bird watching

This summer our Bird Watching team of Meredith Tomeo and Caleb Mozzocco endeavored to watch, re-watch, and dissect every episode of the half-forgotten, critically-ignored 2002 live-action Birds of Prey TV show in order to determine if it really deserved its fate, or if it was perhaps simply a show ahead of its time. In this final installment of the series, they render their verdict on the show, and try to answer some of the questions they had before they first hit play on the DVD collection of the series.

This is it! The final episode of the series! A newly empowered Harley Quinn attacks the Birds of Prey head-on, taking over their base and plunging all of New Gotham into complete, apocalyptic (and decidedly off-screen) chaos! It will take the combined efforts of all three Birds of Prey and both Bros of Prey (Alfred and Reese) to punch and kick the city back to safety!

In this episode, which aired back-to-back with the final episode on February 19 of 2003, our heroes encounter not one but two metahuman criminals with a claim on the name Clayface; Mia Sara's Harley Quinn finally returns after a four-episode hiatus; and Ian Abercrombie's Alfred Pennyworth takes his meddling to soaring new heights. "Feat of Clay" --- get it?! --- was written by Adam Armus and Kay Foster and directed by Joe Napolitano.

In this episode, Helena Kyle (Ashley Scott) is completely uninterested in attending her five-year class reunion... until her former classmates start showing up dead, the apparent victims of a metahuman killer. Meanwhile, Barbara Gordon (Dina Meyer) struggles to balance crime-fighting with her relationship with Wade (Shawn Christian), Alfred (Ian Abercrombie) cleans stuff, and Dinah (Rachel Skarsten) wanders around aimlessly, looking for stuff to do.

In this episode, Helena Kyle (Ashley Scott) and Dinah Lance (Rachel Skarsten) investigate an underground fight club for metahuman women... only to find themselves forced to fight one another to the death. "Gladiatrix" originally aired on January 1, 2003, and was written by David H. Goodman and directed by David Carson.

In this episode, the gangster who killed Dinah's mother, Caroline "Black Canary" Lance, returns, and Detective Reese and the Birds find themselves forced to protect him from a weirdo metahuman assassin. "Nature of the Beast" originally aired on December 18 of 2002, and was written by Melissa Rosenberg and directed by Shawn Levy.

In this episode, Barbara Gordon (Dina Meyer) is faced with an enemy from her days as Batgirl, who returns to New Gotham at the exact same time that Helena Kyle (Ashley Scott) is reunited with best friend from high school. Coincidence? (Spoiler: No.) "Lady Shiva" originally aired on November 27 of 2002, and was written by Adam Armus, Kay Foster, Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and directed by John Kretchmer.

Long before comic book superhero TV shows were as common as they are today, the WB launched a live-action Birds of Prey TV series that lasted just thirteen episodes. In an effort to determine what went wrong, our Bird Watching team of Meredith Tomeo and Caleb Mozzocco are watching and dissecting every episode. You can watch along on DVD, or digitally on iTunes or Amazon. In this episode, The Huntress (Ashley Scott) teams with a new metahuman vigilante with whom she has much more in common with than her assigned romantic interest, Detective Jesse Reese. But could the mysterious Darkstrike (Kristoffer Polaha) have a dark and terrible secret? Spoiler alert: Yes, yes he could. "Split" originally aired on November 20 of 2002, and was written by Adam Armus, Kay Foster, Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, and was directed by James Marshall.

Shortly after the debut of Smallville, but long before comic book superhero TV shows were as commonplace as they are today, the WB launched a live-action Birds of PreyTV series that lasted just one 13-episode season, and seems little mourned today. In an effort to determine just what went wrong with the seemingly before-its-time show, our Bird Watching team of Meredith Tomeo and Caleb Mozzocco are watching and dissecting every episode. You can watch along with us on DVD or digitally on iTunes or Amazon. In this episode, the producers do their level best to adapt Point Break with Huntress in the Johnny Utah role. For better or worse, it is neither as awesome nor as spectacularly bad as that sounds. "Primal Scream" originally aired on November 13 of 2002, and was written by Edward Kitsis, Adam Horowitz, Adam Armus and Kay Foster, and directed by Jim Charleston.

Shortly after the debut of Smallville, but long before comic book superhero TV shows were as commonplace as they are today, the WB launched a live-action Birds of Prey TV series that lasted just one 13-episode season, and seems little mourned today. In an effort to determine just what went wrong with the seemingly before-its-time show, our Bird Watching team of Meredith Tomeo and Caleb Mozzocco are watching and dissecting every episode. You can watch along with us on DVD or digitally on iTunes or Amazon. In this episode, the most glaring omission from a show based on the Birds Of Prey comics is finally corrected, at least temporarily, when Black Canary makes the scene. What is her connection to the blond girl named Dinah, and just how happy is everyone going to be to see Black Canary? "Sins of the Mother" will provide the answers. The episode originally aired on November 6 of 2002, and was written by Melissa Rosenberg and Hans Tobeason, and directed by Jeff Woolnough.