"Jane" jumps shark before first episode
By Ray Richmond
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Back in December 2005, Sci Fi Channel aired a back-door pilot titled based on a butt-kicking Event Comics superheroine who essentially was the second coming of the Bionic Woman. An Army Special Forces operative, she could run like the wind, had all variety of inexplicable physical and mental powers, possessed superhuman strength and was 10 steps ahead of everyone else. She was, in essence, Lindsay Wagner without the Ford campaign.
Now here we are 16 months later, and the show is back with a healthy 22-episode order. She still has a bunch of abilities, but not the same ones. She's now a government operative who is impervious to injury and cannot be killed.
In fact, "Painkiller Jane" has been reincarnated as a far lamer show than it was on first view more than a year ago. Back then, I raved about its alluring lead: Emmanuelle Vaugier of "Saw II" fame. She was the best thing about the original two-hour project. So naturally the producers went and replaced her. The new Jane is Kristanna Loken (the unstoppable cyborg from "Terminator 3"). She's not nearly as charismatic as was Vaugier, and her character's story also isn't as interesting. Before, she was rescued from certain death after taking several fatal gunshot wounds, suddenly fully healed and indestructible. In the current version, she can't be offed and has incredible regenerative powers but does feel pain, curiously. What was previously fascinating has been rendered convoluted.
Ain't that always the way? A show works, and so you gut it of all save for the title: new actors, new story line, new production team. It's like: "We love it! Now change everything." Ah, television.
As it now stands, "Jane" centers on DEA agent Jane Vasko (Loken), who has been recruited by the feds to do battle with the "Neuros," genetically enhanced folks with superhuman neurological powers because of an undisclosed aberration. They can perform telekinetic tricks and telepathic-induced hallucinations but often have no control over it.
Jane is joined by the usual motley futuristic crew: the team leader (Rob Stewart), the smart aleck (Noah Danby), the egghead computer whiz (Sean Owen Roberts), the doc (Stephen Lobo) and the best friend (Alaina Huffman). In the confusing premiere, the one thing we wonder but never discover is why she's called Painkiller Jane if she still can feel pain. Oh, that's right, it was a nickname her daddy gave her when she was a little girl. Whatever.
Are you riveted yet? Didn't think so. There's an abundance of style to go around here, with director of photography Todd Williams, production designers James Hazell and Paul McCulloch and visual effects wizards Adam Stern and Kevin Struckman creating a world of intense foreboding visually. It has an "X-Files"-esque quality in terms of the look and mood.
But the opening script by exec producer Gil Grant packs in the cliches and dumbspeak, and director Nick Copus seems to have told his performers to make like anal-retentive statues in their stance and delivery. Loken, for her part, has the Amazon woman look down but proves less than convincing as an action icon, evoking more incredulity than confidence. We'll see if her show is as immortal as she is. I'm guessing no.
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
