Bionic Woman is a reboot of the '70s series The Bionic Woman, launched by David Eick, one of the producers of the new Battlestar Galactica. It briefly aired on NBC in fall 2007 and starred Michelle Ryan (Zoe Slater from EastEnders) as a Fake American.
It lasted only nine episodes before the writer's strike and low ratings killed it.
Bionic Woman provides examples of the following tropes:
- Achilles' Heel
- Jaime's natural arm.
- Occasionally her bionics in general, too (one early episode actually has her breaking a bionic toe while leaping a fence).
- Always Save the Girl: Averted. Even though he loves her, Jae Kim doesn't hesitate to Boom, Headshot! Sarah Corvus the second she rushes him. Jonas Bledsoe's wife died even though he knew bionic technology could have saved her life. Will Anthros appears to follow this trope only for it to be revealed he'd been grooming Jaime as a potential bionic woman all along.
- Anyone Can Die: Will Anthros and Antonio Pope.
- Badass Normal: Jae and Antonio are skilled enough to fight a bionic woman in unarmed combat (though not necessarily beat her).
- Battle in the Rain: Jaime and Sarah's fight in the pilot.
- Big Brother Is Employing You: There's a GPS tracker inside Jaime's head, and Berkut can see everything she sees. Jaime is not pleased.
- Blessed with Suck: Jaime discovers she'll be dead in five years unless new technology is developed.
- Bratty Half-Pint: Becca Sommers, Jaime's fifteen-year-old sister.
- Break the Cutie: Although she's a bit of a badass from the start, elements of the various episodes suggest this being attempted of Jaime.
- Cool and Unusual Punishment: Jaime is assigned to babysit a Poor Little Rich Kid who pulls the usual Ditch the Bodyguards stunt. As punishment Jaime puts her in a room for two hours with Berkut headshrink Ruth Treadwell — two hours later the Mind Screwed kid meekly apologises.
- Cool Big Sis: Jaime to Becca, but her efforts are hampered by Jaime having to act as surrogate mother thanks to their Disappeared Dad.
- Compromising Call: While Jaime is hiding from well-armed mooks in "Paradise Lost", Becca rings demanding to know where her Tenacious D T-shirt is.
- Consummate Liar: Ruth is impressed by Jonas ability to beat a lie detector while saying "I love you." Jonas puts this down to his long marriage. This is followed up in a later episode when Jonas smoothly lies to Becca about his job, despite Becca grilling him with the kind of questions that her sister would stuff up.
- Cut Short: Due to its quick cancellation, none of the major story arcs are resolved.
- Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Or cybernetics make you go Ax-Crazy and kill fourteen people.
- Cynicism Catalyst: Corvus is haunted by the death of her sister, killed while they were drink-driving.
- Cyborg Nosebleed: When Jaime deactivates her tracker.
- Darker and Edgier: Definitely applies to Jonas and the Berkut Group who are a much more malevolent organization than Oscar Goldman's OSI (at least as depicted in the original TV series; they're actually consistent with how Caidin treated Goldman and the OSI/OSO in the original Cyborg novels and the original 1973 Six Million Dollar Man pilot movie). Can also be applied to Jamie, who though she is unwilling to kill anyone herself is more inclined to beat the stuffings out of bad guys than Lindsay Wagner's Jamie (and in one episode she actually encourages a colleague to shoot a bad guy dead).
- Dating Catwoman: Jae Kim and Sarah Corvus. Subverted in that they're fully prepared to kill each other if necessary.
- Deadly Upgrade
- Dodge the Bullet: Jaime reacts to a long-range sniper shot but not in time to save her fiancé. She pulls him out of the way of the second bullet but only because she had time to realise it was coming.
- Does Not Know Her Own Strength: Jaime tries making out with a handsome stranger in a restroom and ends up breaking one of his ribs.
- Elaborate Underground Base: Wolf Creek Biotech Research Facility.
- Everything's Sexier with a Brit Accent: When posing as a British exchange student in "The Education of Jaime Sommers" Michelle Ryan reverts to her natural accent, described as "Literally the hottest thing ever" by Nathan. During the mission she meets her Love Interest, CIA agent Tom Hastings, who is somewhat disappointed when Jaime reverts to her "real" accent. The next episode has them Undercover as Lovers in Paris — Jaime's discovery that Tom speaks fluent French clearly puts her in snogging mode.
- Evil Counterpart: (With touches of Evil Mentor) Sarah Corvus to Jaime Sommers.
- Good Eyes, Evil Eyes: Sarah's bionic eye glows red when it activates. Jaime's glows green.
- Healing Factor: The anthrocytes can heal injuries at a rapid rate but also shorten her lifespan.
- Heroes "R" Us: The Berkut Group, a private corporation set up to stop technology from falling into the wrong hands (who constitutes the "wrong hands" is entirely up to them).
- How's Your British Accent?: The Trope Namer.
- Interservice Rivalry: Between Berkut and the CIA.
- Ironic Echo: Jaime complains to Jonas about not having any privacy due to the tracker inside her head. Later Corvus turns up at her house and Jonas asks why they didn't know right away.Corvus: You said to hold off on that — something about her right to privacy.
- Juggle Fu: In the pilot Jaime knocks a switchblade from a mugger's hand, takes him down with some martial arts moves then catches the knife as it falls. That's when she realises she's been programmed as a Super-Soldier.
- Laser Hallway: Visible despite the fact that Jaime's bionic eye could have given her a plausible way of seeing infra-red beams. Subverted when instead of trying to slip through the beams, Antonio deliberately steps into them so he can use Jaime as a Trojan Prisoner.
- Mad Scientist: Will Anthros has a rather disturbing look in his eye when he shows Jaime her new bionic body.
- Manipulative Bastard: Jaime discovers her fiancé Will Anthros had been keeping a file on her... dating back two years before they "met", clearly assessing her as a potential bionic woman. Jonas Bledsoe may be this or a Guile Hero, depending on whether he's really looking out for Jaime and Corvus' best interests as he claims.
- Mission Control: Nathan
- Mundane Utility: An episode opens with Jaime racing at Super-Speed down a dark alley at night, leaping over a fence In a Single Bound and yanking open a car door to reveal her underage sister necking with an older boy. As she broke a bionic toe jumping the fence, Berkut makes a point of telling her just how much it costs to replace.
- Mythology Gag:
- The sound played in the original series whenever the heroine used her bionic powers can be heard on several occasions towards the end of the series. And at least one use of old-school slow-motion running, too.
- One episode includes a reference to ransom payment, which is set at $6 million.
- Neural Implanting"You're hardwired for highly specialised warfare."
- No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: Will turns out to have destroyed all the updated information on the anthrocytes.
- Not Quite Dead: Sarah Corvus. Will Anthros dies after being shot in the shoulder but without the audience seeing it, implying to the Genre Savvy viewer that the writers might have had this in mind for him.
- Parental Substitute: Apart from Jaime acting in this role for her sister, there are indications that Jonas is taking on a surrogate father role for them both.
- Percussive Maintenance: Jaime's ear implant is ringing, so Nathan fixes it by Dope Slapping her on the back of the head.
- Punched Across the Room: What happens when your fiancée discovers you've turned her into a bionic woman without prior consent.
- Shout-Out
- In "Paradise Lost" Jaime walks into a house which has Battlestar Galactica (2003) showing on television.
- The A-Team intro spiel is used as a password in the final episode.
- Shower of Angst: When Jaime returns home after being turned into a cyborg.
- Stealth Hi/Bye: Sarah Corvus does this; justified in that she has Super-Speed so she can get out of the area fast.
- Strapped to an Operating Table: Corvus after her capture by the Berkut Group. It doesn't hold her.
- Surprise Car Crash: How our protagonist became a bionic woman. We later discover that Corvus was responsible, and she was recreating the car crash that killed her sister.
- That Was Not a Dream: Jaime freaks out discovering she's being turned into a bionic woman, gets stunned into unconsciousness, then wakes up with her body intact and apparently normal. She's relieved for a second... then her fiancé appears and tells her that what she saw earlier was indeed real.
- There Are No Therapists: Averted with Ruth Treadwell, though she doesn't do warm and cuddly.
- They Would Cut You Up: Berkut's repeatedly stressed reason why Jaime has to keep her bionics secret.
- Thou Shalt Not Kill: Jaime attempts to follow this mantra, refusing an order by Jonas to kill a target in one episode, though she doesn't seem to have a problem encouraging another agent to "take the shot" in another.
- Vomit Discretion Shot: In the first couple of episodes Jamie has difficulty adjusting to her bionics.
- We Have to Get the Bullet Out!: Justified as Jaime's anthrocytes were moving the bullet deeper inside her, rather than rejecting the foreign body as a normal body would.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Jaime is scared of flying.
- You Can Never Leave: Jaime can take out anyone Berkut sends, but as she's got $50 million worth of classified technology inside her they can't afford to let her go either...so they come to a compromise.
- You Remind Me of X: Jaime keeps running into underaged bratty girls on her missions.
