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Bird Of Prey: The Complete Collection
01/06/2006 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 
DVD: BBC CCTV30316. 391 minutes 2 series, 4 episodes a season. No extras. Price: £14.99 (UK) but shop around for the best price) stars: Richard Griffiths, Carol Nimmons, Nigel Davenport, Bob Peck, Ann Pennington, Lee Montague and many others. Buy Bird Of Prey: The Complete Collection in the USA - or Buy Bird Of Prey: The Complete Collection in the UK  The significant of 'Bird Of Prey' and its sequel 'Bird Of Prey 2' has nothing to do with British wildlife but the early use of computers as depicted in 1982-84. If you want to see how the nascent computer industry was seen, together with its effect on banking, fraud, etc then you'll love this series. There was no such thing as Windows and everything was very basic, even the computers came only with green screens. Odd memories looking at this series again and how far computers, not to mention the terminology has changed since then. The nature of the programme was such that they avoided showing computer programs lest someone got it into their heads to try this themselves which indeed happened a decade later. Do you remember the story of a bank clerk siphoning off a fraction of a penny from multiple accounts transactions and became a millionaire over night by embezzlement before fleeing. Well, this story isn't quite that. Something more insidious.
Senior civil servant Henry Armstrong Jay (actor Richard Griffiths) draws attention from the wrong people when he submits a dossier on using computers for bank fraud in the age of electronic accounting. People whom he is connected to start dropping dead and he is forced to flee from before sorting it out. Jay is not your typical heroic type. He's a typical paper pusher with a perchance for detail and computers. In Italy, there is a base for people who have the real power behind banking and people who owe favours and they need to keep a foothold in the advancing computer industry. Jay finds his wife kidnapped and has to take extreme measures to get her back even if he has to play his own hand with the devil.
The first series of 'Bird Of Prey' worked by applying a shock treatment as the viewers were always left guessing as to what would happen next and no one at the time could anticipate the result. It was linked into a computer graphic version variant of Space Invaders with a version of Jay shooting down his adversaries all neatly linked by a superb theme music by Dave Greenslade.
'Bird Of Prey 2' has Henry Jay monthly updating a computer terminal code to disable hardcopies of what he knows been posted around the civil service to prevent his and wife Ann (actress Carole Nimmons) from being killed. He is also aware that a time coming when his code will be broken. To complicate matters, Ann is heavily drinking and he has his nagging mother-in-law to contend with. People start dying around him again so Jay also takes his wife into hiding and disguise this time. There is also a foreign assassin, Rossau (actor Lee Montague) on his trail and killing anyone who gets in his way and marked with his own ambitions. Like the first series, you're continually kept guessing where this is all going to lead and who out-manoeuvres who. Supplementing this is Greenslade's score together with an improved computer graphic this time displaying Jay as a pig in a suit being chased by the big bad wolf. Even with today's computer graphics, this still looks kinda fun and had it been released today, no doubt you'd have been playing this on the BBC website.
Up until this point, the use of computers in TV series was usually as some mysterious box in the corner that could supply the answers. No one gave much concern for what they could be used practically for in the real world or that they had to be programmed. Computers were coming of age back in the early 1980s and 'Bird Of Prey' turned it into a superb thriller with practical overtones. Writer Ron Hutchinson showed how to keep everyone on the edge of their seats.
In some respects, especially where computer jargon is concerned, this is going to appear either dated or a period piece now. I mean, when was the last time you wrote a computer program when you had to peek and poke code to get anything done quickly? Well, alone if you had to program those abominable Commodore computers software. Some of it is also extremely prolific about today in regards to plastic money and even pin numbers and how easy it would be to empty accounts if you knew them. Forget that, this is just a series you will watch once and then go back for a second dose. Watch out for the wolf cos he could bring your house down.
GF Willmetts
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