There’s nothing about Birds of Prey that new writers, a better director, better dialog coaches, and, oh, yeah, half a dozen replacement actors and actresses couldn’t solve.
Actually, I can’t really say that about the acting talent. Given the truly horrific lines they were given, Meryl Streep, Judi Dench, and Kate Hepburn couldn’t have made it work. Though it would have been more entertaining to see them try.
I won’t get into the differences between the show and the comic, except to note that (a) there was nothing inherently bad about the changes in concept, just in execution, and (b) the book really is good. Really.
On the bright side, my Wednesdays aren’t tied down aside from Junkyard Wars.
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It didn’t suck nearly as bad as I thought it would. You’re forgetting how miraculous it was that Spider-Man and X-Men didn’t reek, and that Smallville only stinks part of the time.
I thought the dialog was incredibly stilted, particularly in writing, but also in delivery. It made ST:TNG Episode 1 sound natural and unforced.
I thought there was way too much backstory crammed into the episode, clumsily — and even at that, they had to make it a “70 minute” episode.
I thought the action sequences were highly mediocre. I thought that, aside from the nice cityscape CG, the whole thing felt like it was shot on a shoestring budget — lots of close-ups, darkness, blurry action, etc.
I thought Huntress’ outfit was one of the goofiest things ever — moreso even than what we saw of Batgirl’s.
Maybe my personal bar has been raised, since I’ve been willing to put up in the past with shows that stank on ice only because they were sf/fantasy/comic-based. But the more I think about it, the more I think this is an example of Sturgeon’s Law, and there is enough decent stuff on out there to make watching this totally unnecessary.
(Of course, I said many of the same things about the pilot to B5, so go fig.)
I think I got through until the commercial break around 20 minutes in, just after the first real fight sequence and that was it. I switched over to West Wing. Given the options during the time slot, I really didn’t think it was worth my while to watch something so poor just for the girls.
Besides, CJ’s pretty sexy in that more mature kind of way.
I am giving it the benefit of a doubt. Like you said, Star Trek: TNG Episode 1 was pretty lame. Give the writers and actors time to settle intot he show. If they have not shown signs of improvement within the season, it will be dropped anyway. They could replace it with The Tick. That would make me happy.
I strongly regret not having instead watched the tape from last week’s Firefly.
I was unimpressed with the dialogue, and the actress playing the Huntress. Dinah was annoying in a “I want to be a clone of Fred” kind of way (Fred from Angel). I liked Batgirl, but really found it forced, her explanation of the end of her Batgirl career, right off the bat. Way too much stuff crammed into the 70 minutes.
I am also cheesed that they’re making the loveable psycho Harley Quinn into a deranged meglomaniac. I just *can’t* see this one pining over her “Mista Jay” or calling anyone “puddin’.” Though Mia Sara did better than I expected. They did get Mark Hamill to do the Joker’s voice, though.
Eh. I’ll give it another week or two, then probably stop.
I looked on Harley as being as canonical a figure as — well, as Huntress or Dinah. Which is to say, a chuckle when I saw the name, and then take it from there.
Can’t believe I missed it. Even though it sounds as if I didn’t miss much, I would like to have been able to personally pass judgment on the premiere. Of course, I had pre-judged it in comparison to the comic (Dinah’s a psychic???), but still…
Well, if you’re going to compare it to the comic, the must fundamental difference is that BoP is about two women — and their associated friends and enemies. That the two are the wheelchair-bound Babs Gordon and the kick-ass Black Canary (Dinah), with the Huntress being a completely different kick-ass character only loosely affiliated with Babs, is another matter).
So why the changes? The following is complete speculation, not based on reading anything anywhere.
You can’t have a TV drama about two unattached women partnering to fight crime, because someone is going to start making jokes about their being Lesbians.
Really. And it’s not a gender double-standard — how many shows do you see any more about two unattached male partners fighting crime? Are there any modern-day Starsky & Hutch teams?
So we need to make it a trio. Babs/Oracle/Batgirl is an obvious pick.
We need to have a kick-ass character, though. I can just see some studio exec saying, Black Canary? What is this, a bird-lover show? And another saying, We probably don’t want a character with the prefix “black” in their name — whatever race they are.
BC’s classic power is her sonic scream; her being a kick-ass fighter is a much later development. So replacing her as Oracle’s partner isn’t a big deal. And there is another Gotham-related fighting type available: the Huntress (daughter of mob family that was rubbed out, she turned to crime-fighting to avenge, yadda yadda yadda).
But we can improve on that origin, someone suggests. Keep the parents-killed angst (a la Batman), but strengthen the Gotham tie by having her the daughter of Bats and Cats.
And add some metahuman mumbo-jumbo by making her kind of cat-powered (even though the “real” Catwoman has no such powers).
(Actually, oddly enough, I think there is some precedent here. Wasn’t the Earth 2 Huntress the daughter of Batman — and, possibly, the Catwoman of that world?)
So we have the cerebral type, Oracle. And the kick-ass type, Huntress. How to round out the third?
Spooky powers, that’s how. Thus, Dinah (the classic Black Canary’s real name) becomes a psychic, linked to the other two by a vision as a child.
(And doesn’t it seem like Dinah grew an awful lot older between the origin flashback and the “present” than either Babs or Helena did?)
And, as a side note, by introducing a psychic, you provide an easy way to bypass actual detective work and tight plotting. The writer’s stumped! How do they solve the crime! Aha — we’ll do something psychic so that they get the clues they need — and it burns another few minutes of air time with cool sfx!
It all makes a twisted sense, and, truth be told, it’s not a bad retco of things, per se — certainly no worse than any given Elseworlds (or Ultimate) title.
Now, if they’d only spent twice as much on writers, fx, direction and acting talent, we might have had something going here.
No, no, no, no. You’ve got it all wrong. This was “The Powerpuff Girls, All Grown Up, With A Splash of Batman.” (Huntress was a PERFECT adult Buttercup.)
It was much more enjoyable that way. Blossom (Oracle) was the bossy one. Bubbles (Dinah, someday likely Canary) was the happy one. It’s catering to the adult Cartoon Network watchers in a big way.
Still, I liked a nastier Dr. Quinn. (“No Medicine Woman, Here.”)
I _didn’t_ like the whole metahuman angle. If I wanted an X-man fix, I’d, um… go to the box of comics.
Otherwise, though, I was amused. If I remember, I’ll watch the next one. In the meantime, Luthorville is better.
Hmmmm. Yeah, that metaphor works, too.