Jason Smilovic Movies

A remake of the popular 1970s fantasy/adventure series of the same name, NBC's Bionic Woman starred Michelle Ryan as Jaime Sommers, the character originally played by Lindsay Wagner. In the earlier series, Jaime was a professional athlete; in the new version, she was a bartender and soon-to-be unwed mother. No matter: In both instances, Jaime was involved in a terrible accident which required emergency surgery--and a complete electronic overhaul. At the behest of her boyfriend Dr. Anthros (Chris Bowers), the first of several characters created for the remake, Jaime was rushed to a secret research lab, where she was outfitted with a pair of bionic legs and a bionic right arm, both of which provided super-strength and the ability to run in slow motion (representing extraordinary speed). She also was endowed with super-hearing skills--and, in an improvement over the original series, a new bionic eye (needless to say, the bill for all this retooling was considerably higher than the six-million-dollar price tag in the earlier show). Whereas the 1970s edition of Bionic Woman was, for all its gimmickry, a fairly straightforward action-adventure offering, the remake bore the heavy influence of 24 and Lost, accommodating a plethora of mysterious conspiracies and sinister secrets which weaved their way through the proceedings, with bits and pieces of vital information revealed on a "need-to-know" basis. There was also a soupcon of the Spiderman movie formula, with a dash of Smallville folded in, as Jamie slowly, awkwardly and sometimes painfully adjusted to her new and awesome powers, and to the responsiblities and consequences attached to them. The cast of characters in the new Bionic Woman included Jonas Bledsoe (Miguel Ferrer), the enigmatic (and slightly satanic) head of the Bionics research program; Ruth Truewell (Molly Price), Bledsoe's slightly more scrupulous assistant; maverick "program advisor" Antonio Pope (Isaiah Washington), the resident "I know more than I'm letting on" guy; and Jaime's computer-hacker sister Becca (Lucy Hale), who was always in trouble with the cops. This Bionic Woman joined NBC's Wednesday-night lineup on September 26, 2007. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Another of the many serialized TV dramas of the mid-2000s in which important clues and motivations were slowly and methodically revealed on a "need to know" basis, Kidnapped got under way when Leopold Cain (Will Denton), the son of self-made millionaire Conrad Cain (Timothy Hutton) and his wife Ellie (Dana Delaney), was abducted during a quasi-paramilitary attack on his private school. "Don't call the police" was perhaps the least cryptic message received by Mr. and Mrs. Cain in the days that followed; other messages and clues always seemed to be weighted with double meanings and vague allusions to unsavory incidents in the past lives of the victim's parents. Assigned to rescue Leopold (if possible) was chief FBI investigator Latimer King (Delroy Lindo), who much against his will was teamed with rogue ex-agent Knapp (Jeremy Sisto), who in turn worked hand in glove with his mysterious sidekick Turner (Carmen Ejogo). The search for the kidnapped boy whisked virtually everyone in the cast around the world, with Mr. and Mrs. Cain frequently bollixing up the "good guys'" efforts by refusing to follow instructions or going off on their own whimsical tangents. Early on, the Cains' bodyguard Virgil (Mykelti Williamson) abruptly vanished from the scene; was he, like several others involved in the case, a murder victim, or was he pursuing his own agenda. Unfolding in a "Rashomon" fashion with contradictory information and points of view, this was one of those maddening series in which "truth" was an intangible commodity at best, and in which everyone had a skeleton or two in the closet. Kidnapped made its NBC bow on September 20, 2006. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide