THE BATMAN REVIEW:
"The Bat in the Belfry"
ORIGINAL AIRDATE: September 11, 2004 (Series Premiere)
EPISODE: 1.1
CAST: Rino Romano, Alastair Duncan, Kevin Michael Richardson, Ming Na, Steve Harris
WRITING CREDITIS: Duane Capizzi
DIRECTED BY: Seung Eun Kim

Author: Bill Ramey
Tuesday, September 5, 2006
When I first heard about that a new animated Batman series was in the works, I was excited. I like the premise as well -- a “Year One-ish” series starring a younger version of The Dark Knight. Honestly, I thought this show -- which would be titled THE BATMAN -- was going to be a prequel of sorts to the great BATMAN: THE ANIMATED series of the 90s. Even when I found out that I was mistaken and this news show would have nothing to do with B:TAS, I was still fired up to check it out.

In this new series, we find The Batman in his third year of crime-fighting in Gotham City. This Batman is in his mid to late 20s, so he’s younger than he’s been featured before (even younger than Christian Bale’s Batman in BATMAN BEGINS).

Episode 1 is titled “The Bat in the Belfry” with The Joker as the featured villain -- more about him in a bit.

The Batman’s first appearance (prior to the show‘s intro) is done rather well, as he appears unseen in the shadows while taking down Rupert Thorne and his gang. In fact, this scene is reminiscent of The Batman’s first appearance in the live-action film BATMAN BEGINS.

The plot is also makes one recall another live-action Bat-film, 1989’s BATMAN, as The Joker intends to fly a hot air balloon filled with Joker Gas and release its contents on Gotham. This episode also marks The Batman’s first encounter with The Clown Prince of Crime.

I found “The Bat in the Belfy” merely OK. It wasn’t bad, but it certainly didn’t wow me either. I like the younger Batman and Bruce Wayne as he is still learning quite a bit about what it takes to be Gotham’s protector. THE BATMAN‘s version of Alfred comes across more of the surrogate father than his earlier animated incarnation.

I could nitpick the episode apart but I’ll focus on what I perceive to be this episode’s biggest faults: 1. The overuse of Bat-gadgets, and 2. The Joker.

An example of #1 is this “Bat-Wave” contraption which is sort of a modernized, “cool” version of The Batsignal. I got the impression that while The Batman is still certainly young and learning, he relies way too much on these sort of gadgets as opposed to his physical and detective skills.

And as far as The Joker is concerned, I don’t like him. I have no problem with creators giving us their version of this iconic Batman character -- as long as it stays true to the spirit and core qualities of The Joker. I just didn’t get that vibe from THE BATMAN‘s version of the Ace of Knaves. His clothing was flat goofy right down to the shoes on his feet -- wait, he doesn’t wear shoes! His hair is nothing more than green dreadlocks and what’s the deal with the big red eyes? Bottom line here is that I’m just not digging this Joker.

Of course, I’m writing this review nearly two years after the fact and the show has improved quite a bit since that time. While this initial episode did knock my socks off (it did that for The Joker though), it was good enough to warrant a look at subsequent episodes.