We watched the premiere episode of WB's fantasy Batman sequel, Birds of Prey. Why, you ask? Good question. The key to success in television, as in real estate, is Location Location Location. In this instance, the location is Wednesday night when it's biggest competitor is The Bachelor, which Skippy thinks is basically misogeny as Nielson Grabber, and refuses to watch (ok, ok, we admit, Mrs. Skippy made us change to ABC to see the big doofus pass out roses during commerical breaks of Birds).

This show, based on a comic book we have never heard of (hey, we stopped reading comics in college), concerns the further adventures of Batgirl, aka Barbara Gordon (a fine Dina Meyer), who is currently a wheelchair-bound parapalegic, having taken a bullet (fired by the Joker) in defense of Batman seven years earlier. Barbara, also known as Oracle, is of course a genius, and holds up in a clocktower with neatso weapons and computers and stuff. She is the brains of this super-hero team.

The brawn, if we can stretch the limits of the English language, is the fine looking Ashley Scott playing Helena Kyle (the Huntress), who, coincidentally, is the love child of Batman and Catwoman. (Stay with me folks, it actually works, no matter how it looks on paper). While Barbara stays up in the clocktower tracking crime on the web, Helena skulks through the dark New Gotham nights kicking villainous butt. The two ladies are "meta-human," which apparently means they can do stuff we can't. And if they all looked like Ashley and Dinah, we never meta-human we didn't like.

Into this leather-bound duo stumbles young Rachel Skarsten as Dinah, a teenager who can get into people's heads just by touching them, or else can see the future or the past with dreams, or something. (Apparently she has seen Michael Anthony Hall redeem his past career on USA's Dead Zone).

These three femme batales, ever so luscious and serious at the same time, stalk New Gotham City's villians, righting wrongs and staying one step ahead of the police, here represented by Shelmar Moore as Detective Jesse Reese. Mr. Moore actually looks more like an Calvin Klein model than a policeman, but we cut the show some slack and suspended our disbelief here, too, we were having such a good time. And, although Batman, Catwoman, the Joker, Commissioner Gordon and most other denizens of our fond memories of Gotham are not around, there still is that good old stalwart, Alfred the Butler, waiting on and helping out the 3 ladies for continuity's sake. Alfred is well-played by veteran character actor Ian Abercrombie (yes, it's Mr. Pitt from Seinfeld!).