:: Captain's Personal Blog ::

Stardate: Thursday, February 20, 2003

The Birds Of Prey Have Been Grounded

Well, I saw the finale for Birds of Prey. (Insert long silence here.)

(Deep breath.) The two-hour finale summed up the spirit of the whole series in it's sub-season run. Full of promise and potential that it didn't really live up to until the end.

This final episode drew from the Batman mythos by pulling in second stringer villain Clayface, and remolding him to be a serious bad guy. Too little, too late. Also, a bit contrived. In this outing, Clayface played the part of Hannibal Lecter, telling Huntress about a "copycat" who is turning his victims into clay. The weak-ish plot held promise when we found out that Clayface was the one that killed Huntress' mother. Unfortunately, this was all overshadowed by the fact that the writers had fallen asleep at the wheel. In my mind, the series had set up that no one, save Helena (Huntress) and the other Birds, knew that Bruce Wayne was really her father. Even if that was common knowledge, though, it certainly was NOT common knowledge that Bruce Wayne was Batman. So, my question is why does Clayface, his son (oh, did I mention that he was the 'copycat?') AND Harley know that Batman was her father?

Everyone mentioning this fact detracted from the storylines greatly. So, all in all the first hour's storyline was weakish, but full of potential. The second hour, however, was much better, if just a little convenient. At the end of the first hour, Harley learned of Helena's secret identity. All season long, she has posed as Helena's psychiatrist, and now she uses this knowledge as leverage to keep Helena in therapy so that she can "help her to find out who she really is." In a truly classic comic book moment, Harley uses a power-transferrence machine to get the power to hypnotize people from another meta-human.

Using this power, she tells most of the citizens of New Gotham to lose their mind. This, is a truly frightening concept, when you think about it, and is one of the best devices used in a series such as this. She not only makes Huntress a little giddy, but forces her to turn on the other Birds. They comandeer the Clocktower.

To sum up, a fight ensues and the good guys win. My only REAL problem with any of that is that Barbara pulls out the old exoskeleton so that she can walk again. I just can't stand that as a plot contrivance. It's stupid and should have been abandoned. It detracts from the seriousness of Barbara's condition.

Anyway, the show ended on a reasonable upnote and would have been a good finale, had they not messed up the last scene.

The last scene, as described, sounds really touching. GothamClockTower.com, summed it up in their spoilers by saying that the episode ends with Alfred communicating with some unseen other person from Wayne Manor, who is asking about how her daughter is. Now, while the very nature of spoilers is inaccurate to begin with, what we actually saw was a bit less thrilling. What it turned out to be was Alfred, apparently calling from Wayne Manor on a telephone. We do not see or hear the person on the other side. It is Alfred who volunteers the information about Helena, which amounts to little more than him saying that she is doing fine.

To me, the scene would have played much better like so:

INT. CAVE
CLOSEUP OF COMPUTER BANK
Lots of flashing lights and a few monitors with various diagrams on them. On the center monitor, is the face of Alfred. In the foregroud, we see the back of a man shrouded in shadow. He is Bruce Wayne.

ALFRED
(On Screen)
You would be so proud of her, sir. She has handled herself admirably.

BRUCE
(Unseen)
Thank you for keeping an eye on her Alfred. I am proud of her. Selina would be too.

ALFRED
(On Screen)
Of course, sir. (pause) Sir, why don't you come for a visit. I'm sure that--

BRUCE
(Interrupting)
No, Alfred. She's just rediscovered who she is. She needs to live her own life, without me. If she ever wants to see me, she'll find me.

ALFRED
(sighing)
Very well, sir. Take care of yourself.

BRUCE
Take care of THEM, Alfred.

ALFRED
Always, Master Bruce. Always.


But, that's just me. The Birds had a good run, but I do think they deserved better. This past television season has been a disappointment to me, for how the networks are treating their shows. BIRDS OF PREY, FIREFLY, FARSCAPE....... While I won't say that BIRDS OF PREY was as good as FIREFLY or FARSCAPE, I think that it again had potential. It could have been great. If only they had had more time.
:: J 9:50 AM [+] ::
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