Patman

The original Huntress was the daughter of the Earth-2 Batman and Catwoman. The present incarnation of the Huntress bears little resemblance to the TV show version.

Black Canary used to have the power of a Sonic Scream (like Banshee from the X-Men a long time ago). I think Black Canary was also originally an Earth-2 character. When her husband died, and the opportunity presented itself for her to cross over to Earth-1, she made the jump, and hooked up with Green Arrow early on.

I think you have to treat the TV show like the Ultimate series that Marvel has done by creating a line-up of Marvel super-heroes that are "born" in today's time period, and do not have the baggage of continuity from the past 40 years. The Ultimate series is basically rebooting their major super-heroes with a clean slate of today.

The TV Show is just an extrapolation of characters which also exist in the DC universe in different incarnations.

Also, Batman had a child with Talia, Ras al Ghul's daughter, and supposedly Batman knew nothing of that child's birth (I haven't kept up with Batman in the last decade, so perhaps he's found out by now).

I treat Birds of Prey as a big exercise in "What if..." and from that premise, let's see where these ladies of the night (err, I should rephrase that, shouldn't I?) take us. I'm on board for at least half a season before I decide to give up on it.

mrglass

The original Black Canary didn't have any powers, but her daughter (who looks just like her and is also named Dinah) had the sonic scream ability.

I kind of like the liberties the writers have taken...It makes the show more accessible to non-comic book reading fans.

greydt

Ericf - Well, I'm not exactly a rabid fan, but to explain the plot holes: basically, you have the DC Universe too ingrained. This isn't the DC Gotham, just like Smallville has nothing to do with any of the Superman comics. Using DC Comics dogma for Birds of Prey is on par to the comics fan getting pissed off that Spider-man doesn't have artificial webshooters, or in the X-Men movie, it's "Brotherhood of Mutants" rather than "Brotherhood of Evil Mutants".

As for the other points you brought up:
- The Joker is a psycopath who's killed hundreds, if not thousands of people in Gotham.
- The Joker was tried because he's locked up, so how can they not know about Joker and Batman?
- How can they have a Batman without a Commisioner Gordon?
- How can Babs not be Commisioner Gordon's daughter?

Well, none of those have been touched on (it's only the second episode). Points 1 & 2 is probably tied into the Harley plotline, but there has been no mention of Joker killing hundreds or thousands (unless I missed something ) nor mention of Joker being tried and locked up. As for points 3 & 4, that hasn't been mentioned yet, and if they do, it would probably be for the Oracle plotline (and yes, it would suck if there's never a mention of Commissioner Gordon). However, I was making dinner and then doing dishes during the second episode, so I might have missed something. :P

Again, I ain't praising the show and I don't think it's the best thing since sliced bread. I'm also not going trying to convince you to watch the show, 'cause "to each their own" . Hey, I lost interest in "Enterprise" halfway through season one, and had zero interest in Smallville after the first episode, zero interest in Dark Angel, etc. - it's normal.

Hell, all I can say is that at least the pilot wasn't as cringe-worthy as the Babylon 5 pilot, and I LOVE that show

Personally, I'm giving "Birds of Prey" a half a season try to see if it can find it's "voice" (the entire season if it actually starts to get interesting). After that, I'll find better use for my time

immortal_zeus

Fear Bukkake Man!

Well, I finally got around to watching this episode. Thankfully, it was a lot better than the first one.

I still don't care for the Huntress or the actress playing the Huntress. That sucks because she's a main character and I can barely stand to watch her.

Dinah is better, but I can't stop staring at her huge forehead whenever she gets any screen time. Very distracting.

Dina Meyer's character and Alfred are the two best characters so far. Note to self: if I ever make the big time, hire a wise, old British butler. Note to self 2: make sure said butler is not Mr. Belvedere.

It's shows like this that make me thankful that I'm not a comic book buff or an authority on the DC/Marvel/whatever universes. I'm sure to followers of the DC universe this show is sacrilegious, and after reading through some of these posts and last week's thread I'm aware of the tangents myself, but you have to remember that there will NEVER EVER be a true representation of comic books on TV or the movies. When you read a comic book or a novel, you form an image and opinion in your head that will never totally coincide with what a TV show or movie spits out, no matter how hard the TV show or movie tries to faithfully reproduce the literature into moving frames.

Of course, "Birds of Prey" doesn't try to be faithful (from what I've read from you guys), but I'm guessing it's not trying to be. Obviously the producers and writers felt the need to exercise some creativity and license, so I say just give it a chance. Like I said, there's never going to be a true representation, so why fight it from the beginning? Like I said before, it's times like this that I'm glad that I'm not totally into the comic book universe and all that stuff, but I can definitely see where people would get their panties in a bunch when something isn't faithful to themes and knowledge that have been represented before. War and military movies always do that to me.

I'm not trying to get anybody to watch the show since I, myself, don't even really care for the show all that much. However, I'll continue to give it a chance and cross my fingers that it gets better.

One last question....was the bad guy an actual bad guy from the comic books? And was his name Liquid Guy? If so, that's possibly the lamest name ever. When Dinah made the comment, "we can call him Liquid Guy", I thought "Water Boy" would've been a much funnier name. But since some of you are referring to him as Liquid Guy, I'm thinking that maybe that's the actual name of a bad guy in the comics.

Patman

Actually, I think they should have just kept it at Black Canary and Oracle for the TV version of BoP, and use Ashley Scott (with blonde hair as Black Canary) because she can do the stunt fighting just as well as Black Canary. The only drawback is that Black doesn't have metahuman powers, and we wouldn't be treated to the nifty cat-like powers of the Huntress.

You could introduce a new Huntress later if you need it.

But given the current line-up, you have 3 generations of women covered: The teenager, the younge 20-something wise-cracking super heroine, and the wise 30-something mentor/brains of the operation. So this TV show was born of pandering to 2 main age demographics teens, and 19-49 years old.

immortal_zeus

Is it just me, or does Dina Meyer seem like the mother of two teenage daughters in this show? Or at the very least, Dinah's mother.

devilshalo

is it me or does Harley looks an awful lot like she belongs in the Hogan family eating Wheat Thins?

immortal_zeus

I actually think she looks like Tea Leoni when Tea was blonde:





Tea is way hotter, though.

elektra

I do know that TV and movies will never have a true representation of comic characters. Heck all you have to do is look at the Batman films to see that. The first Superman movie wasn't bad. I know they're taking liberties with Smallville as well.

I guess I just don't care for the liberties they're taking with this show. If you're going to give powers to someone who's parents didn't have any, yet claim said powers come from her parents, you're going to find people going, WTF, over?

Then they say said same character has to deal with the "evil" from her mom. Well, her mom was never evil.

My panties are not in a bunch, but I don't really care for the direction they're going in. So, I opt not to watch.

immortal_zeus

I wasn't flaming you for not liking the show because of the fact that it wasn't faithful to what you knew about the DC Universe.

I was just trying to say, in a roundabout way, that I'm glad I'm ignorant to the DC Universe (and pretty much all comics, for that matter) and am not able to really question the validity of the characters and their traits. To me, it's like blind faith.

Like I said, I can truly understand why someone would scratch their head and possibly be mad that the writers and producers took such creative liberties with the characters and the show.

elektra

Zeus - sorry dude, didn't mean to sound like I was coming down hard on you. My bad. Hugs?

Yea, I wish I were more ignorant too. My take is they are desperately trying to fill the void that was left when Buffy went to UPN and they rushed this. Not enough homework done and not nearly enough effort. It's like a wierd VIP on steriods or something like that.

immortal_zeus

No worries. I'm sorry that you thought I was flaming you.

I couldn't find a hugging icon, so you'll have to accept this kiss instead.

pyssdogg 2

-LOL, good point
-that's what got me, i never was into the comics but i was scratcchin my head wondering why she has "powers"

-i thought the show was pretty wack, of course the new show was gonna get really high ratiings...they been promoting the hell out of it for a while

movieking

I just wish that they would put Huntress back in her original pilot crime fighting outfit. Apparently, it kept falling off (or they kept popping out) when she was fighting. Yowzers!

Lou Pole

Did a search, didnt see a thread so...

Just one question, maybe it's been asked, but I didnt see it...

How the He!! can a cop live and work in New Gotham and never have heard The Batman before. That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard!!

devilshalo

meta - humans? i'll be expecting to see an appearance by Static Shock soon.. he can bring his whole bang-baby posse.

freedexter

The dialoluge really needs work, unless that whole "B-movie" feel is intentional.

They must have had the storylines extended, and had to cut them out for time reasons. Barbra's plot with the parents was probably the most chopped up one, since I could have sworn that there was no scene with her boyfriend's parents, but they seem to act as if it was in there earlier. Unless I missed a part, I'm pretty sure that they just ignored it because the Huntress plot was so important. Dinah's school troubles were probably cut short.

movieking

Yeah, I would have liked to see the scene with the parents. Also, isn't that moving a bit quick for her to meet his parents? Just a thought. Maybe my own insecurity shining through

Huntress gets hotter every episode.

elektra

I wanted to give the show another try and I'm sorry I did. Aside from blantant rip-off's from Dark Angel and X-men, this ep had nothing to offer. The premise they are trying to work with has promise, but their approach sucks.

Patman

This episode was a step backwards. It had all the subtlety of a bull in a china shop.

I'm trying to figure out if you need both parents to be metahuman to be considered fully metahuman (which I doubt because metahumans, to me, are about genetics making a quantum jump in the evolutionary). All this crap about Helena calling herself half-metahuman is a non-sequitor (makes her feel like she's got a foot in each world: human and metahuman).

I guess Dinah will be Dinah Redmond, and who know when/if she'll get the Black Canary moniker. Was it just me, or did Rachel (Dinah) have a growth spurt of 3" between episodes because she's now just as tall or taller than (Ashley) Helena now.

Dr. DVD

A step backwards from last week. Dina Myer is still doing a good job, but there are times where she looks like she is trying to avoid busting out in laughter from the dialogue.

Is anyone else getting tired of the weekly epilogue ending of the girls conversing about "what they learned" on top of the clock tower? Also, give us some dark music man! Don't leave us with some stupid bubble pop alternative.
Finally, while she is hot, Ashley Scott really needs to take some acting classes. I've seen worse, but she really delivers her lines like she's reading cue cards.

Eric F

Terrible. This will be my last episode.

The half-metahuman stuff really did me in. Patman, DC's metahumans are a bit different from Marvel's mutants, but there's not much difference. You're right though, I don't understand how anyone can be half "meta" if it's carried in their genetic code. You either are or you're not. This show is too much like Mutant-X, and Mutant-X is better written (that's not saying much). It's so confusing they threw in two explanations of the back-story: One from Alfred's voice-over and another from the cop/villian during the episode. How come he knew about Batman while nobody else did?

In the DCU miniseries "Alien Invasion" from about 10yrs back, the aliens released a meta-bomb of sorts which short circuited out current superheroes and brought some who were carrying the latent "meta-gene" to the surface. Sounds vaguely like Marvel's Earth-X where the whole population carries the mutant-gene.

MrN

I'm catching up on my TIVO, so I finally watched this. I didn't think it was as bad as most people here have commented - but then I've been reading comics for like the last 20 years...

I laughed at the 'meteor' reference and the 'spider sense' thing. But other than that, the plot seemed very straight forward but it did serve to set up the premise and the 'groundrules.'

I'm looking at the story like an 'Elseworlds' with lots of random continuity thrown in. I think the WB definatley dropped the ball by placing the show in a different universe from 'Smallville' - they could have put it in a city other than Gotham, leaving Batman there and we could have had some crossovers.

I question the lack of Huntress' mask, but its probably an acting thing - take away the eyes and most actors lose like 50% of their craft.

Also don't like the constant shots showing the cityscape and the eye shots. And the secret lair - 'Hudsucker Proxy' anyone?

I'll give it a couple more weeks, despite the cheesiness. I guess Harley will last the whole season as the main villain.

MrN

Lots more references to stuff tv audiences have no clue about more CGI shots of Gotham's buildings.

I did like the inside jokes and the plot - the way they tied in the trust issues with Dinah/Huntress as a parallel with Huntress/the cop. I do think they're trying way too hard for the romantic interest with Barbara - I predict he's going to turn out to be a villain because right now he's utterly boring.

Is it just me or was there a subtle question about Huntress' sexuality, when she says something like 'you know how I feel about men.' They did however pave that over with the ending...

Anyway, I think I liked this better than the pilot, being more focused but they need to do something other than have every episode ending with them on top of the building - reminds me of the first couple of episodes of 'Dark Angel.'

Mantecore

I thought it was a good episode, just the whole metta pride thing and that all of them are dangerous is starting to sound like dark angel, but not as good, but overall i liked it, I think the whole show is the huntress though,(actor i mean) cause if they had someone else i probably wouldn't watch it!