Posted by Dustin on 09.13.2007 at 1:38 am

“The Bionic Woman,” at least the pilot episode, is basically best described as “Heroes” on overdrive! Don’t get me wrong, I luv my “Heroes,” and I understand the need to create back stories and all that, but in the pilot of “Bionic Woman,” it did everything a you expected to see throughout the 1st season of “Heroes” in one short hour. Yes, it was THAT good.

I thought this show was absolutely, without a doubt amazing. I’m serious, everything about this show was incredibly well done. The casting was top notch, the effects were great (though I do miss the 70s boinging bionic effects), the story was just amazing. This show pulls you in from the beginning to the very end. NBC definitely has another hit on its hands. I just hope the follow-up episodes live up to the pilot and don’t disappoint.

I just watched, for those wondering, the pilot on Amazon’s “UnBox” service, which is available to Tivo owners. NBC has all their new fall pilots up for free download. The following is my recap of the pilot, and is HEAVY on spoilers. No I mean it. This is basically a full recap of the pilot. If you don’t want to know before the show premiers later this month on NBC, skip the rest of this post. I’ve thrown in some quick digital images. Apologies for the quality, one day soon I’ll have my PC attached to the cable box to get high quality snaps.

The show opens with a mysterious blond (Katee Sackoff) standing in a hospital gown over a dead body, saying she’s out of control. She looks up at Jae Kim (Will Yun Lee) apologizing for what she did, asking if he loves her. He says he does . . . . then shoots her dead!

Fast forward three years. We meet Jamie Sommers (Michelle Ryan), a bartender and “drop out” (of what we don’t know) taking care of her little sister Becca (Lucy Hale). We learn Becca has gotten herself in trouble on the PC, she has a court order to stay away from them (why we don’t know). Their mother is dead from cancer, their father we learn can be found at the nearest bar next to the nearest peace rally. Jamie is taking car of her sister, who was dropped off on her doorstep by their dad. The little sister is basically a bratty bitch who doesn’t appreciate Jamie. (Side note here, in the original pilot promoted earlier this year, the sister was a different actress and deaf. They have a new actress and the part of the sister is no longer deaf).

Jamie is dating Will Anthros (Chris Bowers) who is a surgeon and professor of biophysics at the local university. She doesn’t know why he’s with her. He explains his whole life has been planned out, she was the one thing that wasn’t.

Fast forward to their date one night, Jamie reveals she is pregnant. On the car ride home, they are discussing names for the kid, Will wants her to marry him. Suddenly a semi truck slams into them, the car is literally wrapped around a power pole.

Jamie is then shown hospital deep underground. She has visions of a blond woman driving the truck that hit her. Will is involved with the military. Enter Jonas Bledsoe (Miguel Ferrerr) and Ruth Truewell (Molly Price). Jonas is the brains and the funding party of the bionic operation, Ruth seems to be his second hand woman. Will is of course the “Rudy” from the old show, the bionic surgeon.

Jamie wakes up not knowing what happened. Will explains that here was an accident, she lost the baby, but she will be able to have more. Both of her legs, her right arm, right eye and ear had to be “replaced.” She’s been given bionic limbs and injected with “anthrocites,” which help her heal and adjust. She promptly pushes Will away in a freak out, and pushes him across the room. She wakes up again thinking she imagined it all, only to see Will now has his arm in a sling! She’s quickly drugged.

The blond woman from the beginning and driving the truck meets with a German (Thomas Kretschmann). She says forgive her father, for she has sinned. He asks if it is done, they then make love. Later she wakes up alone. Written on the wall is “You have failed me.” Later the German meets a man in a bar, he knows he’s a guard at a prison. He has the man’s wife hostage and basically arranged for a prisoner to escape.

Back in the underground lair, a meeting is held to determine whether or not Jamie is up to par for the task. Will points out she’s a civilian, Jonas points out this is a military operation. Ruth has done background checks, she has a sister she takes care of, showing her loyalty, and her IQ is slightly higher than even Jonas’. Jae Kim is asked to train her, but he has reservations giving the last project. He fells Jamie is a ticking time bomb and Will is too close to this one. Will points out he played house with the last one.

Ruth meets with Jamie, who seems to be good at sketching. They have a talk, trying to meet a middle ground on what is going on. Later Ruth shows Jae the sketch Jamie drew, it’s of the blond. She wonders if he ever saw a body.

Will eventually lets Jamie go. Jonas is not happy, but Ruth thinks this will work to their advantage, giving her her freedom. Jamie returns home, her sister has been staying with the landlord and thinks she was simply on a ski trip . . . but knows better. Jamie of course says she can’t tell her where she’s been. Meanwhile Jamie experiments with her bionics.

Jamie returns to work. The mysterious blond shows up at the bar, a blond that looks familiar to her. She doesn’t realize it yet, but the blond was the truck driver who ran her over. Soon Jamie’s bionics begin kicking in, she is hearing and seeing too much. She runs to the bathroom to be sick, the blond follows her to help her and explains she will learn to turn the bionics on and off at will soon. As she disappears, she tells Jamie to let the others know that Sarah Corvus says hello.

Jamie later meets with Will, who explains his father developed a bionic limb program for gulf war veterans. However his father and the military realized its other purpose, its purpose for combat. Jamie realizes she’s been turned into a soldier, but Will says no, she can control this. They soon make love, afterwards Will is shot in the shoulder! Using her bionic eye, Jamie spots the blond on a nearby rooftop with a gun. She runs to find her, soon the blond realizes Jae Kim, who has been following Jamie the whole time, is in her sites, she won’t shoot him.

Jamie meets the blond Sarah Corvus on a nearby rooftop, asking who she is. Sarah says she could say she’s the first bionic woman. She figures Jamie has had her eye and ear done, what else? Sarah has had both ears, both arms and both legs done, only one eye was done . . . Anthros was worried about the optical implant. She says she did the other eye herself. She also replaced part of her chest, she’s replacing all her weak parts. Jamie and Sarah fight, Sarah realizes Jamie only has one bionic arm, suggesting she fix that. Jamie eventually gets the upper hand, causing Sarah to run.

Meanwhile Thomas Kretchmann’s character springs another from jail, Mark Sheppard’s character. They go on the run. It’s not clear which one is who, but one of these is Anthros Sr., Will’s father and the developer of the Anthrocites and bionic program. It appears it is Mark Sheppard who is the father, as Thomas’ character hinted to Sarah Corvus earlier in the show he had no memory of who he was.

Meanwhile, Will is loaded into an ambulance, he is alive still. Jamie talks to Jonas, who informs her that he is for better or worse, he landlord, he owns about 50 million dollars of her. Jamie says she now knows what she’s capable of, so send his men, she’ll take care of them one by one. She say they’ll play this game out on her terms. The show ends with her telling Jonas that Sarah say hello!