Wayne's Worlds: They Died Too Soon

I’m always afraid some morning I’ll wake up and find this was all a dream, and science-fiction will have vanished from the small screen and replaced by “Roseanne” reruns.

Of course, being a genre fan means getting used to having your heart broken. How many times, prior to the Internet and SyFy Portal, did I rush home to catch the show I was currently passionate about, then plunk down in front of my TV in time to catch an unscheduled rerun of “Dateline NBC” or some reality show where my program was supposed to be? I’m not one for curse words, but I’ve been sorely tempted to let the networks have it when they’ve done this to me.

Looking back, I can see that many programs actually paved the way for the current state of sci-fi on television. Still, I miss them and wish that, in true genre fashion, they would return from the dead to fill my thoughts and heart.

I thought this time I’d like to honor some of the best, that died way too soon and deserved another year at least.

Birds of Prey

This The WB network program was intended to be another “Smallville,” this time focusing on some of the Batman family. Based on the comic book of the same name, the show featured intelligent women with abilities that complemented each other as they worked together as a team to take on mutant bad guys.

The main characters were Barbara Gordon, who went from Batgirl to being called Oracle after a serious injury put her in a wheelchair; the Huntress, the daughter of Bruce Wayne (Batman) and Selina Kyle (Catwoman) who had the ability to track and fight with the best of them; and Black Canary, the youngest of the crew. She had the sonic powers her comics counterpart had.

Throw in Alfred the Wayne’s butler who provided caustic remarks and reality checks now and again, and you had a pretty varied crew.

I’m still convinced that this show would have survived if they had paired it with “Smallville” instead of airing it on a different night. Yes, the mutants were very reminiscent of the meteor-powered freaks that Clark faced week by week, but the setting was different (a large metropolitan area) and the women got to save the day in this show.

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