Batman: The Animated Series Season 1- Part 2

Let's head to episodes 8-14 to see what adventures are in store for the Dark Knight...


Episode 8- Forgotten: This episode is one of the weaker ones I've seen thus far, only because Bruce Wayne loses his memory and spends most of the episode unaware of who he is. The real selling point for the episode is Alfred. That man uses so many tactics on how to track down Bruce's whereabouts. There's even a point where he flies the freaking Bat Wing. The man's a freaking boss. Bruce needs to give that guy a raise.

Episode 9- Be a Clown: We have another Joker episode, this one focusing on the Mayor's son running away and the Joker taking him under his wing. The setting for the climax is in a carnival, which offers a lot of great visual possibilities. Joker really makes the episode worth watching. His laughter and lines are just so infectious to enjoy. He's great. I also love the bit of him saying that he was thinking of taking up a protege. A foreshadowing of things to come, perhaps?

Episode 10- Two-Face Part 1: This is a landmark episode for the series, as it marked the first time one of Batman's adventures couldn't be solved in a 20 minute runtime. It focused on the transformation of Harvey Dent into Two-Face. The origins of Two-Face exist in a split personality of Harvey's called Big Bad Harv. He's been showing up more in Harvey's life, exposing the rage that Harvey is hiding inside. Then he undergoes a physical transformation that fully unleashes Big Bad Harv as Two-Face. As an episode goes, this is about as perfect a 20 minute character study as you could get. We'd seen Harvey in earlier episodes, so seeing how his character was expanded and completely warped by the end of part 1 was really well handled.

Episode 11- Two-Face Part 2: 6 months later, Two-Face has become a formidable criminal in Gotham and mobster Rupert Thorne wants him taken out. They play to Harvey's sensitive side and fool his fiancee into leading them right to Two-Face. So Batman shows up to try and make sure Harvey does the right thing. This second part isn't near as good as the first, but there is one pretty strong highlight. Bruce has a nightmare about being unable to save Harvey from the accident that disfigured him. He's so guilt ridden that his dream morphs the guilt over Harvey's accident to the guilt of his parents' death. DUDE! That's some deep stuff for a children's animated show to handle. I don't even know if a show for adults could get that dark and visual.

Episode 12- It's Never Too Late: The episode takes place in the middle of a mobster war. When Batman saves one of the leaders, we are taken into his universe by seeing his crumbling family life. What makes me astounded by the episode is that I don't mind how much Batman takes a backseat to this story. He's barely in the episode. In 20 minutes, we see a point A to point B transformation of a drug dealer that completely humanizes him. I'm still amazed how much thought and creativity can go into this show. The showrunners took the subject matter very seriously and treated the audience accordingly. No need to dumb stuff down because it's "meant for kids." I love that.

Episode 13- I've Got Batman in my Basement: And then they go and do an episode like this. The first major disappointment of the show, the episode focuses on a really kid friendly scenario of a child rescuing Batman from a fight and hiding him away in his basement. Heck, the kid drives the Batmobile at one point. This is just an embarrassing episode for this show to have. It plays to the lowest common denominator of making an episode that only young children will find exciting. Even more embarrassing is that this episode was the first to feature the Penguin, making this the only episode thus far to feature a disappointing debut for a main villain.

Episode 14- Heart of Ice: Wow. Talk about 20 minutes of sheer perfection. This episode earned the show its first ever Emmy and the award is well-deserved. Beautifully tragic in its storytelling, well-written dialogue, fantastic animation and action, and an episode that revitalized a Batman villain that has since become one of his most iconic foes. If you couldn't tell by the title, this is the episode that introduced Mr. Freeze into the DC animated universe. His introduction is very memorable, a calculating, bitter villain bent on revenge. Initially, he doesn't want to fight Batman, until Batman stands in his way of revenge. By the end of the episode, Batman learns the backstory of Freeze and still wants to stop Freeze, but also bring justice for the wrongs that were brought upon him. That's great. A deep, rich story with complex characters and motivations. What a flawless episode. One of my favorites to watch.

Series Spotlight: Two-Face, voiced by Richard Moll

It might seem strange to start the character analysis with a big name villain like Two-Face, but when you look at the landscape of the rest of the show, he barely shows up in it. When he does show up, not much else is left to expand on his character. I mean, that debut was a phenomenal 2-part episode and it would be hard to live up to that quality and expand upon it. So, as a result, Two-Face would occasionally show up in his own episodes, but was mainly regulated to showing up in episodes that featured a lot of villains at once. Yeah, the gimmick would probably get stale if you pulled Two-Face out as much as you would a Joker or Penguin, but at least he made the most of his villainous material with a spectacular debut.

Series Spotlight: Mr. Freeze, voiced by Michael Ansara

Another villain that didn't have a whole bunch of appearances, Mr. Freeze definitely knew how to make an impact. Heart of Ice is one of the show's best episodes and properly told an origin that has become the folklore for the character. This was a character that started off very cheesy and corny when you look at the early incarnations, but Batman: The Animated Series knew how to give the character a serious, modern update. He's a very tragic villain. When you learn that he's just trying to get revenge on the people that essentially murdered his terminally-ill wife, you actually feel really bad for the guy. Do you condone his actions? Probably not. But you can at least understand WHY and HOW he is the way he is. That's a very good line to define villain that only has about 3 or 4 appearances in the entire show. Heck, they even used this version of Freeze for the inspiration for Batman & Robin. Of course, we all know how that turned out, but it's pretty cool (PUN INTENDED!) to know that this character had such a strong response that they felt he could be the main villain in a blockbuster motion picture.

Halfway through the first season at this point. Join me in Part 3 to continue my in-depth reflection on Batman: The Animated Series.


Batman: The Animated Series and images are copyrighted by Warner Bros. Animation