Painkiller Jane

After a very good and exciting pilot episode this series took a very deep dive! I don't know what happened but the pilot episode somehow doesn't connect with the later episodes I have seen! The fact that Painkiller Jane can heal quickly and even recover from death is an interesting subject! But to my regret this ability isn't used to my satisfaction! I haven't read the comics but surely the comics have more interesting stories than the ones they have shown! From what I have read on wikipedia Painkiller Jane (from the comics) is a skilled fighter,master of undefined martial arts and a master marksman! Combined with her special ability she is virtually indestructible! Apart from the pilot episode nothing of this is shown! In the show Painkiller Jane is more of an detective solving crimes! Another detective show,give me a break! The show is so boring that it becomes unbearable to watch! Kristina Loken is a beautiful woman and certainly is an important reason to watch the show! But that isn't enough to keep me interested! If the stories would be more exciting and if she would use her special ability more than for me it would be more interesting to watch the show!

Apparently, it is customary to either hate or love a show, that's however not how I work. I think this show had very little potential to begin with, but managed to build up quite a fun team-dynamic and plot, though horribly clichéd at times.

I'd rate it a 6+, because it's just fun to watch and forget, like many shows today. I really liked Rob Stewart as Andre McBride, he really put a strong, disciplined leader in the show which it really needed. The team itself gets many moral issues to deal with (definite +) but the writers didn't manage to put the conclusion in the team-context (definite -).

Overall, mediocre show.

Unlike another user who said the pilot was bad but the series "just keeps getting better", I found the pilot to be pretty good for a Scifi Channel pilot, but the series failed to build upon that base and instead churned out the same formula week after week. The multi-episode arc involving Jane's investigation of the source of her abilities was introduced about three episodes too late and was really the only thing that could have saved this. But by that point in the run, people had already given up on the show. And you have to admit that, following on the heels of the success of Heroes -- which also features a hot blonde with amazing healing ability -- PKJ really needed to hit the ground running, rather than stumbling and jogging in place. A competent show with interesting locations, decent acting, but only average scripts and thin characters, it really didn't have much of a chance.

It took me about 5 episodes to realize what was wrong with painkiller jane: nothing matters, nobody cares. every episode is just 40 minutes of watching a beautiful but somewhat dull kristanna loken solve a case involving -of course- some kind of a neuro. and the action isn't all that great either. what makes it bad is that there is almost no character building. there is no emotional depth. none of the team members matter to us. even jane won't really reveal much of herself, so why should we care? as an example: in one episode janes partner gets shot. there is of course a funeral (because there has to be) but one episode later its like she never even existed. nobody seemed to miss her, nobody mentiones her. thats just how shallow painkiller jane is. and its too bad, because there are some good episodes that show us how P.J. could have been.

The main critique against this show seems to be that it's too much like 'Heroes', which is a fair enough critique --- but also ignores the fact that 'Heroes' is an incredibly standard formula show (albeit a really good one). I would not base my review of 'Lost' off of Gilligan's Island. And so, Painkiller Jane should be seen in it's own right, and when this is done, it's a pretty satisfying show.

I never read the comic book is based on, and had almost no expectations going into it. But the show definitely builds on itself, and despite a fair number of gratuitous 'Jane getting shot up' scenes, it's a good way to waste a weekend. The show feels truncated, since it didn't get picked up for another season, and that's a disappointment. But some of the writing is impressively good, and the dynamics of the team (and their dialogue) tends to get better and better as the show goes along. There are weak episodes in the mix, but altogether, if you're looking for some series to quickly digest, this works.

Given the low budget and the miniscule fan base this show received, this show is a little gem amid the static.