Bionic Woman: Super empowered

Spoilers for "The Bionic Woman" episode 3 coming up just as soon as I get a pedicure...

Better. Not there yet, but better.

Clearly, any episode with this much concentrated Sarah Corvus is going to be a significant improvement over last week's Sackhoff-lite affair, but there were some other improvements, notably the continued attempts to give Jamie (and, by extension, the show) a sense of humor. The teaser with Jamie having to take five from a sister's day out to babysit a terrorist (or whatever) was a cute little moment, and played out about as well as it should have: first bat your eyelashes, and when that fails, break out the bionic arm. Sackhoff still owns Ryan when they're on screen together, but at least I didn't spend the Jamie-only time checking my watch.

The fight choreography is also a work in progress, though Jae's explanation of how Jamie's fighting instincts work is a nice way to allow for Ryan's real-life progression as a martial artist. She's only got two or three moves down now, but I expect both actress and character to improve and diversify as time goes on. I do wonder, though, about the physics of getting punched or kicked by a bionic arm. Lindsay Wagner and Lee Majors were rarely put in positions on the original shows where they were asked to punch at civilians (they mostly put their muscles to use lifting and crushing stuff), but for two super-strong women, Jamie and Sarah's opponents have a disturbing tendency to get back up in a hurry. Just how much badass does $50 million buy, anyway?

The babysitting subplot added little, not even as some kind of parallel to Jamie's relationship with Becca, and much as I want to see Sarah around full-time, Jamie seems pretty gullible to be falling for Sarah's attempts at partnership in this episode. Forget the 14 dead employees for a second, if you want to write that off as her getting hacked; Sarah still killed Jamie's boyfriend and unborn child, and nearly killed Jamie herself. That's not something that should just got handwaved away in the name of bionic solidarity.

Finally, I'm pleased and a bit amused to see that they've ditched all of Mark Sheppard's old man makeup from the pilot. It was necessary back when Will was going to be a regular character, I suppose, since Sheppard's maybe 10 years older (if that) than the actor who played Will, but it looked goofy.

Again, I'm not sold yet, but this one at least suggested that David Eick, like Jamie Summers in a combat simulation, can learn from his mistakes and improve.

What did everybody else think?