CAVEAT: Guilty pleasures. We all have them. Admit it. You cry at the commercial where the guy calls his mom...or something similar. We all have guilty pleasures.

Mine used to be BBC America, since I was engaged to an English bloke and figured I'd want to know all about his life, where he came from and what kind of things he was exposed to. You're wincing. You know what's coming. I got hooked on...East Enders. Specifically, the storyline of Zoe, the doctor, her sister/mother Kat and all the hell breaking loose right about then. Talk about trash TV; I'd sit there with a box of Tortino's Pizza rolls and crack up for an hour.

Here's where it gets wonky - Zoe was played by Michelle Ryan. The new Bionic Woman. I hate it when words collide, don't you?

Okay, NBC went with an ambitious plan of not so much re-creating as re-building the show into something plausible and fun. We all know NBC needed a good jolt in the arm after losing it's deadliest linebacker in the Thursday night "Friends" front. Then they lose Katie...it doesn't take a mystic to see, NBC needed a winner.

Except you can't call this show a winner, yet. Freshman year, the freshman five, we'll give it. It's a little too sappy in the whole Jaime/Becca relationship (yeah, she can't get school assistance AND work like the million of us out there? And where is this loser Dad who went AWOL after Mom died of cancer - look for that plot line to thicken to a nice gravy later on).

Molly Price as Ruth Truewell is KILLING me, she's so funny. "Look. I got a plant." She's the head-shrink to make sure that Jaime is adapting mentally in a positive manner after her bionic make-over. She plays it so straight, though, that I think she's the potential soda-through-the-nose moment for the season. An interesting twist - she's a shrink who does field work....okay. If that works for ya. Actually, according to NBC's official site, she's Bledsoe's 2nd in command.

Miguel Ferrer as Jonas Bledsoe, the head of the super-secret group that Jaime has to now work for to repay her $50 million debt (inflation, it's a bummer, man), is a  -hmm, stereotypical gruff-with-a-heart-of-gold kind of guy. I heard him comment in an interview that he has to play a father-figure to a totally hot girl, which really sucked. We feel ya, Miguel. But, hey - this last week, Becca, Jaime's sister gets busted for drunk driving, or shall we say drunk curb-bumping, and Bledsoe bails her out and...no lectures. Just the revelation that he has daughters and that maybe the lectures he gave were what drove them away. Meanwhile - DRUNK DRIVING ANYONE??? Like Jaime's not gonna notice THAT somewhere down the line? Plot hole so big even my tits fall through it.

Jaime's partner, Grey's Anatomy's Bad Boy in Residence Isaiah Washington - shortest character arc. Dead already. Dead, DEAD, D-E-A-D, throw him in a body bag dead...Unless they make him bionic. Oh, and wouldn't he just be all bad ass and forgetting to take names if he was bionic? That, friends...would be...naughty but nice.

Okay, and we get to the original reason I started watching the show (sorry Michelle): Katee Sackhoff. Originally, in the NBC lineup, it looked like Katee was in the main cast, but now she is billed as guest star. Can I just sing-song Mis-taaaaake here? Katee's portrayal of Sarah Corvus has got to be one of the most enigmatic characters on the NBC roster this year.  And I say this not because she's sexy as hell and carries the bad girl thing to the Nth degree, but because she can DO IT. She SELLS it. Backstory is that Sarah was the first bionic test case but couldn't handle the mind and body meld and lost it, killing a whole frak-load of people in the process.She Claimed her bionics were hacked and she wasnot in control of her actions and was really frightened. When her lover/mentor/teacher showed up, she looked freaked out and petrified and out of control and she looked as though she knew it and she said "I'm not in control!" SO, loverboy shoots her in the head. Ah, can't you hear the cupids playing softly in the background now...

Corvus showing up now makes for an interesting diversion - she's testing Jaime to find her weaknesses because she admittedly has been replacing the "weak" parts of herself with bionics. Hmmm. She also tells Jaime about the five year life span with the antrhrocites (new technobabble for "we make nanobots that make bionics in your body, we just die in five years"). Sarah is sincerely hoping Jonas has a cure but he doesn't - not yet, and the only man who does - is Jaime's dead fiance (and didn't she mourn him a long time????)  father. But golly-gee, sports fans - he just got boosted from prison.

Wonder what he's working on. (Cue ominous music.) (No, cue it now.) (NOW.)

And this brings me to another tidy little thing that I really rather love - it's "The Bionic Woman". I mean no offense to Michelle Ryan, but she's as womanly to me as a junior college varsity volleyball player. I can't feel the depth. Her finace is killed and she's DATING? Yeah. She goes from working in a bar slinging drinks to Selling Time Shares in Arizona? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, buddy? And dress the girl in something sexy once and a while cause I've seen her in that stuff and she can pull it off - believe me. (A buck-ten, fucking vomit.)  The only Bionic Woman in this series is - and perhaps I am prejudiced - is Katee Sackhoff, even if she is evil. She's womanly, she's seductive, she gets what she wants, she had no qualms about getting her job done and she is there for the mission. Kinda like her to be backing me up, if I ever needed bionic back-up. (as if.) Katee emanates the very visceral sense of the term woman.

Michelle is a really, really nice girl. She's the kind of gal you'd like to have as a friend - dependable, caring,k loving, do anything for you but who just has really really really bad luck. And you can see more coming a mile away, can't you? CIA guy? Totally BAD. Partner gets killed in three weeks? Maybe four? Her fighting skills are not progressing, she doesn't know enough about the situations she goes into like the old Jamie who at least had some governmental briefings (FEMBOTS notwithstanding) and a dossier before being dropped in.

The Non-couch-Bouncer has admitted he's just putting up with this one so far, but I think it has real potential - the cast can be stellar, each of them. If the storylines can be fleshed out and removed of sap, I think this has a real shot at being a long-term goer. So I am making him watch it every week,and I'll watch "Life" with him which - shhhhh - I like. (Secret - I didn't like the Sopranos the frst year, either. Shoot me.)

Except lose the opening credits montage on TBW - oh...my...god...what is that: Mummenchantz? Christ. I could've done better in my shower. In fact - COME to my shower, we'll do a better sequence.

PS- Anyone else notice the dearth of BSG cameos in the show? Chief Tyrell, Will Anthros' father, Leoben, others... Glad to see the writers know talent and arent afraid to re-use it when they see it. Kudos x50 for that one. You'll be remebered fondly, David Eick ("Battlestar Galactica"), Executive Producer. Good talent is out there. Keep a rolodex of it.

Not rating it cause it's a work in progress. I'll give it a year end rating and a probablitlity of renewal. But, I really hope it does well - I can see so much potential. A gal kicking guys asses? Curves and nerves? And a witty comeback? Go on, petal. We got ya. For a while longer, at least.