Thursday , March 28 2024
Not only do we talk Bionic Woman today, we talk Naked Gun, too.

Pushing Daisies Goes For The Full Frank Drebin

Maybe I'm the only person to feel this way — I can accept that — but boy, did I like Bionic Woman last night. Yes, yes, yes, the show is not without problems, most notably that Katee Sackhoff's Sarah Corvus character (bionic woman 1.0) is a more interesting character than Michelle Ryan's Jaime Sommers (bionic woman 2.0). Hopefully the producers will pick up on that fact and sign Sackhoff as a series regular (right now it's just a multi-episode arc). Battlestar Galactica, Sackhoff's current full time gig is ending after this season, so she may have an opening in her schedule. Fingers crossed people, fingers crossed.

The dynamic between the two women is really what's at the heart of the show. Corvus is evil, but not wholly evil, Sommers is good, but reluctantly so. Can she be swayed? Will Corvus be able to convince Sommers to help her solve her bionic issues?

I have no desire to see this storyline wrapped up, simply because I can't imagine that whomever Sommers squares off against next would have remotely as interesting a dynamic as the 1.0/2.0 face-off. Unless, of course, Sommers's younger sister goes evil, but I just don't think that will happen, at least not in a bionic fashion.

I wonder one other thing though. Last night, as you may recall, Corvus taught Sommers how to turn some of her bionic abilities on and off (how to "hack" herself). This results in a nose bleed. Is Sommers doing some other form of massive damage to herself every time she hacks her own brain? Does hacking herself help turn Sommers into what Corvus has become? I'm thinking maybe.

Enough with bionicness, let's push daisies.

I thought the second episode of Pushing Daisies just as cute and fun as the first, but was disturbed how close they came to Naked Gun territory. Did you pick up on that? The clear plastic body bags that allowed Ned and Chuck to touch each other were awfully reminiscent of Naked Gun's full body condoms. I may have to stop watching the show if Chuck and Ned ever get a set of clear plastic body bags for home use.

Outside of that, the incredibly high "cute" factor was still there, and it still worked, but I don't know if it can work forever. You know who is terribly cute and I do love on the show though? Kristen Chenoweth. The fact that they were able to get Chenoweth to sing in the second episode in what almost felt like a natural, organic, moment was great. Why would you put Chenoweth on a show and not try and get her to sing? As for the Dandy Lion car… the thing had absolutely no ground clearance, so I wouldn't buy one. I can just imagine that every time the car goes over a speed bump the undercarriage gets hit.

The other thing I wouldn't buy from last night's television slate is that Peter, the owner of the Seascape Inn on Kitchen Nightmares was "made an offer he couldn't refuse," as we were told in the postscript, and sold the place. What a ridiculous disappointment of an ending to a show. The whole idea of the show is that Gordon Ramsay goes in and fixes places over the course of a week. It's a silly idea to think he can always be successful, but when he's not (which is what I think the case may have been here), there needs to be a greater explanation of what happened when Ramsay left. I think it could be done with a voice-over explaining how Ramsay put them on the right track, but things reverted once he left and the place died, and Peter's leadership skills were simply too weak to keep it all going.

You know who never disappoints me as a leader? Michael Scott. We'll talk about him tomorrow.

About Josh Lasser

Josh has deftly segued from a life of being pre-med to film school to television production to writing about the media in general. And by 'deftly' he means with agonizing second thoughts and the formation of an ulcer.

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