I finally finished watching Batman: Capted Crusader, the new series that was dumped on Amazon Prime last week. Boy, I hate binges. I watched two episodes at a time but managed to watch all the last four last night. It's a good show. Solid. It conjures a satisfying Gotham City with a dynamic cast of characters and engaging plots. Are you still awake? Hey, porridge is good for you.
Maybe it's appropriate to invoke porridge because I was intrigued by the show's persistently neutral colour palette. Lots and lots of greys and beiges. The show comes from Bruce Timm, best known for the classic Batman: The Animated Series and evokes something of that show's look. The big innovation on that early '90s series was to paint all the frames on black paper, giving it all a deeper, darker aesthetic. It's all done by computers now but there's plenty of black in between all those neutral tones. The animation is also a lot of computer. I'd say it's better than the worse episodes of the old animated series but not as good as the best--or as good as some of the best sequences in the new X-Men'97.
It's in the teleplays this one really shines. Two stand out episodes are 7 and 8. I particularly liked 8, about a little girl at a carnival who drains the life force from hapless children.
My favourite episode, by far, though, is episode three, "Kiss of the Catwoman", featuring Christina Ricci as Catwoman. It's the best Catwoman origin story since Batman Returns. It's not as good as that but it's also not so ambitious. This Catwoman is a spoiled, incompetent brat and Ricci's performance makes it so very fun. She also wears the character's costume from the late 1940s, including the skirt, which is unexpectedly very sexy in animated form.
The weakest episode, by far, is 5, "The Stress of Her Regard", which is about Harley Quinn. I guess the makers of this series felt it was time to totally revamp Harley Quinn. I guess "If it ain't broke, fix it anyway" is their motto. This Harley Quinn talks like Hannibal Lector in slow even tones, has a rigid posture, and wears yellow and black. I don't mind the yellow and black but every drop of fun has been drained from what has traditionally been one of the franchise's most entertainingly rambunctious characters.
Even this episode has a decent plot, though.
The series ends with an arc focusing on Harvey Dent. I was disappointed by his character early in the series as he seemed to be written as just a two dimensional douche. But in that last arc, he becomes more complex. I feel like they consciously modelled him on Gollum, which is an interesting choice.
Batman: Caped Crusader is available on Amazon Prime.
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