Give 'em the Bird
The practice of remixing an established mythos to produce a new series must be one of the Hollywood power executive's most tried-and-true methods, a procedure as basic to Hollywood deal-makers as "kidnap the hero's love interest" must be for villains. And loathe as I am to admit it, I see their point - new shows based on old material have a built-in fanbase, and has the potential of reaching an entirely new audience.

Yet remixing comics for a mass consumer audience is an uphill battle, as normally the built-in fanbase feels cheated by this watered-down version served to the general populace, who usually ignore the show anyways. Previous attempts show the ratio of misses far outstrips the hits in the category of superhero shows. For every DC cartoon like Batman or the current Justice League, there's the embarrassingly hokey Lois and Clark or I Was A Teenage Superman drama of Smallville. For every X-Men, there's an X-Men: Evolution. For every The Tick, there's... well, there's The Tick. Thus, while shows aren't usually around to suck that long, it does decrease the chances for a truly good series to break out with this already established strike against it. And it's doubly hard with a live-action show in this vein to be promoted with a straight face - the WHAMMO! of a campy black eye the Batman series has given live-action superheroics has taken years to heal.

Which is why I do have to give the WB their due for picking up Birds of Prey. Be it that the network has finally realized the waning longevity of its patented formula of Pretty White Kids With Problems, or decided to capitalize on the superhero boom of current times, or wonder of wonders, actually took a chance in its lineup, they gave the DC title a shot. That both the comics label and the television network fall under the same corporate umbrella was merely a happy coincidence, I'm sure.

On the other hand, I was fearing... nay, expecting a letdown due to the curse of television action and the general handling of past superhero shows. What the commecials showed was basically Harley's Angels, V.I.P. in Gotham City, Charmed with the DC Universe. This was related to Batman like the Final Fantasy movie was to anything with the Final Fantasy label on it. It didn't help matters that the credits rolled and I recognized names who had a hand in producing All That. Ask how, and I kill us both.

Fly Away, Birds of Prey
The original comic follows the adventures of the female crimefighting team of Dinah Lance A.K.A. the Black Canary, and her partner, the wheelchair-bound Oracle. An encounter with the Joker left Barbara Gordon (once the original Batgirl) paralyzed from the waist down - for more details, hunt down a copy of the acclaimed stand-alone Batman tale The Killing Joke, by Alan Moore. Now she acts as dispatcher and researcher for most of Gotham's spandex set - think Tank from The Matrix, except stacked and given the Professor X mode of transport. A character unrelated to BoP directly but who still makes random appearances in the Gotham continuity is the Huntress, a crossbow-toting vigilante who looks up to Batman as a role model and mentor.

Now here's where it gets fuzzy. En route to the screenwriters, the comic was apparently viciously attacked by a kamikaze gang of people who spun in circles, then ran with scissors. To save it, the script doctors hurriedly mixed and matched various parts, taking whatever was too badly mutilated and replacing it with whatever they could find. Reawakened by dark arts and lightning, the new creature stumbled forth and let out a primal roar --

"... What?"

And Now, You Know the Rest of the Backstory.
It sounds a lot better than what was done, trust me. The basic backstory, including why Batgirl is Oracle, is shown through poorly edited scenes of an oddly Prince-like Joker menacing Batman and what appears to be a dehydrated raver girl kung fooling around in a Halloween store Catwoman costume. The two costumed adversaries finally break through years of plot, sexual tension and common sense, and knock cowls. The product is Helena Kyle (Ashley Scott - the sharp-eyed among you may remember her as the rainbow-haired 'ho-bot from A.I.), Bruce and Selena's illicit love child. Now right at the start, something is wrong - first of all, of all the equipment Batman carries in his utility belt, condoms aren't one of them? Come on, Bruce, it's way past the 90's; you've got a bulletproof vest, protect your Dick Grayson Batpole as well. You don't know where that cat's been!

Anyway, Selena is later murdered by an unidentified assailant before the eyes of her rapid-growth daughter. Seriously, immediately after the time they mention her, she's all grown up - it's got to suck to have a time-lapse photography childhood, especially if the images end with your dead mother. Nearly immediately after, Batman pulls a fast fade from Gotham, too... probably to avoid the baby-daddy drama of child support payments and to visit a clinic for that burning sensation he's been having lately. With the three biggest characters in the Batman mythos shoved through a large plothole, we flash forward to our heroines in the rechristened "New Gotham."

Sisters Are Doing It To Themselves
The loss of Helena's mother and father are too hard to bear, so she makes bank the Coyote Ugly way; tending bar. By night she's the Huntress, posessed with the "metahuman" ability to have her pupils change and play stock National Geographic panther sound FX as she demonstrates her mastery of Sudden Camera Cuts Kung-Fu. She also doesn't bother to wear a mask, as the low neckline of her night-time outfit ensures that no one will be looking at her face. The cops probably think that a headless crimefighter is cleaning up the city.

The Black Canary becomes the wide-eyed lip-trembling Dinah (Rachel Skarsten), a teenaged Hottie Joel Osment with psychic plot-revealing powers through a weird Pleasantville-style b&w filter. She comes to New Gotham to seek the figures in her dreams, Huntress and Oracle. Probably about the only character faithful to her roots is the wheeled wonder Oracle (Dina Meyer of Starship Troopers), due to being part of the old guard of the Bat-family. Yet she has a change of clothes nearly every other scene – either she can still walk, or Alfred (Ian Abercrombie) enjoys playing dress-up with someone who can't fight back. That's right, the girls hang out in the Hill Valley clock tower from Back to the Future with Bruce Wayne's faithful guy Friday, who must think he's in old man heaven now. Certainly Master Bruce never wore tights this well.

Other characters include the inquisitive cop whose past credits include an awkward hip-hop dance show and As the Days of Our Guiding Light World Turns, so I'll just call him Detective Soap Train (Shemar Moore) for short. He gets to share confusing sexual tension with the Huntress. Maybe they'll have an insta-grow baby and make an even worse show, I wouldn't put it past this network.

Rounding out the recurring cast is what appears to be a poorly made clone of Anne Heche to represent the alter-ego of Harley Quinn, Joker's gal from the Animated Series. As psychologist Dr. Harleen Quinzel Medicine Woman, (Mia Sara, once upon a time the main squeeze of Ferris Bueller), she has sinister wannabe Sopranos psych sessions with Helena and schemes to bring back the Joker. And by "sinister" and "schemes" I mean "boringly contrived" and "watch something else."

The Plot Sickens
The story weaves the heavy-handed introduction of the main characters and their aims with something about businessmen dropping like rich white flies, which is vaguely connected to the recently purchased Gotham dockyards. Oracle guides Dinah through underground tunnels filled with exposition and flashbacks where Bats and the Joker had their fateful last battle. Meanwhile, Helena tries to protect the probable next one to bite the dust, only to discover he's behind it all. This guy's also the second badguy in the pilot to have a forehead so huge you can read his thoughts if you squint - earlier, the Huntress saved Dinah from a would-be rapist who had a cranium like a lightbulb with a wig and a face drawn on it.

Anyway, Evil Republican Businessman slips Helena a mind control rufie and mentally draws on her worst fears to get her to commit suicide, like the other dudes from Monopoly did. If she dies, it's a start, I suppose. (Un)Luckily Dippy and Cripple come rolling in to back up their soul sister, and the Huntress smokes the Psychic Ed Bighead in Dinah's dog-eye-view psychic world with a tiresome fight scene. Of course Quinzel Washington's behind it, muttering vague threats (only threatening in the promise of another episode) as she hitches up her eyebrow like it's trying to get back to the rest of her hair. The premiere is tied up with a touching ending to the tune of Michelle Branch's latest song that's not "Everywhere," which had my eyes rolling so far back in my head I could see my brain packing its things, muttering that it didn't have to take this kind of shoddy treatment.

Come Home To Roost
Thus concludes more than a non-refundable hour of my life. For what? The ten extra minutes should have been spent on the apology to the viewers. Three women successfully defeated a young hoodlum and a businessman. Big deal, one woman can do that alone by screaming, "Rape!" And that's pretty much what this is, however pretty the show may try to make it look. Mark Hamill does what he can by lending his voice to the live-action Joker, but not even Luke Skywalker could save this lame duck (no offense, Oracle). Should you and your friends be drunk and masochistic, this show is great to set up for an MST3Kill. Otherwise, Birds of Prey is for the birds.