“Paradise Lost”
October 3rd, 2007
David Eick, executive producer on Bionic Woman, is also an exec on Battlestar Galactica (Which appeared on the television in Paradise). That show had an unfair advantage when it came to building the show’s concept: a lengthy miniseries in which the characters and plot were established. This allowed it to balance setup and action in a realistic fashion, and made for an absolutely fabulous episode to follow. ’33’ was a gritty realization of the show’s “Humanity on the Run” hook, and was a fantastic hour of television earned through an extensive pilot.
Bionic Woman, unfortunately, wasn’t quite as lucky. They had a clunky opening hour that while, containing potential, struggled with exposition and action and never really created a foundation for the future episodes to follow. As a result, “Paradise Lost” felt like yet another necessarily slow step in the future of the series. And while I don’t think I’m willing to claim the series has no potential, this particular hour did nothing to speed up the process.
After last week’s exposition and actionfest, this week proved two things: the action was non-representative and the exposition just wasn’t enough. We spend a lot of time learning about how this organization works, how their inner structure develops, and not nearly enough time on compelling drama or character development. At one point, a young girl asks Jamie “Who are you?” and I want an answer as well. This episode, very simply, didn’t offer anything to change what was already a problem with the series…but it didn’t add any problems either.
Cultural Learnings 