Thanks to the miracle that is Tivo, and to the partnership with Amazon's Unbox service, NBC is offering broadband-connected Tivo users the ability to download the commercial-free pilots for NBC's fall shows gratis.
I snagged Journeyman, Chuck, and Bionic Woman.
Let's start with "Chuck". The general idea is that Chuck receives an email from his former college roommate shortly before said roommate is killed. The email contains "all of the government's secrets subliminally embedded" into images. (Don't get me started on how the email transmitted millions of images in about a second.) Chuck is a nerd and works for the TV equivalent of Geek Squad. He's assigned a hot attractive CIA agent to protect him against those that would harm him. The show also features Sarah Lancaster ("What About Brian?") as Chuck's sister. This show is over-the-top -- the action shots, the plot, all of it. It's only hope is that the ladies in the show keep enough guys interested to prevent early cancellation.
"Bionic Woman" is interesting and dark. Yes, the story loosely follows the original. Her name is Jamie Sommers. As many of you will recall -- you take one attractive, young, and seriously injured woman and implant fifty million dollars of nano-hardware and you get one Bionic Woman. She sees incredibly far away, can hear anything she wants, has super strength and a lot of people want to kill her (because she wasn't their first choice of a candidate for the uber-secret program). I expect this show will last at least one season. It's well shot, has good special effects and kept my attention.
Finally, "Journeyman" is a modern day "Quantum Leap" sans Al and with a lot more leaping. Dan randomly is put into the past, some of which is quite familiar to him. He comes back to present day randomly but each time he's in the past he learns a little more of what he's there for. His present day family thinks he is crazy, but can he prove otherwise? The pilot was very well made... I loved it and hope to see this show excel.
So, if you have Tivo and don't want to wait -- start clicking!
