So I watched episode 2 last night. I think its comforting to know that WB execs apparently read my livejournal.
The show is still not perfect, but they did fix several things. The Dinah character was retconned into not being Dinah Laurel Lance, the Black Canary. She lied about her name for no apparent reason. Now she’s Dinah Redmon, a completely new character. Sure, this gives her no reason to actually be with Oracle and Huntress anymore, but there was no reason before anyway, and at least now they aren’t bound in anyway, by her comic book history. This also served to make her less of a goody-two-shoes. In fact, she blatantly disregards authority a few times in the episode, making for a much better mentor/student relationship. She also has much better hair now.
Huntress/Helena’s character has also been tweaked slightly. Now she comes across as much more bitter and much less brash. She’s not the same loose canon character as in the comic, but she makes much more sense as a character in the context of the TV show.
Mia Sara’s Harley Quinn character is still one of the low points of the show to me. She’s over the top in the wrong way. She strikes me as a spoof of a Buffy villain (Glory, in particular) more than a character in her own right.
They also seemed to have realized that they could color the world much better by relying on some of the existing Batman mythos. As such, Barbara drops a passing reference to the three Robins, that Helena understood, and yet wasn’t really integral to the plot.
All in all, the acting and writing were much better this episode, as were the special effects. I wouldn’t expect it to win an emmy anytime soon, but it showed definite improvement over week one, and hopefully things will continue to get better.
I have to say that a supervillain who can turn himself into water and then go inside somebody’s lungs until they drown, and then come out of their lungs is possibly the most disgusting superpower ever. I was impressed.
And yeah, Mia Sara’s character is really annoying. But that was nothing compared to Dinah. She makes Dawn on Buffy look non-whiny.
I also finally realized last night that Batgirl was also Dizzy in Starship Troopers.
Hmmm… well hopefully, they’ll tweak Dinah’s persona every week til they find something that works.
And in my dreams, Mia Sara just disappears, and Sherilyn Fenn is there, and they never speak of it again.
Yeah, Barbara is Dina Meyer (who was also Dizzy, minus the frizzy hair).
i think you guys are being too hard on mia. sherilyn fenn didn’t seem any better at the i’m-so-evil supervillain talk (which is really just bad writing), and i think mia makes a much better shrink-with-ulterior-motives.
or maybe i just still have a crush on her.
i didn’t understand helena’s clothes at the end. even after jenn explained them to me.