The Joker returns to THE BATMAN in the latest episode of Season 5 titled “The Joker Express.”

While The Joker is arguably the greatest and most popular of all comic book villains, his appearances on THE BATMAN have been a mixed bag at best. Personally, I don’t dislike this incarnation of The Joker like most fans do. But this particular installment of the show had me siding with the majority.

In other words, “The Joker Express” is a train wreck.

The plot in a nutshell goes as follows: The Joker controls a train that he plans on using to blow up Gotham City. It’s up to The Batman, Robin, and Batgirl (yes, they are in this episode) to stop him. Which -- obviously -- they end up doing.

While I could handle the very clichéd storyline, the eye-roll inducing “performances” by Robin and Batgirl was more than I could stand. You know, since this is a Saturday morning cartoon, one expects to see aspects of each episode aimed at the younger crowd. In the case of THE BATMAN, that usually means silly one-liners. But in “The Joker Express,” they take it to a new level of obnoxiousness.

Hell, when you take a page from the film BATMAN AND ROBIN -- the “I want a…” scene at the beginning of that movie -- you know things can’t be good. Case in point, it seems that both Batgirl and Robin want their own “Cave.” Sheesh.

Even if you eliminated all the Robin and Batgirl nonsense, “The Joker Express” still isn’t very good. All you’ve got is the barefooted Joker running around in a conductor’s outfit planning to destroying Gotham with his Joker-Train. Oh yeah -- I almost forgot -- it seems that his Joker-Gas/Venom/Whatever now makes people commit crimes while laughing their asses off. Brilliant!

Meh, probably not.