Bionic Woman 1.02 Paradise Lost review

Original US air date: 3/10/07

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Written by: Jason Smilovic

Directed by: Tim Matheson

Rating:

The One Where: Will is dead, and Jamie discovers he had a detailed dossier on her, stretching back years. She goes on her first mission, to the small town of Paradise, whose population of 200 has been killed by the release of an airborne biological weapon.

Verdict: Three important questions are, exasperatingly, left unanswered in this episode: who, how and why? “They” are planning to attack 20 cities, but who are “they”? How did they get hold of the toxin (stolen from Berkut)? What’s their motivation? And why do they return to the scene of the crime? Dummies.

We never meet the people of the town, and we don’t see them dying: they’re just statistics. So Jaime’s first mission feels like a training exercise, and mass murder is made completely unaffecting.

WTF? Hang on, Jaime’s fiancé Will is dead? Huh?! It certainly didn’t look that way in the pilot episode – he was only shot in the shoulder!

Cool Tunes: The song playing while Jaime trains is “Don’t Give Up” by London indie rockers The Noisettes.

It’s Wossisname! Isaiah Washington (Antonio) played Preston Burke in Grey’s Anatomy – until he was sacked for using a homophobic epithet in a bust-up with a co-star.

Did You Spot? A space battle from Battlestar Galactica is playing on a telly in one of the houses in Paradise. It’s from “Exodus, Part 2”, apparently.

Trivia: The book Jaime’s browsing in the book store, What Colour is Your Parachute?, is a “manual for career changers”, a bestseller in the States.

Richard Edwards

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