REVIEWS

Episode #16 - JTV Original Airdate - July 9th, 2005 Joker pirates the airwaves of Gotham in order to broadcast his crimes on TV as entertainment. When Detective Yin's overzealous new partner tries to bring the clown prince of crime down, he merely becomes Joker's latest "costar". Batman must find where Joker is broadcasting from before he can carry out his plan to make Gotham die laughing! Review by Stu 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 Michael Jelenic 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 Ming-Na as Detective Ellen Yin Kevin Michael Richardson as Joker Patrick Warburton as Cash Adam West as Mayor Grange Screen Grabs HD Screen Grabs Pans Review After a string 4 entertaining episodes it seemed The Batman was actually trying to be the entertaining cartoon we all know it’s capable of being, instead of shouting “Look kids! Toys!” After an excellent 2-part finale, an above average season opener (for The Batman anyway) and a very good Riddler introduction episode, I was optimistic about The Batman’s second season. Then I read that the 3rd episode of season two would be entitled ‘JTV’. To be fair to the episode, despite the fact the story was done (better) in the original Batman Adventures #3, it’s not too bad a premise. The main problem, like all episodes he’s in, is The Joker. Despite the strong vocal performance, this show is still struggling with how to handle the villain who is undoubtedly The Dark Knight’s greatest nemesis. Undoubtedly, the best part of the episode was Cash Tankinson, Yin’s new partner. He reminded me of Johnny Bravo, which isn’t a bad thing in the slightest. If this show has utterly failed at one thing, it’s comedy. Most of the jokes simply leave the viewer filled with an uncontrollable urge to slap the characters, but here Cash was genuinely amusing. Sure, he was stupid and predictable, but this is the first time I’ve found myself laughing at this show. I’ll even admit to being disappointed that he gave his glittering career as a cop for a desk job. Hopefully, Detective Shades will return one day. He’s more interesting than every other cop in the show put together. Yin didn’t do much here, except make Cash look like a fool, which to be honest, a child of 6 could do. If they expect us to start taking everyone’s favorite female cop who isn’t Montoya seriously, they should make her do something useful, instead of being the girl who uses Batwave when she’s in trouble. There was a nice scene in the end, in which I was begging for Gordon to show up, but alas, it wasn’t to be. All in all, while a letdown compared to some of the previous episodes this season, it's not terrible. Just needs to be better. [ Back to Reviews ]

 

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