“Gossip Girl” slaps down “Bionic Woman”

Mediaweek is reporting today that advertisers like The CW’s new fall lineup, thanks to shows like the teen-angst epic “Gossip Girl.” Because it’s, as they said in “The Hudsucker Proxy,” “you know – for kids.”

Meanwhile, they’re not so bully on Fox shuffling its schedule in January, consigning “Bones” – which made some inroads this past season – to Friday, the network’s perennial Dead Zone. Advertisers aren’t so keen on NBC’s new remake of “Bionic Woman,” either, or ABC’s “Cavemen” (no! really?) or CBS’s “Viva Laughlin” (advertisers being longtime opponents of musical comedy, having lobbied Congress in the 1990s to pass the No-Singing,-No-Dancing-as-Entertainment Directive; the legislation died in committee).

“Bionic Woman” reprograms the ’70s series into a more sinister, paranoid animal. Here, Michelle Ryan stars as a bartender with a high IQ (if it’s so high, then why is she a bartender?) almost killed in an automobile accident – that was no accident at all. Her equally brilliant boyfriend, who survived the punishing wreck with just a couple of scratches, patches her together with militarized body parts (because, you know, our nation would be crippled by a sudden bartender shortage). Turns out he’s part of a shadowy government agency attempting to create high-tech soldiers. As with “The X-Files,” “Battlestar Galactica” (both shows contributed executive producers to this venture) and “Heroes,” unnerving questions of the “Who’s the good guy?/Who’s the bad guy?” variety carry the day.

“BW’s” pilot concludes with a hellacious catfight between our new bionic woman and the first bionic woman – no, not Lindsay Wagner; Katee Sackhoff (so that’s why “Battlestar Galactica” killed off Starbuck), who went nuts, went rogue and promises to be a burr in the backside of all involved. After the two women tussle, they seem well-satisfied with their little workout, a sequence that will no doubt invite all sorts of conjecture and stir prepubescent boys for reasons they cannot fathom.