Painkiller Jane

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.

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!

I watched Painkiller Jane from the premiere onwards, but stopped watching once Psych came onto USA during the same time slot. Painkiller Jane isn't the best show by far, yet I would still call it one of my favorites on today. If you want sci-fi that doesn't make you think a lot yet still has reasonably interesting characters (Riley and Conner being two of my favorites on the show), then PKJ is for you. I'm glad Sci-Fi at least gave it a full season--it's a shame about the possible cancellation, because I think the cast could have grown into their roles and improvement dramatically with a second season.

Overall, I think the show is fine if you don't come into it with high expectations. Take it for what it is: an hour escape from reality. It's not meant to be Pulitzer Prize-winning material, but just a development of an old comic book idea. For all intents and purposes, PKJ provides a entertaining hour full of action.

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.

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