion in the playground pretending to be bionic. I cannot imagine they will do the same today as they will be far too busy pretending to be Dr Who.
Top Ten Female on Screen Martial Arts Actors
The female martial arts action hero is here to stay and has actually been around in both the east and west from much longer that we’d imagine. After all, who can resist a woman who is beautiful, well dressed and can kick the crap out of a bad guy if he steps out of line! Lesley Jackson looks at her choice top ten female martial arts stars....
By all means tune into ITV2 on a Tuesday evening and check out the rest of the series for yourself. I hope I am proved wrong, that the pace will pick up and Michelle Ryan will get to show off more of her Krav Maga skills as they really are the best part of the programme.
Fun and Entertainment 
Lesley Jackson leaps into the world of Bionic Jaime Sommers and is impressed with Michelle Ryans’ 
wore a funky 70s blue jumpsuit and you could flip open her arm or leg to reveal the bionic bits. And I can still remember the theme tune to the Six Million Dollar Man with Lee Majors and those immortal lines, “we can rebuild him, we have the technology.”
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