NBC's reimagination of '70s 'Bionic Woman' series makes original seem tame

LOS ANGELES -- Lindsay Wagner never had to use jujitsu or save Canada from Bosnian terrorists.

Well, times have changed.

Today's "Bionic Woman" (airing 8 p.m. Wednesdays on NBC) is one superhuman leap from the now-seems-tame series of the 1970s.

A spinoff of the hugely popular 1970s series, "The Six Million Dollar Man," the original starred Wagner as Jamie Sommers, the female recipient of some high-tech replacement parts who went on secret missions to stop bad guys.

But the similarities with the new show stop there (her name is even spelled differently -- it's "Jaime" now).

"She's the girl next door whose ability to kick your ass you don't see coming," said executive producer David Eick of his vision for the character.

Unlike the original, Eick envisioned "a younger person, who, like Spider-Man's Peter Parker, had these unique abilities hoisted upon her without asking for them, and then have her personal life be in constant competition with her newfound abilities."

Sommers' personal life consists mainly of watching over teenage sister Becca, for whom she's now responsible following their parents' split. The difficulty lies in the fact that, for the sake of her sister's safety, she must keep her secret activities just that, a secret.

Adds series co-star Isaiah Washington, who portrays Sommers' mentor, Antonio Pope: "It's what I call a 'perfect imbalance' -- trying to figure out this new underground world, and still be the big sister at home."

Sommers is a "consultant" with the ubiquitous Berkut Group, a clandestine organization that fixes problems that can't be handled by the police, military or FBI.

Sommers, after suffering a near deadly auto accident, has had her legs, one arm, an eye, and one ear replaced with bionics -- though not in a 1970s mechanical way.

Part of the challenge, Eick said, was "we only had the rights to the show's title and the character's name, but, legally, we couldn't depict mechanistic technology that involved parts being placed on the body."

The solution lay in the use of "anthrocytes" injected into Sommers' blood to regenerate the missing parts, instead of replacing them.

The regenerated limbs give Sommers unusual strength and agility, something she needs when practicing the rough-and-tumble martial arts performed in the show by several members of the cast.

Helping her put her new fighting tools to work are Jae Kim (Will Yun Lee) and Pope (Washington).

"She has a hard time, because she's still a wide-eyed young lady, and still wears her heart on her sleeve," Washington said. "So he has to infuse in her an understanding of what teamwork means, and how to operate off of instinct and be laser sharp. Because if you don't perform well, if you have a bad day, someone dies."

Since the beginning of the series, Sommers has slowly been growing into her role as a "weapon," and boss Bledsoe has slowly moved from seeing her simply as a $50 million investment to a human member of his team.

"He's beginning to warm up to Jaime," Ferrer explains of his character. "It's inferred that Jonas had a poor relationship with his own daughter, so he's reluctantly becoming sort of a surrogate father to Jaime. Which depresses the hell out of me," the 52-year-old Ferrer said. "I'm a father now to some hot chick? Ugh."