REVIEWS

Episode #10 - Topsy Turvey Original Airdate - February 5th, 2005 The Batman investigates a crime bearing the stamp of his arch-enemy The Joker, despite the fact that Joker is currently and has in fact remained locked up in Arkham since Batman first put him there. A trail of victims encased in larger than life playing cards leads The Batman to the bizarre truth! Review by Gareb Media by Gareb Credits Supervising Producer Duane Capizzi Supervising Producer Michael Goguen Producer Linda M. Steiner, Jeff Matsuda Associate Producer Kimberley A. Smith Written by Adam Beechen Directed by Seung Eun Kim Animation by Dongwoo Animation Co., LTD. Music by Thomas Chase Jones Voices Rino Romano as The Batman Alastair Duncan as Alfred Steve Harris as Detective Ethan Bennett Ming-Na as Detective Ellen Yin Kevin Michael Richardson as Joker and Judge Wigzell Henry Gibson as Bagley Screen Grabs Additional HD Images Pans Review With “Topsy Turvey” comes a question you have to ask yourself: why? Yes, it’s not much of a question, but it’s what I wanted to ask myself when I finished watching this episode. If Joker’s first appearance in the show wasn’t odd enough, this one takes it another notch with his invention (which makes no sense, I’m not even going to try to figure it out) that turns people into giant playing cards. The concept of the episode is novel; Joker sends out an Arkham security guard he had threatened to harm in someway if he didn’t comply, who dons his look and begins terrorizing the city. Capturing Judge Wigzell, The Batman gets on this guard’s tail quickly and eventually tracks him down. Getting information from the guard is easy and The Batman goes to Arkham to find the real Joker, pacing in his cell. We get some nice interaction between the two characters in this cell scene, only one thing doesn’t make sense. Joker is acting like he and The Batman have fought a several hundred times already, calling his moves and motives and how we’ll act. For this being only their second encounter, you have to wonder if the writer was getting a little ahead of himself. Joker leaves The Batman behind in the cell and begins his escapade into the city. His plan is to turn those who were responsible for putting him away in jail, all fifty-two of them, into giant playing cards, in which the only thing they can move is their eyes. From what I could tell, Joker’s ultimate plot was to turn his enemies into a full deck of cards and then toss them into the Gotham River. A noble plan to be sure… As is the norm with The Batman, no poor animation is seen here. Tired angles are used in the show that set up the fights or add “tension” to a scene; the first six episodes with this in it was fine, but it’s getting a bit old now. Music was the same old thing, nothing spectacular and nothing that hurt the scenes any. After seeing the Joker in the series opener, again in this one and again in the episode right after (he sure gets out of jail quicker this time around), I’m already sick the character. His new design with a suit is better on the eyes than his long-sleeve look, but there’s still something more annoying about this Joker than there is clever. When I told my friend I was reviewing this episode, she told me she could write it for me: "Joker was on crack; in fact this whole episode was on crack. Don't bother watching." I agree with her statement; there’s nothing at all worth seeing in here. If you want to see what the writers and this show is capable of, then check out the two-part finale; this one is just summer break repeat fodder. [ Back to Reviews ]

 

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