Jeeze! Mr Marshmallow and AerostarMonk appear to have annexed the Other Entertainment board! Don't worry about the rest of us, guys, we'll pack up our stuff and leave.
No, I kid, obviously; I can't possibly keep pace on the TMNT debate, so I'll just stick with The Batman. Warning: this is really stupidly long, and most likely quite boring.
Characters I like:
The Penguin - He's overused, yes, but I think I prefer the vulgar and vicious Danny DeVito-style Penguin to the gentleman Penguin of B:TAS, plus I generally like Tom Kenny (who doesn't?
). Even though his physicality in this show sounds laughable on paper, I think it works pretty well, especially when he has those cool Kabuki Twins backing him up. His main problem is the fact they wheel him out too often for a cheap laugh; using him more sparingly would make his best episodes (like "Team Penguin") more effective.
The Riddler - Generally speaking, I'm not a massive fan of Riddler; the "wacko genius" schtick of Gorshin and Carrey were fun, but felt too derivative of Joker to me, and though B:TAS's calm, calculating Riddler was a step up, I felt his episodes on the show were a little weak, too often falling back on the "Batman and Robin Trapped In A Giant Maze" cliche and leaving Riddler himself on the sidelines as a smug but rather uninvolved observer. For me, The Batman's "Manson Riddler" combines the forceful presence of Gorshin with the cold smarts of John Glover, and adds new dimensions of his own; creepiness (thanks to that design and Robert Englund's voice) and emotional and psychological depth (his new "Riddler's Revenge" backstory just worked for me, showing the emotional and spiritual fragility that counterbalances his intellectual genius, as in the finale of "Riddled" where he's undone by his own need to work out Batman's identity on his own). End result; my personal favourite Riddler.
Hugo Strange - As a non-comic reader, Strange wasn't a character that I was that familiar with before, but he's so effective here, excelling as the show's "psychological villain" in the absence of Scarecrow. His machinations are probably the most complex of any villain here, and it makes his episodes all the more interesting to watch, especially Season Four's excellent "Strange New World", whose ending really caught me off guard. Good job, writers!
Clayface - In my view, the Harvey Dent/Two-Face charcter arc, the story of a good, moral man's tragic descent into deformity and criminal madness, is one of the most affecting and involving in the Batman canon; I hated how they trampled it in the otherwise OK Batman Forever, loved how they nailed it in B:TAS's "Two-Face" two-parter, and am really looking forward to seeing how Chris Nolan and crew handle it in forthcoming movies. Suddenly and shockingly transplanting that arc onto poor Ethan Bennett, a solid and likeable supporting character throughout Season One, was a really effective move on the show's creators part. For a writer on a supposed kids' show, Greg Weisman deserves major credit for making Clayface's origin story "The Clay Face of Tragedy", as well as its later follow-up "Meltdown", as affecting as they were. It's a shame he didn't get to complete the arc himself; whilst "Clayfaces" was a good episode, I felt that the new writer let Karlo's introduction push Ethan's much-deserved happy ending out of the limelight...hopefully we'll see him again.
Robin - Here's another character this show has turned me round on; I always believed that the concept of a kid tagging along with the fabled Dark Knight couldn't work in any remotely serious context. B:TAS's Robin was the first Robin I could accept; The Batman went one better and gave me one I really liked. I had had my doubts before I his introduction; as far as I was concerned, Batgirl's arrival had taken the show back a step, but from his debut in the outstanding "A Matter of Family" (which rivalled B:TAS's "Robin's Reckoning", in my view) onwards, he's really enhanced the show, bringing out new sides to Batman, validating Batgirl's presence and being pretty cool on his own merits to boot.
Other honorable mentions -
Harley Quinn (a little nastier maybe, but otherwise the same great character; new actress Hynden Walch imitates predecessor Arleen Sorkin flawlessly),
Killer Moth (a very amusing comedy take on the character; he sounds like Ted from Scrubs
),
Poison Ivy (good new backstory; underused so far, especially in terms of her links to Barbara Gordon),
Ellen Yin (developed into a solid character over the course of the first two seasons; I was really disappointed to see her dropped without explanation at the end of Season Two, not even returning for Ethan's rehabilitation ),
Ragdoll (amusing voice, great visual villain),
Francis Grey (excellent one-shot character with an intriguing power and a heart-warming story arc),
Firefly (arrogant, cocksure demeanour and "gun-for-hire" nature makes him a versatile and compelling character; provides killer visuals),
Cash Tankenson (yes, he's a ludicrous character who feels like he's wandered in from another show, but no-one can resist Patrick Warburton doing his thing
)
Characters I'm undecided on:
The Joker - I actually
love his look, with its craggy, exaggerated spikiness and brilliantly clashing colours, I like his kineticism and unique way of moving, and I think Kevin Michael Richardson is an astute choice of voice actor, as left-field as it seems. Nevertheless, I don't think he's been handled well; the writers seem unsure as to what they want him to be. Is he a homicidal psychopath? Is he a mischievous troublemaker? Is he deceptively contemplative? Is he a comedic buffoon? B:TAS's Joker was written to be all of these things at the same time, and Mark Hamill really sold it; The Batman's writers fluctuate wildly in their presentation of him, leaving Kevin Michael Richardson in no-man's land, and making their Joker an inconsistent and frustrating character to watch.
Mr Freeze - Again, brilliant visual design - Mr Freeze action sequences are amongst the prettiest scenes this already gorgeous show has to offer - and a great, chilling (sorry
) voice from Clancy Brown are let down by poor writing. I don't mind them returning to la less complex Freeze after B:TAS's definitive version; but does he have to be
quite as cartoonish as he is here, with his lack of
any motives at
any point ever, and his line in rubbish Arnie-level puns? Batman and Robin was ten years ago, people; aren't we past lines like "have an ice day" yet?
Batgirl - To look at her on paper, this Batgirl is an utterly loathsome little wretch; an arrogant sass-mouthed teeny-bopper with a line in smug, corny quips, tagging along with a Batman who doesn't want her there and upsetting the balance of a show that had just hit its stride. I should despise her, and yet I don't; her visual design is OK, and actress Danielle Judovits does what she can, at least providing some innocence to ground the overbearing lines she's given. Her initial introdustion did yield some good episodes (her two-part debut "Batgirl Begins", "A Dark Knight To Remember"), and she's worked a lot better in the sideline role she's taken since Robin came in. Still, she is fundamentally quite an aggravating character, and the second half of Season Three showed how too much of Batgirl can really bog the series down.
Alfred - B:TAS's Efrem Zimbalist Alfred and Batman Begins's Michael Caine Alfred got the mix of dry wit, professional respect and fatherly affection right; this version, at least to begin with, erred too much to the "wit" side, resulting in what I like to call a "Dave Chappelle Alfred", who milks everything Bruce Wayne says for an opportunity to drop in a cheap gag or pun. He seemed to tone this down later; maybe Bruce just got sick of it and gave him a punch in the mouth.
Characters I don't like:
Catwoman - I don't know what it is about her; maybe it's the massive ears that make her look more like a mouse, maybe it's that large collar that makes her suit look really baggy, maybe it's clawed gloves that make her look like she has man-hands, but whatever it is, this version of Catwoman just doesn't seem very sexy. Gina Gershon's performance is competent, but it just seems to lack that spark that Adrienne Barbeau's had, and the chemistry between her and Batman isn't really there, especially since the sidekicks showed up. I know it sounds a bit shallow, but it's the nature of this character; there really is no point to an unsexy Catwoman.
Man-Bat - The hideous white vampiric Man-Bat design is creepy and effective, which makes it all the more of a shame that his alter ego Dr. Langstrom is nothing but a dull, one-note "Mad Evil Doctor (tm)". The Kurt Langstrom/Man-Bat story is a great horror-style tale in the Jekyll and Hyde/Wolfman tradtion, and indeed, it was considered strong enough to carry B:TAS's moody, sinister pilot "On Leather Wings"; the Batman's version has none of that atmosphere, mostly because of its focus on Peter MacNicol's hammy, screechy Langstrom.
As you can tell if you were patient enough to read all of that, my thoughts on this show are overall pretty positive, and I am looking forward to seeing the finale of what has been the strongest season so far. I'm a little concerned about the fact that a few members of the creative team, including Jeff Matsuda, are set to leave after Season Four ends, plus I'm not entirely sold on the idea of Season Five featuring other Justice League characters as Superman and The Flash; I'd be much happier to see them tackle more of the Batman Rogues Gallery (Clayface's revised arc means that Two-Face probably won't be seen, but Ra's Al Ghul and Scarecrow are two obvious omissions so far; hopefully enough time has elapsed since Batman Begins to use them), or indeed just give more time to underused villains like Poison Ivy, Clayface II and Bane. I'll see what happens as regards Season Five, but howver it turns out, I think with Season Four the show has already proved itself worthy of its place in Batman history.
(And now my fingers hurt, and I've gone blind. Ah well.)