Painkiller Jane

Network: Sci-Fi; Genre: Action, Mystery, Sci-Fi; Content Rating: TV-PG (violence, language); Perspective: Contemporary (star range: 1-4);

Season Reviewed: season 1

Of all the show's I've watched this year so far, few are quite as punishing as "Painkiller Jane". To call it a "mess" or "sloppy" would not begin to do it justice.

Jane Vasko (Kristanna Loken) is an agent for a secret crime fighting agency that hunts "Neuros" – defined by Jane in the opening as "people who can do strange things with their mind". A Neuro is basically a catch-all that allows the show to do anything it wants. The show trots in villains who can see the future, can start fires, are banshees, machine controlling killers and, hell, maybe even ghosts. There are no set rules or consistent behavior to the Neuros, or if there are the show plays pretty fast and loose with them. The Sci-fi Channel should know one thing, if anything about their base: that sci-fi fans love keeping up with the rules of a new world.

Led by this complete lack of focus with the Neuros, the show slips and slides all over the road trying to plug itself into every genre and sci-fi story it can think of - possibly in the name of versatility, possibly because it has no personality of it's own. When a show can pull this off successfully you've got some wildly inventive TV heaven, but when it can't you've got a mess. A show without a backbone or its own original voice.

The superhero catch: Jane has an ability herself. She can heal, quickly, from anything. Even a fatal fall or a hit from a train. The show doesn't have the budget that, say, NBC's "Heroes" does (which includes a character with the exact same power) to allow us to really see Jane's bone-crunching skills in action. So most of the "stunts" are pieced together from a series of confusing shots leaving the viewer to decipher what the hell just happened and squashing any potential thrill or intensity from the show. The fundamental flaw with "Jane" is that while this may be based on a comic book of the same name, from Wolverine to Clair Bennett we've seen this ability ad nauseum and it is a hard thing to get excited about anymore.

On top of it all, Loken plays Jane as deadpan and emotionally cold as her cyborg villain in "Terminator 3". The woman either cannot act at all or somebody forgot to tell her than Jane should have emotions. But Loken is a gorgeous woman playing to a sci-fi crowd and the show makes the mistake of treating her like one of the boys. Knowing how silly it was and who it was playing to "Dark Angel" had the foresight to put Jessica Alba in skimpy clothes and have her go into heat every time sweeps rolled around. "Jane" has our main character covered up, trapped in a boring love life and musing over narration about how you never really know somebody… or something equally basic. It is as if the show is on a mission to keep her as sexless and dull as possible on every level. Will she get together with the bald emotionally distant jerk on the team? Even that might help. Come on, let's give the internet something to talk about.

If it didn't look like garbage or was written with one inane, confounding line following another, everything in "Jane" from the characters to the show's world is half (or never) explored or explained. For to do that might require the show to think something out or express itself in a voice that is something other than cheap, manufactured, assembly line stories. Could Jane be a Neuro herself? If not that would be quite a coincidence. I'm sure answers will come, but I for one, won't be sticking around any more to get them.

If any promise was made by "Eureka" to trend the Sci-Fi Channel out of its non-stop output of trash, "Painkiller Jane" reverses that with a vengeance.

½ / 4

Frankly, I'm surprised by the number of negative reviews of Painkiller Jane. It seems to me a competent, if not exceptional, sci-fi series with considerable entertainment value, interesting characters, and sometimes engaging plot lines. Some episodes are derivative but none are truly bad, except perhaps for the pointless clip show in episode 16.

It certainly focuses more on the emotional than the cerebral, but that's not really a criteria for judging a show, not even a sci-fi show.

The writing is solid and the main characters are competent actors. Kristiana Lokken is definitely more than just eye candy -- although the eye candy part does add to the watch-ability -- and she creates a sympathetic and occasionally complex character. (She is credited as a co-executive producer of the series, whatever that means in Hollywoodese). The other main characters are equally competent, although some of the supporting actors are 2nd tier.

It is a bit loose at times but it starts to tighten up toward the end of the season when the focus shifts toward following a story arc rather than the neuro of the week, episodic format.

I suspect many of the negative reviews arise from two things. The first would be viewers who might be comparing it to the comic book, which I have not read, and which should be irrelevant. The second would be production values which are generally based on budgets. There are no mind-blowing special effects in Painkiller Jane, nor should there be. It's not a space opera.

Overall, I think this show got a bad rap, and I would definitely recommend it to sci-fi fans for it's entertainment value.

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.

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.