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An interesting idea for a series set in the Batman universe that aimed too low and far too wide. The suits didn’t like it. Audiences agreed. Will it find new life on DVD?

To me, there was really only ever one superhero. Sure, I was aware of Spider-Man and the X-Men when I was a kid, but they never really interested me much. Wonder Woman was boring.  Superman was (and is) just too clean-cut, too gosh-gee-whiz-super. The Incredible Hulk was something you watched in re-runs on TV, and besides, all he did was throw stuff around. No, there was just one hero on my radar screen, one guy in a costume I counted on to save the day…

...And that was Batman. The Dark Knight. The Caped Crusader. Each and every time. From morning double-bills of the sixties TV show, to the shadowy animated series, to the glimpses of the movies that I caught on TV and in video stores (I was never allowed to go see them until they were obviously crap), I was all about the Bat. I never followed the comics month-to-month, but I devoured compendiums and reference books, all those negligible compilations with names like The Greatest Joker Stories Never Told, and later, graphic novels like The Dark Knight Returns, Year One and Hush.

Thanks to Christopher Nolan, my interest has resurfaced. I’m happy that the first Batman film I saw “for real” in a theater was Batman Begins, and like the rest of the planet, I can’t possibly see how The Dark Knight can be bettered. What I’m less happy about - again, indirectly thanks to Nolan, vis-a-vis some marketing suits - is the re-emergence of a WB series called Birds of Prey. I saw the first episode when it broadcast late in 2002, while I was laid up in hospital. I was very ill then, but my opinion hasn’t bettered: this is a blight, a blemish on the reputation of Batman, who - as the most marketed superhero throughout the decades - has certainly suffered through some howlers. This is worse than The Batman, worse than Super Friends, maybe even worse (out of sheer quantity) than Batman and Robin. It’s bad. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.

But it’s actually kind of a nifty idea on paper.

The idea, such as it is, comes loosely from the Birds of Prey comic that has teamed up many of DC’s finest (but lesser-known) females since 1996. The core character has always been Barbara Gordon (Dina Meyer) - a.k.a Oracle - with a wide range of female heroes under her guidance. The TV series pares it down to just two of her more memorable associates: Huntress (Ashley Scott) and Dinah Lance (Rachel Skarsten), a teenage girl who might have become the second Black Canary had the series continued. Their origins have been reworked, as in any comics adaptation, but here to a specific end: Batman has left after a showdown with the Joker resulted in the revenge killing of Catwoman, and the disabling shooting of Barbara Gordon. Barbara, formerly Batgirl, has taken on the new identity of Oracle, along with the orphaned daughter Batman and Catwoman left behind. That teenage girl, Helena Kyle, grows into her own identity as Huntress, and as they say, like father, like daughter. Except for one thing: Helena has been working through her issues with a psychiatrist, and while she may see an end to treatment soon, Dr. Quinzel has bigger, bolder ideas…

See? It’s a neat concept. Barbara feels responsible for both Helena and New Gotham, but in a wheelchair, her rooftop-swinging days are clearly over. Helena can take on the mobile role while Barbara plays the technology wizard, and with the arrival of runaway Dinah, they not only make a little family but a representation of the superhero cycle: past hero, present hero, future hero. The villain is another popular female character who has a semi-logical reason to be in Helena’s sphere of influence. This should work. It really should. The show was clearly pitched as a Buffy replacement (take a bow, desperate WB execs), and it could have grown rather well. Unfortunately, the thirteen episodes that make up this first and only season are flatter than any joke in a Joel Schumacher film. The writing makes all the characters seem like they belong in a high school melodrama, and the artistic design and direction seem to believe that anything bathed in blue light exhibits automatic atmosphere. The stock stories are forgivable - common first season stuff - but every time they try to introduce a familiar figure from the Batman universe, it all goes pear-shaped. The big villain, Harley Quinn, could be any power-hungry crazy lady; Lady Shiva has become Helena’s high school BFF; and perhaps least forgivably, Clayface - now boasting a peculiar Louisiana accent - has become a Hannibal Lecter figure, creating little sculptures of inner turmoil and making bargains with Helena to capture his own son (who budget-consciously turns his victims into lumps of clay, instead of transforming himself).

But the real problem isn’t the concepts, even the silly ones like renaming the city “New Gotham.” The real issue is the execution of all those ideas, and most especially the overall tone of the show. Birds of Prey is just as camp as the 1960s Adam West Batman, without any of of the ridiculous self-awareness or pop art sensibility that made that series so fun. Witness the ridiculous flashback opening to episode eight, “Lady Shiva”: the stagy, unnatural dialogue as Shiva faces off with Barbara Gordon; the sped-up fight shots that obscure the body doubles; the slow-motion “emotional” moment that tells the audience what to feel. It is (as the British say) camp as Christmas, and it doesn’t help that the design for Dina Meyer’s Batgirl seems to be deliberately channeling Yvonne Craig. The WB were clearly aiming this at the lowest common denominator, intending to catch the attention of teens, young adults, guys, girls, and nostalgic parents all at once, without actually finding a consistent way to appeal to any one of those groups. I won’t even get into how Oracle finds a way to use her legs again, “for brief periods” in later episodes, invalidating the character and robbing younger, disabled viewers of a rare hero character within…ooh…half a season, all so we can see her throw an opponent once or twice. This is a show by committee, a gimmicky, plasticky-shallow series, and it doesn’t boast even a smidge of an original, unique flavor. It’s possible it could have bettered with time…but I doubt it, somehow.

Birds of Prey: The Complete Series comes to us from Warner. The four disc set is housed in a multi-platter amaray case, with a matching iridescent slipcover (ooh, shiny), so it won’t take up a lot of room on the shelf. All thirteen episodes are included; “Feat of Clay” and “Devil’s Eye” are presented as one double-length season finale, which is consistent with their original broadcast but not the initial production intentions. Video quality is decent, though not as good as it might have been, as Warner made the odd decision to release the episodes in non-anamorphic (or letterboxed) widescreen. The resulting transfers are fine, but a touch on the soft side, especially at higher resolutions. I’m a little curious why this was done, and you’ll find out why in a minute…

Audio is provided in the original Dolby Digital stereo, with English subtitles for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. Unfortunately, Aimee Allen’s “Revolution” has been replaced as the theme music by something far more upbeat and generically pop, which is also used as the menu music (no, sorry, I haven’t been able to find out the artist or track), while t.A.T.u’s “All the Things She Said” has also been replaced during the climax of the final episode (again, by something with a completely different tone - although in this case, the change might actually be an improvement). It’s always very annoying when music is replaced, especially if it’s the theme tune, and if I were a fan of the show I’d be upset at the change of tone in the opening montage. Yeah, establishing an atmosphere is overrated, it seems.

Extras are completely archival, but rather interesting at that. Each of the first three discs includes a 10-episode season of Gotham Girls, the Flash-animated web shorts focusing strictly on Gotham’s many fatal females, including Catwoman, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, and their persistent pursuer Batgirl. Seasons one and two are made up completely of individual, comedic episodes, while season three is a single, serialized mystery story. The “feminine aspect” of the shorts make for a clever thematic link to Birds of Prey, but otherwise, they’re separate entities; Gotham Girls continues on from the New Batman Adventures animated TV series, using the same character models and the same actors’ voices - at least, I think so. Nobody is ever given a specific cast or crew credit, though it’s pretty hard to miss the unique tones of either Diane Pershing (Ivy) or Arleen Sorkin (Harley). I couldn’t even begin to guess who voices Zatanna in her two brief appearances (I don’t believe it’s either actress to have voiced her on television). Frankly, Gotham Girls is a cute idea that was cuter, one episode a week, on the internet, where the original episodes can still be accessed; the reduced frame rate, bold outlines and - shall we say - laidback lipsync don’t play so well on a TV of any size, and it doesn’t help that Warner has allowed some significant edge enhancement to sharpen up the picture. The third season looks to be the most expensive and thus most watchable, with more fluid motion and some proper lipsync, even if the story’s a bit goofy; it’s meant, I think, to tie in with the then-current Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero DVD movie. All thirty episodes are presented just as they were online, with one odd exception. The two-part “Trick or Trick?” might’ve been rather better served by editing both parts together; part two is really little more than an extended punchline and an interactive game, which has, of course, been edited out (although almost nonsensically, they’ve left in the “I’m Batgirl!” shot that concluded the game).

The final extra, on disc four, is the most notable: the original Birds of Prey pilot. While the plot, and at least 90% of the footage is the same as in the transmitted episode, the pilot has a different, more linear and frankly more coherent opening that was later awkwardly restructured into a flashback for broadcast. Also, a brief sub-plot of Barbara’s relationship breakup, seen here, was reused later in the series; in the transmitted version, she’s just beginning this relationship. The other major difference fans will notice is Sherilynn Fenn, playing a less obvious but slightly more on-character version of Dr. Harleen Quinzel. Warner Brothers demanded all the changes, so it’s nice of them to even include the pilot here. The transfer quality is just as high as the episodes - in fact, some of you will actually find it a more enjoyable experience, because the pilot is presented in anamorphic widescreen! That’s got to be a first: an anamorphic pilot with a letterboxed series. Weird.

All the time I was watching Birds of Prey, I had the sinking feeling its cancellation came as something of a mercy killing. There is so little going right in this show it would have taken a complete overhaul - and probably an entirely new production team - to steer it into something more than “reasonably tolerable.” The episodes we’re left with are a disservice to the source material, and fairly insulting to just about any competent TV viewer. Unless you have to have everything Batman, skip this one entirely and go laugh at Legends of the Superheroes instead. If nothing else, it’s about eight hours shorter.

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