Bionic Women

For all that I love to heap praise and geek out over strong portrayals of women on television, at times I’ve got to examine the other side of the coin. And with that in mind, let’s just jump right in to the murky re-imagining of Jamie Summers.

Now, whether or not the original was a bastion of feminist ideals and how much it was a product of it’s time, probably the thing I find most disturbing about the new Bionic Woman is how almost blatantly anti-feminist it’s being presented as. It’s not just that Jamie is young and inexperienced, being thrown into dangerous situations, because that would be an understandable weakness. The trouble with Jamie in large part is that she comes off both as not that bright, and the only problems she’s capable of solving involve running really fast, in high heels of course, while the male half of her team takes care of any pesky thinking which needs to be done. And saving that, she can be in touch with a guy over the phone to tell her what to do.

Part of the problem with this series is the collective chaos which has gone on behind the scenes. It’s hard to find or quantify a show’s identity when it keeps morphing before our eyes. Originally, the plot seemed to center around the weaknesses in the bionics. That they were prone to being hacked, that the bionic subjects (all women for some unexplained reason) were vulnerable to having their very movements and actions controlled from the outside, and saving that the nature of the beast also meant that the men at the equally amorphous Burkit group were able to tap into Jamie’s ocular implants to see through her eyes any time they felt like it. There was also the introduction of the bionics as something of a ticking clock, with only a short shelf life before the implants turned against their host and killed her.

Whatever pathos might have been gleaned from these kinds of stories has been replaced, however, now by Jamie’s search for a good boyfriend. The last few episodes have revolved around Jamie’s unlucky search for love in her dangerous counter-terrorism-ridden world.

Perhaps a lighter touch might have been good for some mindless entertainment, because if you’re looking for deep thoughts from Jamie – good luck, the character has the depth of a sea sponge. But the truly frustrating part of this series is that the potential for a more interesting story already exists in the form of the “first” bionic woman, Sarah Corvus.

It’s not just a matter of Katee Sackhoff bringing a stronger performance to the table, though she does, but the brilliance of Sarah Corvus is in her instability, the mystery surrounding what has been happening to her and who is really in control of her and her bionics. And also, in the potential bond she represented with Jamie. Because unlike Jamie, Sarah fights against the control others are trying take over her own body, she struggles for answers rather than accepting the will imposed on her. And most interesting, she represents a somehow almost telepathic link to Jamie though their bionics by having the same ‘baseline programming’.

Once she understood the danger to her life, Sarah has tried to fight back. Even tried to enlist Jamie’s help, since Jamie’s life is most likely similarly in jeopardy. She suggested they work together, using their strengths to find answers. And even though she understands that she’s as damaged mentally as she is physically, Sarah still has to try, being driven by nothing less than a need to survive.

But who could worry about silly things like that when Jamie can find a new guy to obsess over when she’s supposed to be working?

The strongest episode of the series, by far, to my mind, involved Sarah openly reaching out to Jamie. Demonstrating their connection, and representing an understanding about how to have better control over her own body. She talked about how objectifying the bionics have been, how damaging and how as the two bionic subjects, they should stick together and work to solve their mutual problems.

Sarah also informed Jamie what she should have already figured out on her own, given that she found evidence of it herself. That the fiancé doctor who gave her bionics seemingly to save her life, had somehow been watching and tracking her before they had met. That he had, in all likelihood, specifically chosen Jamie to be recruited into the program and everything which had happened between them had been toward that end.

Fortunately for the Burkit group, but unfortunately for us, the younger Dr. Anthros apparently chose his subject very well. Because if he wanted a woman he knew was easily controlled and manipulated, was too shallow to seek real answers or control on her own, was too busy worrying about her love life to be bothered worrying about her life span, he found the perfect one.