Thoughts on The Batman

[BenInTheBatcave]

So I'm on the last season of The Batman and it's a weirdly inconsistent show. Original showrunner Duane Capizzi definitely had a unique vision and tried to do things a bit differently compared to what had gone before.

Bennett and Yin were really good original characters who got more character development than Batgirl and Robin did, and they were part of what made the first two seasons good (if you persevered). Then season 3 was a bit mediocre, with some bright spots, then Capizzi left and was replaced by Michael Jelenic (who wrote the amazing "The Laughing Bat").

Although the original direction of the show had been lost, in terms of the actual episodes season 4 was the strongest and was essentially a soft reboot. Now though it's become another more generic Batman/Justice League show which I find frustrating considering JLU had only just ended by that point.

 

[Yojimbo]

That is the general consensus here as well. I was bummed out when Ellen Yin simply stopped appearing on the show for no reason. Yeah, she got mentioned in Artifacts and clearly it shifted from Batman and GCPD to Batman and the Batfamily but I thought Yin was a good character.

 

[BenInTheBatcave]

That is the general consensus here as well. I was bummed out when Ellen Yin simply stopped appearing on the show for no reason. Yeah, she got mentioned in Artifacts and clearly it shifted from Batman and GCPD to Batman and the Batfamily but I thought Yin was a good character.

I don't mind the shift necessarily. I like Batgirl and Robin's sibling-like relationship (which is something BTAS didn't really do) but it would have been nice if Yin had the same closure that Ethan had.

Another thing that bugs me is that a lot of the villains get introduced then don't get used enough, or annoyingly keep coming back but don't get any lines.

 

[Otaku-sempai]

Personally, I felt that the third season of The Batman had stronger writing than the first two (which relied too much on cool visuals while taking shortcuts on the plots). Admittedly, Season 3 borrowed much more heavily from B:TAS.

 

[BenInTheBatcave]

Personally, I felt that the third season of The Batman had stronger writing than the first two (which relied too much on cool visuals while taking shortcuts on the plots). Admittedly, Season 3 borrowed much more heavily from B:TAS.

6/14: I really loved the opening two part story with Poison Ivy. They had a great interpretation there that they barely did anything with after that.

I think the quality dipped but got better in the second half. "The Laughing Cats" was solid and in retrospect was Catwoman's last hurrah on this show. "The Apprentice" and "The Icy Depths" were really good and "D.A.V.E" was a brilliant finale.

6/15: So I was watching a video on Serum Lake's channel and he claims that Ethan and Yin were written out of The Batman as a reaction to racist backlash online?

Is there any truth to this?

Mod Note: Merged Thoughts on Batman and Racist backlash threads into one.

 

[Pooky]

It's possible but no one has gone public on it

 

[ShadowStar]

Didn't Ethan Bennett become Clayface? I doubt that real-world racism had anything to do with his arc/trajectory in the series.

Ellen Yin though... Did she bow out after season 2? That did seem odd. She could have continued to work with Batman even though Batgirl was introduced in season 3 (or at least with Gordon).

 

[Pfeiffer-Pfan]

Didn't Ethan Bennett become Clayface? I doubt that real-world racism had anything to do with his arc/trajectory in the series.

Ellen Yin though... Did she bow out after season 2? That did seem odd. She could have continued to work with Batman even though Batgirl was introduced in season 3 (or at least with Gordon).

The removal of Yin felt network mandated. Batgirl was a more youthful character that could bring the girl demographic in and fulfill the same role Yin had in season 2.

Plus, I imagine one less voice actor to pay probably made it an easier decision production wise.

 

[CyberCubed]

It's fine for what it is, but the writing is really uneven. Some eps are just really, really bad or boring, but on the other hand it has some genuinely great episodes as well. They also overused Joker/Penguin way too much in the beginning and their version of Mr. Freeze is just boring.

Overall it is what they stated it was, a Batman cartoon to sell toys to kids growing up in the early 2000's. It was never going to compare to B:TAS, but even then a lot of the writing was meh a lot of the time when they could have done some interesting things.