Like many Gen X’rs, I watched the new Bionic Woman. Things looked promising for the premiere since the same folk who brought us the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica were the brains behind this incarnation.

In an attempt to remove as much of the nostalgic factor as possible, Jaime Summers (Michelle Ryan) looks nothing like Lindsay Wagner, the original Bionic Woman, and further more works as a bartender in a large ritzy nightspot (in the original Jaime was a tennis player). Her mother dead and her father missing, Jaime takes care of her younger sister Becca (Lucy Kate Hale), who apparently is some kind of computer whiz having been court-ordered to not use a computer.

A truck crashes into Jaime and her boyfriend Will Anthros (Chris Bowers) severely injuring Jaime, destroying both legs, right arm, and right eye. Luckily Will, an expert on nanotechnology, works for a top secret government project. Using cutting technology, Will successfully grows new limbs and eye, though dramatically enhanced.

The popular Katee Sackoff plays the mysterious Sara Corvus with ties to the original Bionic Woman project and Will’s father. Corvus quickly establishes herself as Jaime’s arch-villain and the duo engage in a typical super-hero confrontation on a building roof in the pouring rain.

Ryan lacks the screen presence to compete with Sackoff, who as Battlestar Galactica‘s Starbuck showed she can hold her own with veteran actors the likes of James Edward Olmos and Mary McDonnell. While on screen Sackoff commands all the attention and when off, I kept wondering when we’d see more of her.

Perhaps a little campy in places, The Bionic Woman‘s more interesting bits left me curious and for now wanting more. If the camp and stereotypical superhero crap escalates or continues, I’ll find something else to fill my Wednesday nights.