Birds of Prey is short lived television series based on the DC Comics publication of the same name.
Birds of Prey The Television Series
I had no idea that Birds of Prey even existed. I came across it during a wiki walk while looking for something unrelated regarding the Batman mythos. After a little research, I found many people agreed it was an okay show with a little room for growth. Unfortunately, since it never got past the first season, it was never allowed that potential growth.
What is Birds of Prey?
Birds of Prey is an action television series based off DC Comic’s comic book series of the same name. The show only ran for one season between 2002 and 2003. It features three women fighting crime. That’s pretty much it.
Helena Kyle aka Huntress is the brawn and main character. Barbara Gordon aka Oracle is the brains, and Dinah Redmond is the newest and youngest member. They beat-up the bad guys and take down nefarious plots in New Gotham. Yes, there are other characters and even a main villain, but we will keep it to the basics.
Where Birds of Prey Failed
They could have just as easily left out the whole Batman connection they invented and still would have had the same story, since he doesn’t actually have anything to do with the story. But like I said, they could have removed every DC reference and it would have been a tighter show for it.
As an example, Helena Kyle is the daughter of Batman and Catwoman. This could have been left out. Many characters from the comic series make either a brief appearance or no appearance in the show at all, even some of the more regular ones. There is a lot more to this but I don’t want to get too much into the details of it. It’s understandable that they took liberties with the source material but they took the wrong liberties.
Another reason that they should have left the DC elements out is their use of the whole “metahuman” concept. Admittedly, metahumans do exist in the DC Universe but they may have gone a little too far with it in this show. Everybody with any sort of ability is a metahuman. A metahuman is a person with some genetic trait that gives them some kind of ability (think Marvel mutants like the X-Men).
They overuse the phrase as well as the trope.
Birds of Prey Still Offers Plenty of Action
As this is mainly an action show, there is plenty of action. But in a post-Matrix world, it has become more and more difficult to impress with the type used in Birds of Prey. This is especially rough with the main character Huntress, whose use of over-the-top acrobatics during many of her fight scenes seem a little out of place much of the time.
I understand that you can only expect so much stylized choreography with a television show budget, but I swear they sometimes used the same exact shot of Huntress doing the same exact acrobatic fighting move during the same fight!
I know it sounds like I am beating this show down, but that is not the case. It is adequate for some lazy watching. It is full of action and even if the special effects aren’t the best, they are passable. The show could have been much, much better and I think if it had been renewed for another season or two, it would have grown into something truly good.
The full series can be found for cheap on Amazon: http://amzn.to/BirdsOfPreyTV
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