The Clayface of Tragedy (2)

Season 1

The Batman

Specials

Season 2

Season 3

Season 4

Season 5

My favorite adaptation of Bruce, I love how much he cares in this. 

The vibe of this show is just perfect for me, with its neo gothic tone. Along with its focus on Batman's detective side, I just really like it. 

It does a lot of reinventing of Batman villains, and in ways that I personally like a lot. Especially Clayface, Ethan Bennett is one of my favorite versions of that character ever. 

Just a really solid early years Batman. Love it a lot. 

What happened to my beautiful Batman show!?!??!

The first 2 seasons of this are truly spectacular, and boldly my favourite animated Batman content (so far). Unfortunately, going into season 3 it drops the awesome horror tone for a more drastic lighter tone, drops poor Detective Yin (who's fantastic) and drops that glorious theme!!!!!!! I'm still not over it. Continues to be perfectly watchable and bounces back a little in season 4, only to throw it away again with a 5th and final season that is trying too hard to be the Justice League. But it never reaches the heights of its opening 2 seasons and that's a real shame.

Still an overall good show, but I'm distraught that it almost rebooted itself, because I could have easily had this above the original BAU before that.

Fuck this season. It does nothing. There is no episode in this season that is remotely worth how much this season fucks up The Batman as a show. 

Harsh words, I know, but I honestly can't put it any other way. The introduction of the Justice League into this show ruined it. Every member of the Justice League is bland and uninteresting at best and annoying and grating at worst. Every one of these fuckers has an episode dedicated to them in this season (except for Martian Manhunter), and the only one that is remotely enjoyable is Hawkman's, because he's basically irrelevant. 

See, Season 3 of The Batman was bad. It basically stomped on the legacy of the first two seasons — it was goofy and silly, a stark contrast to the dark and grounded first two seasons. However that season also had a lot of good parts — it introduced Barbara (my favourite character), had a good ongoing story arc about Bruce accepting Barbara as part of the team, alongside an amazing season finale. Yeah, a lot of it fucking sucked, but even then, it was at least funny to watch. Some of this shit was so absurd you couldn't help but be entertained. No such enjoyment in Season 5 — a bad episode is a boring episode. 

And the finale — the fucking finale. Its all about the Justice League. The finale for The BATMAN is about the Justice League. No other Batman villains except for Hugo Strange turn up, and even he's treated like a plot device. Why even is there another episode about The Joining? They had their threat perfectly wrapped up at the end of Season 4, why bring them back? 

Speaking of Season 4, why didn't the show end there? Season 4 has a legitimately perfect ending for the show — you get a resolution for the Bat Family, you get to see all the villains again, a large scale conflict... what else do you need? 

Also, what the fuck even happened to half the cast? Selina never even turns up this season. Why? Already a criminally underexplored character in this show isn't even given a proper conclusion. Honestly, as much as I don't like Rumours, that episode at least gave everyone their chance to shine, at least for a bit. No villain in this season gets any screentime except for The Joker really, as the rest are taken by Justice League villains. 

I suppose there are some highlights here and there in this season, but so does every show. The worst season of every show I've seen always has at least one or two passable episodes, it's not an achievement. 

Ugh. Whatever. 

Tldr: Just don't watch this season. Stop at Season 4. It's not worth it.

Full show review coming later. I don't have it in me to write about this now.

Animation

Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Action & Adventure

Kids

The WB

The CW

A young billionaire Bruce Wayne fights crime and evil as the mysterious vigilante, The Batman.