Batman: The Animated Series

Janet Van Dorm has a strict anti-Batman stance. She belives that it was Batman that created Gotham's monsters and wants to see him taken down. Unfortuneately, she's been captured by the worst of Batman's rogues gallery, who want her to defend Batman on a trial they have created. Since they blame Batman for their troubles, they want to see him taken down.



This was supposed to be the plot for the movie, but I actually thinks it works better in this condensed format. I actually enjoyed Van Dorm's character and her confrontations and relationships with Batman (and Bruce Wayne). The trial was well-written and there were some interesting testimonies from Harley and the Hatter. It also provided some insight into the villains' minds and how they blame Batman for their troubles when it was their fault to begin with.



Just one thing - why was Scarecrow there? I thought he blamed the college professors and his firing for his descent into insanity, not Batman. Was it because Batman used his own weapon against him?



Anyway, this was a great episode, and the closing lines were terrific as well.

PROS: First, the good parts of this episode. I really liked Janet van Dorn. She\'s a really strong and interesting character and I liked the way she gradually saw how the villains really were over the course of the episode. It was believable epiphany, without being insulting or condescending to either the viewers and the character herself.



Joker, as usual, got a number of lines and really enjoyed himself in this episode. His act as the judge was pretty good, even though he was kind of lame near the end of the episode.



"Here comes the judge..."



CON: Unfortunately, apart from the things mentioned above, every other part of the episode seemed lackluster and forced. None of the villains could come with a single reason why the viewer should believe that they thought Batman was responsible for their insanity. In fact, the whole idea of a trial, while fun, was sort of artificial in this episode. With all the wild and chaotic personalities in Arkham, didn\'t it strike anyone as a bit risible that someone could get all of them to agree to do a mock-trial.



That brings me to the another weakness of this episode. Most episodes of B:TAS flourish mainly on the power of their villains. Mad as a Hatter would be nothing if Jervis Tetch was just some common thief. Two-Face wouldn\'t mean anything if Harvey Dent hadn\'t been a powerful man with such grand ambitions. And pretty much any episode featuring the Joker buoys itself on his uncanny charisma and showmanship. However, in this episode, all of these villains in one place managed to suck out the ambience of the idea. Different tones rushed against one another, breaking apart and giving the episode a sort of cramped and frayed feeling, as if the writers were trying to do too much at once.



Of course, there ARE episodes that have succeeded with a large cast of villains. Almost Got \'Im was one. But this episode lacked the style of that one, and most of the substance, too.

I have this episode on the volume 3 dvd set and I really like it. A bunch of batman's enemies take over arkam asylum and kidnap him and the new district attorney that hates him and she has to defend batman in a trial that the villains put on. All she did was make them mad and they were going to unmask him and she distracted them and batman got loose and they all went back to Arckam. I really like the episodes where they have multiple batman villains in them. I wish that the scarecrow had a talking role. Later...