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following review refers to the workprint version, which is not the final
print, meaning there is a very good chance the final print – that is,
the print that appears on TV – will be (in varying degrees) different
from the version reviewed below.
The new upcoming WB TV show "Birds of Prey," a
superhero series about 3 "hot chicks who fights bad guys and saves the
world" on a weekly basis, brought up a point at the very beginning that
continued to bug me all the way to the very end. It is this: Why is the city
that the show takes place in called New Gotham City? Gotham City, as many
comic book fans know, is the city where the Cape Crusader (aka Batman) defends
the weak from the poor, the innocent from the guilty, etc etc. So, I must ask
again – why keep the "Gotham City" part but add a "New" to
it? It just doesn't make sense, especially in light of the show's liberal use of
the comic book universe by referencing all things Batman-related. So why alter
the name of the city?
This 1-hour pilot episode (clocking in at 50 minutes sans
commercials) tells the tale of the Huntress, aka Helena Kyle (Ashley Scott, last
seen in a blink-and-you'll-miss role in Steven Spielberg's "A.I."),
who joins up with wheelchair bound Barbara Gordon (aka Batgirl, played by Dina
Meyer ("Starship Troopers")), to fight crime in New Gotham
City. The duo has been at this for a while, and is soon join by psychic Dinah
(Rachel Skarsten), a small-town girl who flees to New Gotham City because
she had a vision about Barbara and Helena when she was a child. (Hey, makes
sense to me. Right?)
"Birds of Prey" the TV series is based on a comic
book by DC Comics, the comic book publisher that's been hugely successful making
serialized TV versions of their properties. (The other big DC property is
"Smallville," about Superman's early, teen days, which is also on the
WB Network.) Unlike "Smallville," "Birds of Prey" is
just…awkward. It wants to be so many things, and it comes up short on all of
them. Which is a shame, because the series has quite an amazing pedigree.
Consider this selling point: Helena Kyle, aka Huntress, is
not only the daughter of Catwoman, but also the illegitimate child of Batman!
This means Helena has inherited the fortunes of Batman's civilian alter ego,
millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne, since Batman (and Bruce) has deserted New
Gotham City in favor of greener pastures. The episode never makes mention of
where he disappeared to, and Batman only shows up for a brief second or so in
flashback (and we only see his back at that). In an effort to further tie Batman
with "Birds of Prey," Alfred, Batman's faithful
manservant, shows up in a cameo.
Because much of "Birds of Prey" was so
astonishingly uninteresting to me, I kept wondering why the city has a
"New" in front of it, and why everyone keeps pronouncing Helena's name
as "Heh-la-na" rather than "Ha-lee-na." Mind you, my
obsession with the "New"ness of Gotham City and the pronunciation of
Helena's name may seem trivial, but they were the only things that kept me
mildly interested! Without these provocative questions, I might have turned this
episode off after a reporter character showed up onscreen in the episode's first
minute to give us a convenient rundown of all that's come before as if she was
working for the Batman Channel. (Same Batman Channel, same Batman time!)
All of the above notwithstanding, Dina Meyer gives a very
mature and rounded (and not to mention stable) performance as Barbara Gordon,
the masked crimefighter turned wheelchair-bound detective. Having been shot by
the Joker and paralyzed, Barbara is no longer Batgirl, and has to live
vicariously through the too-cool-for-school Helena. Meyer is very good as the detective who is forced to use her mind to fight
crime instead of her fists, even though she misses that part of her life dearly. The
episode's most endearing moments concern Barbara trying to come to terms with
her own past and failed career as a masked crimefighter. The rest of the episode
(and probably the series) becomes excuses to show Ashley Scott's cleavage.
Which brings us to Ashley Scott and the Helena character.
What can I say, except that Helena could not have been anymore tiresome if she
tried. Her rebel-without-a-clue act wore out its welcome before the end of the
first commercial break. Quite an amazing feat, especially since she's supposed
to be our lead character. (Take a look at the poster and tell me who is the star
here.) Worst, Scott has a bad habit of making expressions with her face that
leaves very little room for sympathy. (It also makes her quite unattractive, but
that's another point entirely.) Helena is supposed to be macho and tough on the
outside but vulnerable on the inside (she saw her mother murdered 7 years ago
and has never known her father), but Ashley Scott simply makes Helena not
complex or vulnerable, but just, well, painfully unlikable.
The episode's other problem involves some of the most
atrocious one-liners I've heard this side of a Roger Corman film. There are some
genuinely cringe-inducing lines, leaving me to wonder if the writer got all her
lines from comic books or did she actually think these up herself. And then
there's the extremely uninvolving and snooze-inspiring plotting of the episode
(something about people committing suicide, or something).
Also, there are exactly two scenes of Helena in action. One
involves her beating up (get this) an unarmed kid trying to date rape poor
small-town girl (and as all lazy writers are want to make them, also naďve
small-town girl) Dinah. After beating up the would-be rapist in (where else
but) a dark alley, the Huntress, complete with tiger growling soundtrack, shows
up again in the end and…sits down in an armchair while the episode's villain
explains his master plans to her. How James Bondish. Wait, James Bond was never
this boring, nevermind.
The only names of
note attached to this lazy turkey are Meyer and Sherilyn Fenn (TV's "Twin Peaks"), who shows up as
a (not-very-convincing) psychiatrist that Helena is sentenced to see by the cops
because (get this) she got caught while in the progress of (ready?)
crimefighting! How did she get caught? Well, being the rebel that she is, Helena
refuses to wear a mask while on her crimefighting spree. Or gloves, for that
matter, thus leaving prints everywhere, I suppose. Where did this girl go to
crimefighting school anyway? (Of course, the real reason she won't wear a mask
has something to do with her hating daddy and mommy, both of who wore masks. But
who cares, really?)
Meyer is great as the crippled Batgirl, but as a TV
series, "Prey" will mostly work with adolescent boys who might get
excited seeing the Huntress running around showing major cleavage and the
occasional glimpses of Batgirl in costume (in flashbacks and psychic visions
only, of course). There is an attempt by the producers and writer Laeta
Kalogridis to make the show appeal to teen girls with the Dinah character, but
like Kalogridis' attempt to write a superhero show, the character is just bland
and lazy.
The only thing that would make this series work is if the
producers decided to turn the whole thing into a superhero spoof ala Pamela
Anderson's "V.I.P." Otherwise, "Birds of Prey" will be just
another embarrassing show trying to capitalize on the whole superhero trend, as
well as the Chicks That Kicks Ass fad currently sweeping the networks at the
moment.
*****
 elow
is not a review of the pilot episode, only comments regarding the differences
(if there are any) between the televised version shown today and the workprint
version I reviewed 3 months earlier - Updated on 10/09/02.
There
were some changes, but not enough to make this show any more palatable. Sherilyn
Fenn has been replaced by an actress whose name I don't know, and the opening
sequence features voiceover narration by Alfred instead of the very fake
"reporter on the street" used in the workprint.
With
the replacement of Fenn, the sequences between Helena and Quinn have been
reshot. I believe additional dialogue have also been added in an attempt to make
Helena more sympathetic. Or perhaps someone just told Scott that she shouldn't
be such an unlikable jerk the first time we see her.
The
alley scene where Helena saves Dinah from a would-be rapist has not been
retouched, and Helena still moves around with her own personal animal
soundtrack, such as tigers growling and other such nonsense. The dialogue that
made me cringe in the workprint is still present, and the show continues to try way
too hard to be "hip" and "cool" and "irreverent."
It doesn't work even once. Every time Helena talks about "the forces
of evil" and "bad guys" I felt my finger slipping closer and
closer toward the remote. I am a tremendous fan of superhero movies and comic
books, but "Birds of Prey"'s "hipness" is not
endearing it to me. I suspect it won't be endearing to anyone else.
The
pilot clocks in at an awkward 70 minutes, and besides the reshoots involving the
new Quinn and Alfred's voiceover, the episode remains relatively unchanged.
Ashley Scott (as Helena) continues to be abrasive and an irritant as her head
bobs from side to side as she does her best "I'm too cool for school"
routine (over and over again, natch). Meyer continues to be the best thing about
the show and Rachel Skarsten, as Dinah, remains bland. There is no action to
make one stand up and notice unless you consider Scott's cleavage gawking for
the audience as action. The best scenes in the episode are ones where the Helena
character is missing, which should speak volumes.
All
in all, "Birds of Prey" remains a terrible bore and the casting of
Scott, as the series lead, remains a major reason not to watch. Why
does Scott think smirking at everything is "acting"?
(All
the above being said, I'm still puzzled why the daughter of Batman and Catwoman
has superpowers such as augmented strength and vision. Batman and Catwoman were
normal humans who, though they had exceptional athletic ability, were not
superpowered (or metas, as the show calls them). While parental genes may
transfer over to the child, how in the world did the child grow up to become
imbued with superpowers? The pilot never bothers to address this question, and
perhaps it's for the best since any explanation would just make this series seem
more preposterous than it already is.
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