Just like last week’s “Top 10” redux, this list reproduces the July 2018 text where relevant, adding TNBA episodes where appropriate; removed from the immediacy of watching these episodes, commentary addenda will appear in blue. With that said, on with the show!
Remember, nobody’s perfect.
“We’ll never see Nostromos again, which is probably for the best.”
Here’s a classic early episode of BtAS before the show figured out its identity. Would it be an anthology of gaudy supervillains? Would it be a gentle satire of the wealthy? Would it veer into the terrain of Batman ’66 with madcap setpieces? Or would it just be a bit boring, as this episode ends up? Fortunately, better villains, better magicians, and better deathtraps awaited. [I’m going to be honest. I really don’t remember much about this episode. I remember not caring for much of the runtime, so it’s little wonder this one remains on the Bottom.]
“The exuberantly dated wailing guitar and unabashed bend toward the mystical makes this episode feel more like something out of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”
After reviewing every episode, I still can’t believe this got made. Are we sure this wasn’t just a fever dream I had while blogging? Batman fights a werewolf while someone tortures an electric guitar. It’s the sort of premise that requires the complicity of the audience in accepting the inherent awesomeness of the concept (cf. Pacific Rim), but I’m just not on board for this one. [Again, I’m not convinced I didn’t hallucinate this episode. “Moon” is one of many, many episodes where the writers tried to make a “creature feature” for Batman, and it just never worked.]
“I could just as easily imagine this as an episode of Daredevil, and I still wouldn’t care.”
If there were a category for “Most Improved,” it’d be “Day of the Samurai,” which I enjoyed so much more than its predecessor, which doubles up on an uninteresting ninja plotline with a villain who frustratingly lacks any self-awareness. Your mileage will really vary on this one, as ninja devotees would surely enjoy this episode, but count me out of that camp. [“Night and day” is a really good analogy here. “Day of the Samurai” is a pretty successful Bruce Timm episode, but “Night of the Ninja” is a slog. “Day” might not even be that good, but it’s helped by “Night” boring me to tears.]
“It’s an episode that feeds us sour milk and tries to pretend it’s ice cream.”
I’m a pretty pacific audience member, vocally excited when something is working but generally silent when it’s not. This episode, however, infuriated me, leading me to compare it aloud to horse droppings. I felt betrayed by the episode’s “twist” and moreover never believed for one second that it vindicated twenty minutes of wasted time. Perhaps worst of all, the episode hinges on one of the most dreadful line readings in the show’s otherwise impressive voiceover catalogue.
For a long time, I wondered why so many people hated this episode. Then I rewatched the episode last year, and even the eyeglasses of nostalgia couldn’t salvage what is essentially an episode of Home Alone: The Animated Series guest-starring The Penguin. I don’t mind a story about kids, but they need to be less obnoxious while gaping at an unconscious Batman. [This rewatch reminded me of a lot of great episodes I’d forgotten, but it finally helped me see the light on this episode, which is a disaster. It joins the ranks of those episodes I probably never need to see again.]
“The animation is so bad that the animators (Akom Studios) were literally fired after this.”
For a long time, BtAS seemed stubbornly unable to crack a character as straightforward as Catwoman, thrusting her into all manner of unwieldy plots. Here, she comes down with a genetically-modified flu after Roland Daggett infects an army of stray cats to hold the city for ransom. It’s a harebrained scheme, and it’s an unsuccessful plot in multiple definitions of the phrase. Oh, and the animation is lousy. [I mean, what more can be said? They literally fired the animators after this episode. The plot is already doing no favors, but the animation is probably the ugliest in this show’s fine history.]
“I don’t like it; it’s off-putting and uninspiring, weird for the sake of being weird, and its creators have proven themselves capable of better.”
Last week’s Top 3 was anyone’s game, and the bottom of this list is much the same – these episodes are all equally abysmal. “Critters” at least seems to know how bad it is, which earns it a few points, but stepping in manure is bad regardless of whether or not you know you’ve done it. Doing it deliberately, as the writers of “Critters” seem to have done, is perhaps worse.
“I’ve never liked this episode. [. . .] In fact, I almost never watch this episode unless I’m doing a thorough rewatch.”
While I’ve changed my mind on a handful of episodes over the course of this rewatch, “The Underdwellers” remains one of my least favorite episodes, unchanged in its ignominious stature. Worse, this episode has everything that ought to make it a classic, including Batman wrestling alligators, but nothing about the episode works the way it should, playing out instead like a Dickensian nightmare of despair and disappointment. [I’ve never liked this episode, and I still don’t. It’s a classic example of a workable premise that’s derailed by ignoring nearly everything that works about Batman and losing focus on what should be the heart of the story. Maybe someday we’ll get a decent Sewer King comic that wrings the right amount of pathos from the premise, but until then all we have is a really good Conroy line reading.]
“But the Terrible Trio is just, well, terrible. They’re grotesque caricatures of the affluent, with nothing redemptive or even entertaining about them.”
I had utterly forgotten about this episode until a few months ago, which might have been the wiser course of action. This episode crosses the rubicon of villainy by giving us a trio of antagonists who are so utterly loathsome that they’re not even fun to watch. The Joker may be a mass murderer, but at least he’s housebroken; these guys are the very definition of deplorable, with no motivation other than “just because we can.” But don’t take my word for it: no less than Bruce Timm himself claims it’s an “all-time worst.” [Everything about these guys screams “low effort.” What if rich guys were lil stinkers? What if rich guys wore low-rent animal masks? What if we threw an episode and nobody cared? The key here is that the episode is entirely joyless; BtAS had its fair share of colorful villains, but these feel like an unopened coloring book.]
“Perhaps ‘The Forgotten’ is best left precisely as its title intends.”
As repugnant as “The Terrible Trio” is, I have a sore spot for “The Forgotten,” which has remained my least favorite episode from the moment I first saw it as a child. This isn’t a Batman episode; it’s a remake ofCool Hand Luke filled with the sounds of a fat man who won’t stop eating. It turns out that there is little about an amnesiac Batman to mine for twenty minutes of material. The only redeeming feature is a wild slapstick sequence in which Alfred flies a sassy Batplane, but even that feels a bridge too far for an episode that resembles Batman not at all. [This one is a dumpster fire. It’s worse than “The Underdwellers” for how far it tries to cast its net away from Gotham, and as much as it puts the emphasis on a forgetful Bruce Wayne, it doesn’t give Kevin Conroy much to do. That’s the worst crime of any Batman episode.]
Next week, we’ll revisit the best Paul Dini episodes – and boy howdy, is there a shakeup after The New Batman Adventures.
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