by Herbie J Pilato
Back in 2007, NBC debuted and cancelled its new Bionic Woman, a reboot of the classic 1970’s female sci-fi sequel to that same decades’ Six Million Dollar Man series, starring Lee Majors as Steve Austin, the bionic man (both of which were originally on ABC).
David Eick was the executive producer of the new Woman, but he failed to work the same magic he had performed with the then- recent re-do of another small-screen sci-fi classic: Battlestar: Galactica. As Eick told the Syfy Channel’s Battlestar upfront presentation to advertisers in New York on March 18, 2008, “I just felt that the process [of reinventing TBW] was so frustrating, and the conditions under which we were making that show never really came to fruition in such a way that I felt like we could make the show well. The actress [Michelle Ryan] we found was wonderful. Some of the writing was good.”
Yet, Eick added, “We just didn’t ever bring it all together like we did with Battlestar. At a certain point, when it becomes that frustrating, I think you’re better off to say, ‘Let’s try again another time, and let it go.’”