RELEASES - THE BATMAN: THE COMPLETE THIRD SEASON

Packaging Menus Art Announce Date: 12/13/06 Street Date: 4/10/07 Closed Captioning: Yes MSRP: $19.98 Packaging Type: Amaray Case Disc Configuration: 1) 9-Dual Layer 2) 9-Dual Layer Run Time: 273 Subtitles: English Aspect Ratio: Original Aspect Ratio - 1.33, Standard [4:3 Transfer] Sound Quality: English Dolby Surround Stereo Episodes Batgirl Begins, Part 1, Batgirl Begins, Part 2, A Dark Knight to Remember, A Fistful of Felt, RPM, Cash for Toys, Brawn, The Laughing Cats, Fleurs du Mal, Thunder, The Apprentice, The Icy Depths, Gotham's Ultimate Criminal Mastermind Special Features The Batman: Season 3 Unmasked Synopsis As if keeping the streets of Gotham City safe from crazies like The Joker, The Penguin and Scarface weren't enough, now The Batman has women problems! Best friends Barbara Gordon and Pamela Isley are spirited teens, passionate about their campaign of eco-terrorisms against the city's corporate offenders. But when a strike against a chemical plant goes bad, their lives change forever and Gotham gains two more players in the showdown of good and evil! Barbara aka Batgirl becomes The Batman's feisty sidekick while Pamela aka Poison Ivy becomes the newest thorn in The Batman's side. With all 13 Season Three episodes, this 2-disc DVD collection delivers The Batman style with a jolt of girl power! Review by Zach Demeter: The Batman has always been a mixed bag of pleasure for me. There are so many episodes that hit-and-miss and the introduction of Batgirl in season three brought me new hope that it could turn around. After the excellent opening of "Batgirl Begins", I knew the show was capable of entertaining stories, characters and great animation. Unfortunately, most of season three became rather forgettable halfway through and none of the episodes, to this day, stick with me. That’s not to say season three of The Batman is completely mediocre. It opens strong and with a bang, but closes with silence, as the later half of the season doesn’t do too much to impress. Still, for the fan of Batman it’s worth watching, however forgettable some of the adventures he (and Batgirl) have are; there are highlights, such as the two part "Batgirl Begins", "A Dark Knight to Remember" and "Gotham’s Ultimate Criminal Mastermind" but overall there just isn’t much to take a peak at this season. One thing is for sure though—while the stories may lack, the animation does not. I’m continually surprised by how downright awesome the animation on this show is. Fights always come off looking simply beautiful and are a much bigger treat than the story itself (this season, anyway). The races in "RPM", in particular, are just beautiful. Overall the third season of The Batman is very hit-and-miss. Some love it, some hate it (still) and some just are like me who didn’t go in any particular direction but still didn’t really find the whole thing interesting. The DVD Presented in the same manner that past seasons of The Batman were, this season matches the others perfectly. Packaging is similar and the disc art is very similar (downright identical, really), but I’m still pleased with it. On top of the two discs we get an insert detailing what’s on each disc—oh how I love the inserts! They make the package feel more worth your money for some reason when you see a little something extra stashed away in the corner. Menus are static with music over the main menu only. The main menu is shockingly sparse this time around on the first disc, with only "Play" and "Episodes" options (the second disc throws in "Special Features"). Beyond that there’s not too much to see here—disc art matches the series and unlike other DC animated sets, the characters at least appear in this season! Video and audio for this release are, like past releases, very nice. Audio is nice and strong, while the video still packs a fair amount of aliasing in. Some of the image appears soft at times ("Brawn" in particular), but overall it’s a satisfying transfer of The Batman’s third season. Special features are no longer a disappointment this time around! Unlike last season's completely useless episode recap "feature", this season has interviews with crew and cast that discuss their motives and thoughts behind the season. We hear from the usual crew (Capizzi, Matsuda, etc.), but it was cool to see and hear from Danielle Judovits speak a bit on her role as Batgirl. The featurette was short (slightly under ten minutes), but I think it was just the right amount of time spent. If we could get these on future season releases, I’ll be extremely happy—here’s hoping! Overall The Batman: The Complete Third Season is really hard to review. If you’re a fan, completist or simply loved the third season, the set is a no brainer to buy. For those that are unsure, you may want to give it a rental first—although you’re more likely to spend more on renting each disc than you would be to just outright buy it the first week of its release. As a season I can’t really recommend it, but as a DVD set it’s satisfactory and worth what little it costs, so in that respect I’d call this set definitely Recommended. [ Back to Releases ] Check out much more at The World's Finest. The Batman and all characters and related indicia are (c) and TM of their respective owners. Original content, copyright The World's Finest. Contact us. Follow The World's Finest on Twitter - Facebook - YouTube