I'm sad that it fell by the wayside, and a little curious why it failed where Smallville succeeded. My guess - Superman is better known and has a fanbase, while BoP had to gain fans on the quality of the show, it didn't have a hook like other shows have had.

• Top of the list: The changy-eyes SFX. Cheesy, dumb, overused.
• Akward dialogues
• Inapropriate costumes (ok, so Buffy has had worse, but still)
• Oh god, the morphy eyes...that was SO lame!
• The city looked fake
• New Gotham? We already have to deal with mutan..er..metahumans (riiight), crippled sidekicks, inexplicable morphy eyes, and on top of that we have to deal with the fact that the made-up city of Gotham has been destroyed and rebuilt...sigh
• Lame gadgets...I know its used by many shows and movies, but night-vision gogles that shine a light in your eyes...that's lame. Now, nigh-vision gogles with a laser that goes "woooOOOsh" when it passes close to the camera...that's beyond stupid.
• So, before she can use her super strenght/speed/agility, she needs to make her eyes transform from human eyes to cat eyes huh? Yeah, that makes sense! Suuure! Hey, and that wildcat call we hear every damn time she uses her strength/speed/agility, is that coming out of her eyes as well? Sheesh!
• Why bother to have believable acting or good dialogue when we have a blond chick, a brunette and a red-head?
• A villain that needs to laugh maniacly all the time so we'll get that she's 1)insane and 2)evil. Sigh

On the other hand, lets take Smallville:

• The powers FX are all at the very least relevant, and quite often look very good on top of that.
• Interesting dialogues, comes out natural, witty, in short: not dumb overacted one liners again and again.
• Notice how Clark keeps dressing in primary red and blue? Notice how they keep pointing it out? ("blue looks good on you", "Who's the hunk in primary colours?", etc)
• The subtle demonstrations of Clark's powers: He helps around the farm using his super strenght, he picks up hot plates from the stove, all subtle stuff that he does naturally while talking to his parents. No special FX, he just acts normal while people around him act like the bags are heavy or the plate is hot...no morphy eyes needed.
• Kristen Kreuk and Allison Mack...drool....
• Running gags (notice how in every show Lex is surprised to find someone in his house? That cracks me up.)
• Subtle hinting (calling Clark "the man of tomorrow" on his election campaign, Lana asking him after he read some Nietzsche is he's a man or a superman (ok, that one wasn't subtle)).
• And last but certainly not least: Lex Luthor. Clark's best friend! he says stuff like "I swear I'm not a criminal mastermind"! He's great at it too.

New Gotham? We already have to deal with mutan..er..metahumans (riiight), crippled sidekicks, inexplicable morphy eyes, and on top of that we have to deal with the fact that the made-up city of Gotham has been destroyed and rebuilt...sigh

The freaks and weirdos in BB are quite standardly made -- irresponsible genetic engineering or cybernetic implants or scientific accidents. External forces. There is no 'race' of metahumans worth note who have the same angle they did in BoP. Gotham wasn't completely destroyed and rebuilt in BB, either; it simply evolved as time went on, old buildings replaced by new ones, etc. Normal expansion for a city in a world where technology has evolved this far. A few old buildings from the Batman era are still around.

as far as gotham...I'm not talking about BB. I'm talking about BATMAN. the joker, et. al, take advantage of batman's either being gone due to illness....or something....Azrael ends up coming in to take care of things...during one of the fights that puts batman down for a loooong time, the big confrontation with Bane, an awful lot of the city is destroyed - and most of the rest is destroyed after that.

now, I'm no batman historian or huge wealth of batman info - I just happen to have picked up the particular comics in which this took place (there was a big cross-title story arc) - and before we start talking about BB, it's impossible for birds of prey and BB to both be canon (BB takes place AFTER Birds of prey, but batman is still around and barbara gordon is walking around just fine), but what I'm pointing out about the destruction of the city isn't that big a thing to have to accept. (unless you're pretty new to batman as many undoubtedly are). so I guess I'm arguing a moot point here. just wanted to make the point. wouldn't be a geek if I didn't. heh.

The whole thing with the huntress and crippled barbara gordon (who, btw, in 90% of the "future gotham" things ends up being police commisioner, not a teacher) is way off canon...but new gotham and metahumans are playing pretty much straight.

Sorry for the nitpick, but the crippled barbara gordon is NOT off canon. It's been established in the comics for about 10 years, since the Killing Joke storyline. Birds of Prey is (was?) based on the comic book of the same name, where Oracle, Dinah (Black Canary) and occaisionally Huntress star.

I'm sad that it fell by the wayside, and a little curious why it failed where Smallville succeeded.

The acting wasn't the best either (except for Dina Meyer, who was magnificent *g* ) with most of the character development directed towards their cleavage. I think the greatest disappointment for me was Harley Quinn, she could have been played up as a really twisted psychopath, instead we got mild PMS.

As for Star Trek, it's still around because of sheer inertia. Andromeda? Who knows, maybe they captured that all important frontal labotomy segment of the Neilson families.

Andromeda? Who knows, maybe they captured that all important frontal labotomy segment of the Neilson families.

I'm hoping that this single fact combined with it's being a much better show will save Firefly. I won't especially miss BoP, but Firefly has a lot of potential.

As to the comparison to Smallville, Clark Kent et al are in a much different class than Birds of Prey. The writers know what they're doing, and it's in a fictional world that is well known to everyone, not just fans of Batman (as is the case with BoP). To be truthfull, I never heard of Birds of Prey before I saw the preveiws on Space, and it never really got me as interested as Smallville has.

Actually, I think Andromeda's popularity (if that's the right word) has more to do with the fact that it's syndicated, and it makes good filler on a Friday night when all the 'cool' people are out, and the nerds/geeks/sci-fi fans are at home.

I'm hoping that this single fact combined with it's being a much better show will save Firefly. I won't especially miss BoP, but Firefly has a lot of potential.

Umm....I'm a geek and a nerd and a sci-fi fan...

You can't be both a geek and a nerd. The dividing line is whether you have an S.O. or not. Geeks: Yes. Nerds: No.

JANET
http://groomlake.net

You can't be both a geek and a nerd. The dividing line is whether you have an S.O. or not. Geeks: Yes. Nerds: No.

... it was cool seeing one of my favorite band's (Porcupine Tree) music used during one of the fight scenes.

Heh. I saw Porcupine Tree playing at the Knitting Factory -

IMHO the superheroes in costume bit has been done so badly so often that audiences aren't willing to give it a chance anymore. As soon as I saw Huntress' outfit (and even worse, a glimpse of that horrible Batgirl costume), I knew this show was going to have a hard time. My gut reaction was "Cheese Alert!", and it took a lot for me to look past it and judge the show on its merits. As it is, I'm still not convinced that the show doesn't deserve its fate, although perhaps would have blossomed given a few more episodes.

For those of you who will go into Dina Meyer withdrawl...

Why do I feel that this was directed at me? :)

I don't know, why do you feel that way? Tell me about you mother...

I did enjoy, though, the "comic geek bonus" in last night's episode: Showing the corner of O'Neil and Adams streets. :)