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See...Lindsay agrees with me!
www.tvseriesfinale.com/2007/10/bionic_wo...sey_wagner_think.php
This show is a major blow to me. I was so hoping for a quality Bionic "something" revival to rekindle some of the magic in my childhood but alas we've recieved more pop culture bullshit. I felt the series creators were more concerned if the show felt "real" than if it was entertaining. I wanna see robots, bigfoot and aliens.
Well any chance of seeing a meaningfull return of these great premises and characters in our lifetime has just been pissed on.
Damn, I sound angry.
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- bionicskillz
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leave the show alone.
I've never seen a new tv series so badly manhandled by it's network. They fired actors, writers, producers. This is most likely drove off Glenn Morgan. Either that, or he got fired as well. The whole first season storyline and its subplots were thrown out by order of NBC. This all happened before the first episode even aired.
Since BW first aired, it's been operating without a full time showrunner or a full time writing staff. So, nobody has been really guiding it. Jason Katims, the showrunner of NBC's Friday Night Lights, was brought is as a temp showrunner. He brought a bunch of FNL's writers with him, but it looks like he was not allowed to us subplots and and storylines from the first four episodes.
They really filmed 9 not 8 episodes. The 2nd episode, was to be called Birds and it was thrown out by NBC. the next three episodes were heavily edited and reshot with 50% new footage.
NBC never told the cast and crew why the wanted to do everyhting I just stated above. I learned this fro readin interviews with the shows directer of photograpghy and acter Kevin Rankin, who plays Nathan, the tech guy.
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- AJF
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- brantley
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Maybe NBCU might move BW to USA or SCIFI.
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- AJF
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They really need to go back to the basics, which I thought they had started to do before the strike. Anyone notice the "lighter" plotlines, concentration on the individual missions, even the subtle sound effects they started to incorporate? The writing had gotten better, but it was so bad at the beginning that it had nowhere to go but up. Still, it was encouraging enough to hopefully let Katims have a second chance at it (I dunno if he had been responsibile for the last 2 eps)
The one thing that put the series into an immediate tailspin, IMO, was the lack of ANY continuity from a storyline AND production standpoint:
-- Change the actress playing her sister and don't make her deaf
-- Fire the show's co-producer (Glen Morgan)
-- Shoot the boyfriend and setup the relationship, only to have him mysteriously dead in the second episode
-- Setup a set of villians (Sarah and Will's dad) only to totally drop them by 4th episode
-- Bionic breakdown (homage to old series) of nanobots in ep 4? Oh nevermind, we'll just never mention it again
-- Make Jamie so resistent to the bioinics, then have her all gung-ho by ep 2
I could go on, but the show was such a goat rodeo, I can see why no one tuned back in. I'm probably off the minority here that doesn;t think you need great or sometimes even good writing to keep a show going -- plenty of examples out there that are still on the air. IMO, you need:
-- a good time slot
-- a likable cast
-- something to keep you coming back each week
-- luck
in my scorecard, Bionic Woman gets:
D (terrible scheduling by NBC, shoulda followed Heroes rather than go up against Private Practice -- the other much hyped show)
C (I actually like the cast, but I know I'm in the minority on this)
D (no cliffhangers, continuity that made you wanna find out 'why')
D (WGA strike, nuff said)
Jamie needs some major bionic rehauling if she still has time.....
My $.02
ElF
If you ask me, BW didn't fail NBC, NBC failed BW. I do hope that they film at least the final five episodes of the 13 episode order. They did hire a new fulltime showrunner just before the WGA strike started. I hope he can turn the show around, that's if Silverman and company let do his job.
Maybe NBCU might move BW to USA or SCIFI.
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- lfan
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Katims was not going to stick with the show for very long. Jason Cahill was hired as the new showrunner. It's highly likely that NBC put severe restrictions on Katims and company as to what kind of episodes they could write. No scifi elements, no darkness( Silverman has said in interviews that he would not have greenlit those ''dark" shows that former NBC programming chief Kevin Rily picked up), the CIA boyfriend , the funny tech guy. It all smacks of NBC dictating the show's content. It was Silerman's idea to put Isaiah Washington on the show.
The entertainment press has done a poor job of reporting this.
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- AJF
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I've heard rumors that the WGA stike could end as early as late Feb. NBC told TVguide that they were going to resume production on the sereies and film a least five episodes as soon the stike ends. Is the DVD release ment to generate interest in series return? Do they have that much faith in new showrunner Jason Cahill and his team of writers?
If the series is getting cancelled, why release the DVD so early, why call it Volume One if they do not plan to produce any more episodes? Are they going to use DVD sales to help deicde if they should continue the series in some form or another?
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- AJF
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Katims and his FKL crew were only working on the show part time. Those episodes were produced just show NBC would have episodes to air. I get the feeeling Silverman didn't like the show and and tried to taylor it to his tastes.
Katims was not going to stick with the show for very long. Jason Cahill was hired as the new showrunner. It's highly likely that NBC put severe restrictions on Katims and company as to what kind of episodes they could write. No scifi elements, no darkness( Silverman has said in interviews that he would not have greenlit those ''dark" shows that former NBC programming chief Kevin Rily picked up), the CIA boyfriend , the funny tech guy. It all smacks of NBC dictating the show's content. It was Silerman's idea to put Isaiah Washington on the show.
The entertainment press has done a poor job of reporting this.
No scifi elements!? That's nuts! The title character is a cyborg! You take out the scifi elements and you've got no main character! From what I've read in this thread, it sounds like NBC management is intentionally trying to tank Bionic Woman. Whether it's cutthroat office politics or chauvanistic aversion to powerful women on TV, those suits seem to be trying to destroy a good show for no good reason.
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- jumperprime
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www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com reports Silverman may be out of a job soon. Great article, Nikki Finke is known for her realiable sources. The article pretty much explains why so many terrible things happened to BW post-Reilly.
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- AJF
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