Director: Tim Matheson
Cast: Michelle Ryan (Jaime Sommers), Lucy Hale (Becca Sommers), Will Yun Lee (Jae Kim), Miguel Ferrer (Jonas Bledsoe), Molly Price (Ruth Treadwell), Katee Sackhoff (Sarah Corvus), Isaiah Washington (Antonio Pope), Carly McKillip (Vivian), Jacob Blair (Steve), Lara Gilchrist (Carly), Erin Karpluk (Robin), Lorena Gale (Mrs. Busey), Michael Jocelyn (Priest), Marrett Green (TV Announcer), Chelah Horsdal (Suicidal Woman), Emily Holmes (Marty), Chad Cole (Bartender), Dalias Blake (Hazmat Soldier at Outpost), Kurt Max Runte (Merc Leader), Tyler McClendon (ND Agent at Stockyard), Fabrice Grover (Doorman at Hotel), Terence Dament (Merc at Stockyard), Tanya Champoux (Dead Woman) & Troy Hatt (Becca's Duet Partner)
Jaime continues to adjust to her new life with bionic implants, but finds herself drawn towards going on a mission...Ruth: Would you please stop eavesdropping?
Jaime: Maybe if somebody said something to me for a change.
Jaime: Maybe if somebody said something to me for a change.
Following the funeral of her boyfriend Will Anthros, Jaime (Michelle Ryan) tries to return to normality, but having enhanced hearing and strength is a constant reminder she's different (better?) than other people... and on the precipice of an exciting, dangerous new life...
After accidentally breaking a guy's rib during a fumble in a toilet, shadowy company boss Jonas (Miguel Ferrer) interrupts to try and persuade Jaime to work for him... which obviously fails. Fortunately, Jonas' team have more covert methods of persuasion, and Antonio Pope (Isaiah Washington) manages to talk Jaime round -- after posing as a friendly dog-loving stranger in a local bookshop.
It's not long before Jaime's back in the top-secret company HQ (when will we be given an identifying name?) Inside, she undergoes fight training from Jae Kim (Will Yun Lee), before being dispatched to investigate the remote town of Paradise, which has been struck by a deadly toxin called DMC-30. After arriving in town with another company agent Ruth Treadwell (Molly Price), Jaime is alarmed to discover such acts of terrorism are commonplace every day, but covered up from the media...
Paradise Lost is a very poor episode, only existing so Jaime can decide to live a secret life away from her sister Becca (Lucy Hale). As plots go, it's nothing we haven't seen a trillion times before, in countless TV shows with similar premises. Now And Again, anyone? As a confirming episode of Jaime's direction on the show, it gets the job done; albeit in a forced, uninspired way. Jaime suddenly has a bit of an attitude post-Pilot, but it's nothing to get excited about...
The mass culling at Paradise is a weak example of probable story types Bionic Woman will be using. Sadly, the threat unspecified and confused. Just who are the terrorists? What did they want? How can the government cover up mass deaths like this, without arousing any suspicion? A whole town was wiped out! If such events are as common as we're led to believe, surely someone would have twigged by now...
The exact nature of the company Jaime's involved with is also very hazy. They seem to be an all-purpose, secretive agency, but it's not clear why they ever developed a bionic-human program. Are "super-soldiers" like Jaime even necessary? Nothing she does couldn't have been achieved by regular agents!
One pitfall for the series will be balancing Jaime's abilities. She's not totally bionic, so has her weaknesses, but at the moment it's only her lack of training that gives regular combatants any chance of winning. Once she's au fait with her fighting technique, the writers will have to be careful trying to keep her plausibly beatable, but not tiresomely so -- because a big proportion of viewers want to see Michelle Ryan kick some ass!
I'm also not convinced by Jaime's homelife, looking after her younger sister Becca. In the unaired Pilot I saw originally, Becca was deaf, but the character is now hearing unimpaired and played by a different, cuter, younger actress...
While Becca's lack of disability undoubtedly makes scenes flow faster (without all that sign language), it takes away an interesting disabled/superabled schism for the Summers sisters. Basically, having a deaf character was the show's only intriguing idea, but it's been replaced by a bog-standard sister act.
The trouble is, I'm having difficulty caring, or believing, in their close-knit relationship. Why is Jaime acting as sister/mother? Maybe it will make more sense once we understand what happened with their parents, but isn't that something the Pilot should have cemented?
There's also a small subplot for the first Bionic Woman, Sarah Corvus (Katee Sackhoff), who was the undoubted highlight of the Pilot. Even with limited screentime, her smirking tomboy act is fun to watch. It's a cliche to say villains have more fun, but it seems to be true; as Sackhoff's focused deviousness is more exciting than Ryan's tentative naivety...
I actually don't blame Michelle Ryan for Jaime's mundaneness, as I think she's performing the material to the best of her ability. She's beautiful (even making one-armed pull-ups look sexy!), with a great girl-next-door vibe, but everything that works about her is physical at the moment. Once the character has grown in confidence, perhaps Ryan will deliver a super-heroine with a personality to match the body.
As for the supporting cast; they're just playing archetypes. Miguel Ferrer is so synonymous with slimy, tough guys, that his presence is annoyingly conformist. His RoboCop connection doesn't help either! How much better if Isaiah Washington had been the boss? He has a far more agreeable chemistry with Ryan, but the writers need to settle on who's going to be her "mentor", as there are four characters being shuffled around in that role!
Paradise Lost is just a poor, unexciting episode. Jaime's decision to join the company is predictable and cliched. The deadly toxin plot is lazily handled, dramatically unsatisfying and rather boring. The only highlights are a fun training sequence for Jaime and scenery-chewing Sackhoff: totaling 5 minutes.
3 October 2007
NBC, 9/8c pm
