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Bionic Showdown: The Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman (1989)
Another Missed opportunity
First, I'll preface by saying I am a huge fan of The Six Million Dollar Man. I started watching the show as a kid, and it has never lost favor with me. Same with the Bionic Woman. Both shows were enjoyable, whether they were being serious, or tongue in cheek. That said, I was somewhat disappointed in this film, as I was in its predecessor. The writing and directing were far too choppy, as if they were trying to compress 4 hours of television into 90 minutes. There are times where it also seems like it was trying too hard to sell a pilot. Like "Return of The Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman" a few years earlier, the film was composed as a pilot for a series that would spin off from the saga of Steve and Jaime, and, as with most pilots, the network and the studio were characteristically stingy with the budget. The video effects used to make Kate look "more powerful" than Steve and Jaime were far too schlocky and poorly realized, and all of the characterizations were melodramatic pastiches of the originals. Gone was Steve's subtle sense of humor, and Jaime's compassion was twisted into a stereotypical Aaron Spelling-like mom character. Sandra Bulloch's character was ironically the most coherently realized, probably because it was her character that the new series would be based on.
Thank goodness for the caveat at the end, leading to Steve and Jaime getting engaged. It made for a nice lead-in to what would turn out to be the best (by a wide margin) of all the Bionic Reunion films. Much as i love the hows, I have to give this film two bionic thumbs down... although, I'll still watch it every now and then, like a guilty pleasure.
The Bionic Woman: Doomsday Is Tomorrow (1977)
The Best Episode of the Series (Some Spoilers)
There is a rarity in television, and that is a story that compels on all of the basic dramatic levels. It has humor, suspense, horror and a very sobering message. Jaime goes undercover to find out if a massive supercomputer, designed by Dr. Elija Cooper, really has the power to obliterate all life on Earth, as he claims. Upon the discovery that this is indeed the case, Jaime is compelled to find a way to disable the computer. She finds herself fighting a faceless foe (no offense to the fembots) whose sole purpose in existence is to carry out Dr. Cooper's agenda; To monitor the entire planet for signs of any kind of thermonuclear detonation, and destroy all life if one is detected. Cooper's intent is to scare the world into an immediate cessation of all tactical nuclear operations. His hope, albeit a naive one, is that this will force all of the powers of the world to come together, talk, and perhaps attain a lasting peace. He'll settle for a world where all wars are fought with conventional weapons, theoretically reducing the loss of civilian life.
Unfortunately, a foreign power with it's own newly developed nuclear arsenal believes Dr. Cooper's "Doomsday Ultimatum" to be nothing more than a foolish hoax, and refuses to cancel a planned test blast. With literally less than a day to do it, Jaime has to do battle with Cooper's supercomputer, ALEX7000. It seems an impossible task, as the computer is so advanced, it can even scan Jaime and determine that she is a cyborg, and adjust its defensive strategies to compensate.
What makes this episode so amazing is the deftness of the handling of such a fantastical premise by Lindsay Wagner. She shows just what a genuinely talented and insightful actor she is, as she literally carries the majority of the action in part two with nobody to play off of but a disembodied voice. ALEX7000 is dispassionate, omnipresent, and horrifically clever. It can do something one would not expect of a computer (outside of a Doctor Who or Star Trek episode); it can improvise. When Jaime realizes this, the terror she feels becomes all the more real. On the one hand, yes, she is able to surprise the computer. On the other, it is able to learn from her and adapt.
This episode is a success in all directions. From the lighting, cinematography, and the use of music, to the directing, script, and Lindsay Wagner's outstanding performances, it stands out as not only the most enthralling episode of this and its parent series, "The Six Million Dollar Man," but also as one of the best stories told by virtually any other episodic television series of its time. It is as stark a departure in quality and intensity for "The Bionic Woman" as "The Body" was for "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Not to say it doesn't have a few faults. ALEX7000 is obviously a thinly veiled rip-off of the HAL9000 from "2001: A Space Odyssey," and some of the effects belie the lack of budget a bit too much, but that still does not diminish the episode as the ultimate tour de force for Wagner and the series as a whole.
Torchwood (2006)
First Season Woes
First off, I will go on record as sating that, by and large, I do agree with many of the criticisms I have read regarding Torchwood. Having watched all 13 episodes twice, however, I find it impossible to dismiss this series as a failure. It is certainly getting off to a rocky start, but the first seasons of many series have suffered similarly.
If you objectively watch the first series of the original Doctor Who, for instance, you may find it difficult to understand how the show survived. Had it not been for "The Dead Planet" (the episode which introduced the Daleks), it most certainly would have disappeared into to winds of oblivion. If you take that story out of the equation, there are very few episodes/stories that were memorable, beyond being part of the beginning of a much larger series. Had the Daleks not shown up when they did, the series was to have been canceled after its 13th 23 minute installment.
So there were a few incomprehensible, uneven, or even downright unwatchable episodes ("Cyberwoman" comes immediately to mind). There were at least 5 duds of this magnitude in the 10 - 12 aired episodes of Buffy, Star Trek, Star Trek The Next Generation, The X Files and the first season of the new Doctor Who. Yet all shows were given a chance, and ultimately found their voice and their audience, to go on to become fantastic successes.
I will admit that the first series' finale, which I have nicknamed "Captain Jack Vs. Satanzilla" left a bit to be desired. Maybe if they had actually used Godzilla in the episode, instead of a 500 foot-tall reject from the Hellmouth, it may have been a more enjoyable watch. Nonetheless, I can't hate a whole series because of a few clunker episodes. It's so hard to get a good series to last as it is. Remember Firefly and Jericho? Two excellent series, whose only flaw was that they were not immediate blockbusters.
Let's put it this way; as an American, if Torchwood is a failure, it is still a far better series than the vast majority of garbage our networks cram down our throats that succeed. I, for one, am more than willing to give Torchwood time to grow and evolve as a series, if it means I have something better to watch than that horrendous pile of cyber-feces NBC slogged out and stuck the name "Bionic Woman" on last year. If Torchwood is crap, what the Hell do you call THAT atrocity?
Lovejoy (1986)
Possibly The Most Wonderful Character You've Never Heard Of
I have to credit my Ex-Girlfriend, Wendy for one thing... She broke up with me and forced me to move back in with my mother for a time just in time to catch this series on A&E back in 1995! Ian McShane is possibly one of the finest character actors ever to have a lead in a series, and the writing for this show certainly didn't hurt. Of course, it didn't stay on A&E very long, as they seem to prefer British series based on famous literary sleuths (Holmes, Marple, Poirot, etc.). Nonetheless, for an estranged Doctor Who fan (The local PBS station had just announced it's demise and their intent to cease carrying the series) that was jonesing for a fix of cleverly written British comedic drama, this show was a godsend. The stories were rich and enthralling, the supporting cast was wonderful, and McShane's characterization was brilliant. An honorable rogue with more than his share of brushes with Murphy's law made him so enchanting... More Rockford than Rockford, more Magnum than Magnum, and a gentleman to boot. My only regret is that i have no idea how to acquire NTSC copies of the show. I can only hope they start showing it again on PBS or BBC America some time.
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)
This Film is the Worst of the Series!
What is it with studios like Paramount that have a proven hit film series on their hands, and figure it can screw around with the budget and formula? Paramount spent less on this film than they did on TMP, which doesn't sound bad until you realize that there's a 10 gap between when the films were made. The $40 TMP cost to make would be equivalent to about $75 million in 1989. This film is the reason that Shatner has never been given a fair chance to direct other films, as well. Every time he turned around, the studio was slashing the budget and making demands regarding the storyline. The fact that this was the one storyline that Roddenberry and Shatner could agree upon for the most part made the freshman directorial task tough enough, but after all the machinations were done, all anyone ended up with was an uneven story and a load of badly executed special effects not worthy of the original series, much less a major motion picture. The most glaring examples: - All of the Phaser effects were severely ashed out and fake-looking. - The shot of the Enterprise going into the great barrier was so obviously a still-frame shot being zoomed away from. At least the popsicle stick that held the Enterprise cut out up was successfully matted out. - God "chasing" Kirk up the mountain... Egads, they may as well have just cut in shots of Godzilla climbing the volcano at the end of "Godzilla 1985," and used thumbtacks to scratch the emulsion off of the film to make electric bolts come out of his eyes at the imperiled Captain Kirk.... Yes, friends, I have a real problem with the look of that last scene, especially.
Thank goodness Star Trek VI was such a redeemer of a film...
The Six Million Dollar Man (1974)
One of the Most Maligned Shows in TV History
Okay, let's forget for a moment that the show degraded to cybernetic Sasquaches, Astral Projection and a Death Probe that looked like a cross between a Dalek and an SUV. The first three seasons of this series, and the pilot movie in particular were truly engaging and well written. Lee Majors, who had previously starred in The Big Valley and the movie Will Penny with Charleton Heston, got his big break in 1973 with a TV adaptation of Martin Caidin's ground-breaking novel, Cyborg. It was his first starring role, and as far as television was concerned, one of the most unique characters ever to grace the screen. Broken down to its most simple (bionic?) components, it was James Bond meets Frankenstein's Monster. The film did so well that ABC green-lighted a series of TV movies, that, in turn, garnered enough support to make a series. That's a monumental feat, considering that at that same time, Gene Roddenberry was enduring multiple failures with Questor (who, one might say. later evolved into commander Data), Earth II and a revival of Star Trek. Ironically, the series started off slow, with a minimal budget and a shifting schedule. By the time "Six Mil" found it's niche, the good writing was being rejected in favor of grabbing ratings by signing B-list guest starts like Sonny Bono and George Foreman. The rest... unfortunately, is TV In-Joke history... not too unlike Knight Rider and Quantum Leap. Let's hope Stargate SG1 and Angel fare better in the annals of TV History.