A chat with the 'Bionic Woman' (and her producer)

NBC's Bionic Woman is one of the most anticipated shows of the fall. It's based on a fondly remembered series from the 1970s, and it carries the imprimatur of Battlestar Galactica executive producer David Eick, who knows a thing or two about updating old sci-fi shows.

But chances are that prior to Wednesday's premiere, a good deal of the audience will never have laid eyes on star Michelle Ryan.

Though she's a newcomer to these shores, the British actress is already well-known in her home country thanks to a five-year run on the immensely popular soap EastEnders. She and Eick chatted with reporters about her transition to American TV and bringing the show into the 21st century (see Zap2it's review for our take on how successful they were).

Eick on the not so fictional science: "There's actually a line in the script about that, about how science fiction isn't fiction any more. You know we constantly struggle, to be honest, in the writers' room to stay current.

"[It] seems that more and more when you come up with a crazy idea, you realize the reality is even crazier and that you were actually being too tame. And the risk you run, of course, is that some things are just so hard to believe, even if they're true, they don't play as true. And so striking a balance between not just what is scientifically possible but what's still scientifically believable is part of the challenge.

Ryan on memories of the original series: "I remember seeing a couple of clips as a child and thinking that Lindsay Wagner seemed like a very nice, very pretty lady. But that's really the only memories I have of it, really."

Eick on changes to the pilot: "One of the things I learned very early in my career ... was that in the genre, so to speak -- and whether it's horror, science fiction, fantasy, superhero -- there are so many permutations of what you're doing and more of what you're not doing, and people will bring their own perspective to that.

"And some people come in thinking, well, if it's got someone with super strength, it must mean it has to be really kind of funny and kooky. And other people come in and say, well, it's got someone with, you know, a tortured soul who's had this thing perpetrated on her, then it's got to be very dark and twisted. Other people might say, well, it should be very female and soft. I'm speaking about this show, but I think it applies to all genre material -- finding the show is a very, very tricky thing and having done non-genre shows, you know, cop shows or detective shows or whatever, I just think it's a very, very different exercise.

"And finding the people, not just people who get "it" but defining what the "it" is that you want everyone to get, and then finding those people, is its own sort of separate kind of endurance test. So I think this is really no different from frankly most of the genre shows I've done."

And on the departure of exec producer Glen Morgan: "Things will change because he is a very specific personality with a great set of leadership skills and a real clear vision of the show. And to the extent some of that is going to undergo some adjustment, he's going to be missed, because I think we all agreed that the template he was helping to build for what the show was becoming was quite good and valuable, and we'll be using a great deal of it."

Ryan on finding Jaime Sommers' humanity: "I haven't read a script like Bionic. After I left [EastEnders], I was like, I'm never going to try out for anything with huge options, and then I read this script for Bionic and I was like, OK, I take it back. I'm going to because I think it's like, yes, she has these deeper abilities, but at the core of it, it's this young woman's journey of self-discovery and her rise to empowerment, and I feel like I'm on that journey. I just felt an instant connection."

And on doing the cool bionic stuff: "Wow, I've had so many incredible action sequences. We're using a Krav Maga style of fighting and the stunt coordinator ... has been coming up with some really dynamic moves for Jaime. So it's lots of sort of flying, spinning kicks. They had me up in a harness yesterday [Sept. 6] and then I'm on another harness today doing these sort of crazy stunts.

"So yeah, I'm a real adrenaline junkie, so I absolutely love doing it and as much as possible I'll do my own stunts. So there's lots of punches. There's a whole big sequence with Antonio Pope [the character played by Isaiah Washington] and Jaime where he tries to bring out the animal instinct in Jaime and that's a really dynamic, really sort of hardcore fight."

Bionic Woman premieres at 9 p.m. ET Wednesday.

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