Batman: The Animated Series
Episode 45
Terror in the Sky
Man-Bat’s second appearance. It’s a nice twist. Kirk Langstrom thinks the Batman’s cure didn’t work but Kirk’s wife Francine was actually infected when her dad tried to recreate the formula. While not as visually stunning as the first Man-Bat episode, it’s quite the thriller with an amazing twist.
Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com
Season 4
Episode 98 These Are the Voyages…
So much done wrong in this episode. The writers even apologized for it years later. The concept behind it was respectable. The writers tried to write an episode that was saying goodbye to 18 years straight of a Star Trek shows being on the air. Because when Enterprise ended, the franchise was taking a break to revamp and redirect.
Failure of the show was blamed on fan fatigue. When looking at all the episodes in Enterprise, it was evident a lot of the stories were recycled gimmicks from prior series. Fan fatigue seemed to be a copout when the real issue was lazy writing in the first season and choices for filler episodes in the third season. Those writing decisions set a tone which turned fans away early on and made it harder to recapture them in later season when the stories improved. The characters weren’t as robust, the time travel war annoyed people, prequels in general seem to annoy people.
So the writers pull in two characters from their biggest Star Trek hit, The Next Generation. Jonathan Frakes (Commander Riker) and Marina Sirtis (Consoler Troi). The plot revolves around a Next Generation episode. Riker is playing a holodeck program with the Enterprise crew on their last mission while trying to get insight on a decision he needs to make.
The Enterprise story takes place 6 years after the prior episode. It’s on the eve of the creation of the United Federation of Planets. The show kills off one of their best characters; Commander Tucker in the lamest way possible. There is no time to respectfully grieve his death. They also take their best recurring character, the Andorian Shran and turn him into an inept loser.
Ultimately the format in which the last episode was told could be fixed in a future Star Trek production. All the wrong decisions made in the show could be easily salvaged as an inaccurate and poorly written holodeck program about Earth before the Federation. Therefore Commander Tucker could have lived a long healthy life and gone on to Captain his own Starship, Shran could have risen to be president of the Federation. It’s all easily fixed with just a few references.
Will the Star Trek creators ever try to retcon or fix their error instead of just apologizing? Probably not. Will we ever get an Enterprise film? Probably not.
How was the content of the show overall? Pretty good. The first season had its challenges. Twenty-six episode seasons was way too ambitious. The fact, the show aired on network television instead of direct syndication was a limitation for the series. Star Trek: The Next Generation found its audience in direct syndication. The stakes and competition were much lower.
The Temporal Cold War wasn’t written well and took too long to gain any decent momentum. The stand alones in season two were much better. Any episode that focused on filling gaps between Enterprise and Star Trek the original series were amazing. Season three’s attempt at an entire story arc was a great attempt at something different. It had its setbacks but kudos for trying to shake things up in Star Trek. Fans however found season three to be overall frustrating and made it hard for the casual viewer to catch up after missing episodes. DVR and online streaming wasn’t the monster it is today
Season four was phenomenal. It really found its footing with the 2 – 3 episodes story arcs. The characters were growing, the stories were crisp, the stakes were high, the action was amazing. If allowed to continue for another three years by following the standards set in Season 4 the show would have been regarded as one of the best Star Trek shows ever made. But like Star Trek the original series, Enterprise was canceled before its time.
Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com
Batman: The Animated Series
Episode 44
Day of the Samurai
Kyodai Ken is back. He’s still seeking revenge on everyone for ruining his life, even though he was the guy who made the choice to be a jerkwad. This time he’s focused on their former martial arts master Yoru-sensei and his star pupil Kairi Tanaga. Ken uses them to track down a hidden Japanese martial arts document that has the most deadly maneuvers.
Of course the only salvageable section of the document is the touch of death. Batman agrees to face Ken in an epic battle at a volcano. Batman figures out where the touch of death is and protects himself. The volcano is erupting, Batman tries to save Ken but he’s stubborn and refuses. He theoretically dies in a lava explosion since we never see him again.
Kairi Tanaga will not appear again until Batman Beyond where she’s aged significantly. One could argue there was a huge drop off in her looks but the beauty standards for people in their 80s is relative...
Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com
Season 4
Episode 97 Terra Prime
This is considered by many fans as the true last episode of the series. It concludes the anti-alien storyline from the prior week’s episode Demons. It’s also a storyline thread that was established in the episode Home.
Archer leads a team to stop the Terra Prime terrorist and their anti-alien agenda. The demands are simple, all aliens leave Earth. But Star Trek would be very boring without aliens, so they must be stopped.
Antics ensue, they stop the bad guy Peter Weller. The hybrid baby dies, it’s very sad. Archer makes a speech to all the aliens to encourage them to explore the universe together.
Lots of fans like this story arc. It’s okay but not as spectacular as others in the season. It is a fitting end to the series as it involves Earth joining up with other aliens to eventually form the United Federation of Planets.
Ultimately it’s bittersweet, since the show found it’s footing but was canceled anyway. And it’s official final episode was so poorly done, this episode arc is almost forgettable.
Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com
Batman: The Animated Series
Episode 43
Moon of the Wolf
There’s a werewolf causing problems in Gotham. The werewolf is a genetic mutation of an athlete Anthony Romulus who used steroids made by Professor Milo. The steroids made him the best athlete ever, beat drug tests, turns him into a monster on the full moon. Milo is blackmailing him with the cure to preform illegal task but Batman is hot in his trail.
The main complaint about the episode is the audio for the wolf. It sounds over modulated. It’s irritating. The episode is a nice allegory about the dangers of steroids. Cheating in sports might get you millions of dollars but eventually it will all come crashing down. Lance Armstrong didn’t exist when this episode aired but he should have watched the episode. Instead he’s a disgraced athlete isolated from society with only his tens of millions of dollars to comfort him.
Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com
Season 4
Episode 96 Demons
An interplanetary alliance has been created. But it has pushback from a bunch of anti-alien humans on Earth. A half Vulcan/half Human baby has been created using the DNA of Enterprise’s favorite couple Commander Tucker and T’Pol. Tucker and T’Pol go to investigate but get captured. Peter “Robocop” Weller is the leader of the anti-alien faction. They create a spacecraft on the Moon and fly to Mars and send a message out to Earth saying all the Aliens have to leave the planet or he will attack Earth. To be continued…
Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com
Batman: The Animated Series
Episode 42
Tyger Tyger
The Island of Dr Moreau? Since this episode was made long before the 1996 film, we wonder if it may have inspired the film. Selina Kyle is kidnapped and turned into a cat lady by evil scientist Dr Emil Dorian. He wants a girlfriend for his creation Tygrus. Why he converted Batman’s girlfriend instead of a random runaway makes no sense. Also, why didn’t he just make another girl cat from scratch for Tygrus?
Illogical reasons aside, he’s a total loon and Batman has to beat him up. Tygurs is conflicted but since he’s in love with the cat version of Selina Kyle he opts to embrace the pussy…cat’s side. Dorian gets himself killed by being a douche. Kyle’s given the antidote to her cat transformation by Tygrus because no one normal wants to be a furry. Normal people like to dress up in leather outfits of their favorite animal. It ends all artsy with Batman reciting The Tyger by William Blake.
Not a bad episode but Batman had one too many genetic monster episodes and the redundancy of Selina Kyle infected with something was genetic McGuffin as he races to save her was becoming a trope.
Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com
Season 4
Episode 95 In A Mirror Darkly, Part II
Evil Archer takes command of the Defiant and learns of his alternate self. Evil Archer who is typically passive, weak, lacking ambition becomes inspired by this news. He sets out to prove himself as a competent leader. He takes tons of different struggles head-on.
Evil Archer fights a Gorn! Star Trek only ever saw the Gorn in the original series episode Arena where Kirk fights a man in a rubber lizard suit. It’s actually a great TOS episode but limited by its costumes, so it has a lot of campiness to it. Enterprise makes a much more menacing CGI Gorn for Archer to defeat.
The Defiant’s memory banks holding an alternate history of events also influence other characters in the mirror verse and cause a rebellion lead by T’Pol. The revolt ultimately fails and Archer maintains his power. Archer then sets his sights on taking over the empire.
As Archer celebrates his victories, he’s betrayed by Evil Sato who kills him, takes command of the ship, goes to Earth, and declares herself Empress. It’s a silly twist but it closes out the episode.
It’s another brilliant episode and incorporates so much of Star Trek into the show. The ending is a little silly but since they are all evil and the Empire doesn’t fall until the time of Kirk and Spock, there’s no real way to craft a resolution that isn’t an entire season of episodes. Therefore the twist with Sato resolves everything and let’s us move back to the main universe stories. The best part is all the original series paraphernalia that’s used via the USS Defiant whose origins are from said series. The costumes, phasers, ship design are all beautifully designed and fun to watch.
Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com