Ian On The Red Dot

I watched the first six episodes of NBC’s ‘Bionic Woman’. It was five episodes too many. I guess I was being hopeful that things would get better. It didn’t.

One of the main problems with this series is the continuity issues I found in some of the episodes I watched.

Take the second episode ‘Paradise Lost’. Early in the show, Jonas and Ruth are discussing a possible biological attack on a small town. Jaime Sommers (i.e. Bionic Woman) undergoes a few days of training after agreeing to be part of the team. Ruth and Jaime are sent to the town to investigate. They discover a girl living in what looks like the basement of a house. The girl is shocked that everyone else has died - apparently everything was fine the night before.

Wait a minute. Wasn’t the attack on the town discussed a few days ago before Jaime’s training started? Didn’t the show mentioned that the virus/toxin only had a lifespan of 12 hours? How could the only surviving member of the town act like everything was all right the previous night?

In the sixth episode ‘The Education Of Jaime Sommers’, Jaime goes undercover at a university as a transfer student to discover the supplier of chips that can be used for mind-control and turn people into killers. She get attracted to one of the Teaching Assistants who happens to be a suspect. They arrange a dinner date and on the way to the date, Jaime is attacked by a guy who has had the mind-control chip implanted in him. She manages to take him down easily, take him back to her headquarters, verify that a chip had been implanted in the guy and then go for the date. During the date, no mention at all of her being late. Which is just weird unless she had earlier left for the date like hours before it was supposed to start and had intended to reach wherever the date was held hours before the meeting time because how would it be possible for all that activities to be squeezed into such a small time window.

Unless of course the headquarters is like right beside wherever she was when she got attacked which seems unlikely. Or they had set up a temporary headquarters near the university which also seems rather unlikely.

I also disliked the change in direction with regards to the younger sister. The pilot had a younger sister with a reason to be angry with Jaime and the world - she was deaf and Jaime had left the family after their mother died. The second episode changed all that with a younger sister who was pretty, intelligent and just rebellious for what looks like the sake of being a rebellious teenager. The sister was, in other words, just another tv cliche.

It would have been awesome if the writers had allowed the deaf sister to stay on. There could have been some wonderful ironic subplots built on the relationship between a younger sister who was deaf and an older sister who just had an upgrade to her hearing capabilities and knew that she had access to the kind of technology that might heal her younger sister.

The show can be fixed but with the writers’ strike, it is probably going to get canceled before that.

When I was growing up, my childhood was spent reading books about ‘Robin Hood‘ and the ‘Outlaws of the Marsh‘.  Then there was that movie starring Emilio Estevez - Young Guns.  Then I fell in love with books written by Mario Puzo such as ‘The Godfather’.  The first film of the trilogy starring Marlon Brando is one of my favorite movies.

A few years ago, I chanced upon a series titled ‘Hustle’ produced by the BBC.  In recent weeks, I learned that the chinese video hosting site tudou.com had all the episodes up to season 4.  To find the first episode in season one, type ‘Hustle s01 ep01′ as the search query.  To find subsequent episodes, just change the number in ’s01′ and ‘ep01′ to indicate the season and episode you are seeking.  Each season has only six episodes.  I also learned of another series produced by the BBC - The Real Hustle.  This show is a documentary that teaches you how cons are pulled.

There is something about such stories that I find so alluring and captivating.  The brotherhood among the characters.  The importance of family and its protection.  The honor among thieves.  Living by one’s own code.  Not serving the Man.  Sticking it to the Man.

Why do we have government?  Why do we subject ourselves to laws, rules and regulations?  Why did our ancestors allow themselves to live under a ruling system?

Whatever the reasons for the taxi drivers in Singapore breaking the rules and regulations of the taxi companies, they have some measure of my sympathy.  As always, Don Corleone says it best.

“I work my whole life, I don’t apologize to take care of my family. And I refused to be a fool dancing on the strings held by all of those big shots. I don’t apologize for that. That’s my life. But I always thought that when it was your time that you would be the one to hold the strings.”

The story of Mickey Bricks’ father is one that resonates with me.  The fate of the father is one that I hope never befalls any Singaporean.

Sadly, it seems inevitable that it would.