The DC Animated Universe Weekly Review - Batman: The Animated Series

 Batman: The Animated Series

Episode 33

Robin’s Reckoning Part 2

 

Another worthy two-parter.  The emotion and action doesn’t tone down in the slightest.  Robin is on a quest to find the man who killed his parents.  The story is flashing back to when he was a kid trying to find him.  A young Dick Grayson tracks Tony Zucco down to an abandoned building.  Tony Zucco sees Grayson and plans to kill him since he’s the only witness to the Grayson murders.  Batman shows up and Zuccoo uses the kid as a hostage.  He throws him in the river, Batman saves Grayson and Zocco gets away.  Dick Grayson is pissed at Batman for letting Zucco go.  

The kill the witness trope is so tiresome in film/TV.  There are actual laws in the USA which state if a witness dies then hearsay is admissible.  It's better to have the witness live and be too scared to testify than kill the witness because their statement can be read in court.  A 90s cartoon isn't going to tackle that complex law and the DCAU might not have such legal logic in a world filled with super villains.

 

Batman takes Dick to the Batcave and reveals his identity.  Dick agrees to stay with Bruce Wayne and Alfred permanently and help Batman in his quest to fight crime.  

 

In the present Robin and Batman separately track down Zucco.  Batman gets their first and Zucco incapacitates him.  As he’s about to kill Batman, Robin arrives and total beats the crap out of Zucco.  He pushes himself to the point of almost killing Zucco but backs off.  The police take Zucco away.  

 

Robin tells Batman he was right, his emotions almost got the best of him.  Batman explains his reasons weren’t about hurting Zucco. Batman was afraid Zucco would hurt Robin. 

 

It’s two part episodes like this which make BtAS the best animated show ever.  To tell a story with such depth, emotion, action was never seen in American children’s animation.  It’s one of the best two-part episodes in the entire DCAU.  

 

 

Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com

Episode by Episode - Star Trek: Enterprise

Season 4

Episode 87 Observer Effect

 

A great stand-alone episode!  The Enterprise encounters a virus they cannot cure while an alien race called the Organians secretly observe them trying to fight it.  Archer convinces the Organians their approach is wrong.  While he agrees with non-interference, their choice not to warn people the planet has a deadly virus is wrong.  His speech is so moving the Organians change their ways and cure and or revive everyone on Enterprise infected with the virus.  They wipe everyone’s minds of the memory of the Organians and state they will prep to make first contact with them in 100 or so years.

 

The Organians are from Star Trek the original series.  We see them in the episode Errand of Mercy.  They are omnipotent benevolent alien pacifists who prevent the Klingons and Federation from going to war.   A great and unexpected callback to the original series.  The episodes bridging the gap were always amazing.  The episode has great sentiment and suspense.  A win in the series.  

 

Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com

The DC Animated Universe Weekly Review - Batman: The Animated Series

 Batman: The Animated Series

Episode 32 

Robin’s Reckoning Part 1

 

A two-part episode devoted to Dick Grayson’s backstory.  Batman and Robin are investigating an extortion scheme.  After some awesome action Batman interrogates the thugs and gets a name he knows all too well.  He immediately tells Robin to stop the investigation.  As the episode progresses we learn the gang leader is Tony Zucco, the guy who killed Dick Grayson’s parents. It’s brilliantly balanced between the present investigation and the flashbacks of how a young Dick Grayson had a happy childhood in the circus with his parents, lost his parents due to Zucco’s sabotage, Bruce Wayne was in the audience, relating it to his own childhood tragedy offers to take him in.  

 

Batman makes it his mission to find Zucco to give Grayson the resolution that Bruce Wayne never received.  In that quest he scares Zucco completely out of town.  We see Arnold Stromwell make a return via flashbacks after first seeing his redemption story from It’s Never Too Late.  Alfred reminds Batman that Dick Grayson needs a nurturer more than justice.  Bruce proceeds to spend more quality time with Dick and they begin to bond.  The show cements the relationship between Bruce and Dick in a way no other media had ever achieved.  Two children who witnessed the loss of their parents to a meaningless crime.  

 

In the present Robin discovers it’s Zucco, is super pissed off, and refuses to listen to Batman’s order to stand down.  He drives off in a rage vowing to resolve the matter himself and end his relationship with Batman.   

 

 

Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com

Episode by Episode - Star Trek: Enterprise

Season 4

Episode 86 Daedalus

 

Doctor Emory Erickson tricks Enterprise into trying to save his missing son.  Enterprise finds out they have been duped but helps him anyway.  While doing a transport whammy jammy, they fail and his son dies. 

 

It’s another blender episode.  Much like the Star Trek Deep Space Nine episode The Visitor where Benjamin Sisko keeps appearing at different points in his son’s Jake’s life.  That episode is touching and heartfelt.  It also has remnants of the Star Trek The Next Generation episode 11001001 where a bunch of aliens steal the Enterprise to trick them into saving them from dying.  It’s happened on countless episodes in every series.  

 

The redundancy of the plot makes this one a fail in an otherwise stellar season.  It’s as if the writers dusted off a script from season two and jammed it in for filler. 

 

Written by

Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com

BanGos - I'm Walking On Sunshine

 BanGos performing I'm Walking On Sunshine

The DC Animated Universe Weekly Review - Batman: The Animated Series

 Batman: The Animated Series

Episode 31

The Cape and the Cowl Conspiracy

 

This is a solid episode to watch in first run but lacks the same pizazz in repeats.  It’s still fun though.   Batman is helping Commissioner Gordon track down some missing stolen McGuffin.  Batman knows Josiah Wormwood did it but cannot prove it.  So he tries to shakedown Baron Wacklaw Josek to get the information.  Josek then hires Wormwood to get Batman’s Cape and Cowl.  Wormwood agrees and through a series of elaborate traps eventually captures Batman’s Cape and Cowl.  Wormwood probably could have bought or fabricated his own but one can assume there’s something in the challenge.  Wormwood had a very Riddler style to Batman’s traps but that villain hadn’t shown up yet.  The big twist is Josek is really Batman (the real Josek was thoroughly scared out of town by Batman) and it was all a ploy to trick Wormwood into confessing how he pulled off the crime Commissioner Gordon was having Batman investigate.  A solid bate and switch too.  Since Wormwood confesses to a different crime all on his own, his lawyers cannot argue coercion or entrapment.  Batman did solicit Wormwood to commit a bunch of crimes to steal his Cape and Cowl but Wormwood isn’t prosecuted for that.

 

Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com

Episode by Episode - Star Trek: Enterprise

Season 4

Episode 85 KirShara

 

Commander Tucker in command of Enterprise along side Ambassador Soval warns the Andorians of a pending attack from Vulcan.  The Andorians are skeptical, secretly kidnap Soval, torture him, then believe him.  Earth and the Andorians head into space to confront the arriving Vulcan fleet.

 

Meanwhile on Vulcan Captain Archer is trying to take the Kir’Shara which has Suraks teachings to a Vulcan monastery.  T’Pol becomes cured of P’Nar symfrom by T’Pau who explains it’s the result of a dude who sucks at doing mind melds and not some incurable virus.   T’Pau melds with T’Pol and fixes her, ultimately curing her of Vulcan rape-AIDS.  A bunch of jerk Vulcans under the order of the High Command try to stop them.  T’Pol gets captured.  Archer changes his plan and heads off with T’Pau to rescue her.  

 

Archer and T’Pau infiltrate the Vulcan High Command and stop the Vulcan attack against the Andorians.  The head of the high command is removed from office.  The big reveal at the end shows he’s actually Romulan and they’ve been plotting to sabotage Vulcan for decades.  

 

What a great conclusion to a solid round of storytelling.  Seeing T’Pau in the three parter was a nice nod to the original series where we first meet her as a really old lady in AMOK time.  It’s another great "bridge the gap" series of episodes that allow Vulcans to evolve into the ones we know and love by the time of Star Trek the original series.  

 

The parallels between the Iraqi war being waged via false information after a tragic bombing and the Vulcans trying to wage war against Andoria after a tragic bombing based on false information speaks volumes.  A solid sci-fi allegory cautioning people/leaders to pause and review the evidence before rushing into action is a lesson no one has ever learned.   

 

Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com

ATLAS Has No Map To Entertaining

This film got bashed by critics and rightfully so! A truly horrendous experience. There were moments in the film where I thought the critics might be overly cruel but those good moments are few and far between. I bore witness to some of the worst writing and acting in cinema. 

Jennifer Lopez plays a woman named Atlas who is ripping off a scene in Aliens by giving a bunch of space marines intel on an evil AI robot who wants to destroy humanity. She hates AI so much that of course circumstances cause her to have to climb inside a giant AI machine and befriend it to save humanity from extinction. 

She's left to carry an entire film with an AI named Smith, voiced by Gregory James Cohan, who has none of the flare Paul Rubens had when he did it in Flight of the Navigator. A much better story about a boy befriending a computer controlled machine. 

A better actress might have been able to salvage this film but Jennifer Lopez is not charismatic or talented enough. Jennifer Love Hewitt would have knocked it out of the park. JLo had no depth, no nuance to her performance, no believability. JLo in a mecha is so out of type, props for trying something different. But this seems more like a pay grab than a genuine attempt to branch out as an actress. 

Whoever thought her haircut was a good idea should be "unalived" as the Wokes say. It's an 80s big haircut without the volume. A horrible choice for her in general and certainly the wrong hair for sci-fi space battles. She couldn’t cut it in Winger with that hair let alone a sci-fi action cliche film. 

Additionally, her character is responsible for the death of 3 million people! The film tries to gloss over it, claiming she was a child when the big bad was created. She didn't know what she was doing....but she caused it. Characters don't get a pass in films when 3 million people die. She gets a pass somehow. Also the entire personal connection to antagonist is so ridiculous. Eye rollingly painful.

What could have saved this atrocity? Perhaps Jennifer Lopez as a low level hotel worker, a cleaning lady, she puts on the mecha at the urging of her coworkers when suddenly a random attack occurs. She is then forced to team up with the AI machine to win the love of Ralph Fiennes. Maid in a Mecha! 

I kept waiting for a Dunkin Donuts product placement to pop up. How is she a $400 million establishment?

Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com

The DC Animated Universe Weekly Review - Batman: The Animated Series

 Batman: The Animated Series

Episode 30

Perchance to Dream

 

Batman gets stuck in a dream world by the Mad Hatter where his deepest desires are given to him.  Bruce Wayne’s parents are still alive and he’s engaged to Selina Kyle.  Batman is a separate persona that fights crime.  Bruce/Batman figures out it’s a dream, jumps off the top of a building to wake up.  He wakes up, beats up the bad guys, confronts Mad Hatter.  Mad Hatter states he wanted Batman out of the way for ruining his life and so he can enact his plans without interference.  Hatter than cries like a giant wuss.  

 

Perchance to Dream is recycled in the Justice League Unlimited episode For the Man Who Has Everything.  This one works well but when they revisit the premise in JLU, it’s off the hook.   

 

Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com

Episode by Episode - Star Trek: Enterprise

Season 4

Episode 84 Awakening

 

Soval the Earth Ambassador for Vulcan gets fired for doing a mind meld to find out who is really behind the Earth embassy bombing.  He then teams up with Commander Tucker to warn the Andorians about a Vulcan invasion in hopes of stopping a war between the two species.  Tucker takes off to Andoria to try and stop the war.

 

Meanwhile Captian Archer is walking around Vulcan with the Katra of Surak in his brain.  He gets brain flashes to find the Kir’Shara. He finds the McGuffin and plans to bring it to Mt Selaya.  T’Pol’s mother is killed in a Vulcan bombing against the Syrrannites.

 

Another riveting episode that explores Vulcan lore and puts Enterprise in the middle of the action.  Archer walking around with the memories of Surak is a nice twist.  It adds a nice emotional investment in the action and amps up the stakes beyond him just being friends with T’Pol.  

 

Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com