5 reasons Birds Of Prey was DC’s most underrated TV show

Birds of Prey’s bow at theaters worldwide, good or bad, has us looking back at that other Birds of Prey team.

Birds of Prey with Harley Quinn and her grandiose “emancipation” she declares with a colorful bang is performing below expectations at the box office. As disappointing as that probably is for the producers at Warner Bros. and some fans, the odd thing is it isn’t the first time a BoP adaptation was met with a so-so reception.

Before it was a $90 million feature film, the Birds — with Harley in the picture — flocked together in a low-budget TV series on the defunct The WB network. From Altered Carbon producer Laeta Kalogridis, the show barely lasted a season. Its flaws are evident, but it was a slightly more faithful adaptation in terms of corresponding to the source material.

Taking place in New Gotham, it utilized a post-No Man’s Land Batman continuity that would’ve been familiar to readers at the time (2002). It also upheld Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke as canon and messed around with some pre-Crisis Earth-2 continuity. Main character Huntress (Ashley Scott) is Helena Wayne, daughter of Catwoman and Batman, a plot thread retconned in comics and largely forgotten today.

The WB’s BoP, ill-fated as it was, did a few things during its brief run that demonstrate a greater reverence for Batman’s storied lore. Scant or not, Kalogridis made an effort to do something different and simultaneously true to the character’s decades-long and convoluted history.

Here are five aspects that make Birds of Prey the TV show underrated programming.