Perfectly fine episode. Hex and Batman make an interesting team, and putting them on War World was an interesting move, especially since the episode used their feeling out of place as something of a plot point to avoid the inevitable tone clash. Nothing that blew me away, but a perfectly enjoyable half hour.
Oh, and apparently Batman is training The Outsiders in his very own Danger Room now? Not as fun as some of the other opening shorts.
Probably too much story to try to pack into 22 minutes. It reminded me a lot of Data's story in "The Offspring" an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Some of it was a little too maudlin, but I actually bought the first two acts more or less, even if they were a touch predictable for how these kinds of stories go. Heck, if it had ended with Red Tornado shutting down Champion at the end of Act 2, I'd have rated it much higher. The scene where Red Tornado and Champion discusses morality and humanity was easy, but effective.
But it's an action show, so of course Major Disaster's emotion-causing lightning has to come back with a vengeance and turn Champion into a Supervillain and blah blah blah, hard for father to kill son, explosions, explosions, etc. The ending veered a little too far into false poignancy for me, especially after the generic action-y finish. Still a little bit of interesting insight into Red Tornado.
Oh, and I almost forgot! The opening with the various super-vehicles was silly but fun and enjoyable in its silliness, as these shorts tend to be.
Well, this was certainly an improvement on Season 1. I like Black Adder is a heelish, deadpan snarker much more than when he was a sniveling nincompoop. The Twelfth Night-esque story was good for comedic fodder, and the insecure Queen and leech-prescribing doctor had their moments as well.
Then, bloody Flash showed up and the whole episode came to a screeching halt. What an unfunny, scene-destroying character. Constantly looking at the camera and unmotivated bombast does not comedy make. It was a slice of the hackiness of the first season slapped onto what had otherwise been an over-the-top but more centered opening foray to Season 2. We'll see if future episodes can maintain the verve the show seemed to have captured for 90% of this episode.
I think I laughed maybe once. The ending was kind of funny, but the introduction to the collection of baddies or the Hawk's routine or the head-scratching side plot of being confined to the dungeon just dragged on and on. Not much interesting or worthwhile this season.
Well I figured it out. I think everyone on this show is funny but the main character. Which is a shame because, you know, he's going to get a lot of screen time presumably. He's like a weird english version of Pee Wee Herman thrown into a cornball riff on Shakespeare, which, to be frank, sound way more interesting and enjoyable than this. I guess I just don't get much joy out of Rowan Atkinson's mugging and overacting.
Anyway, the gay panic stuff doesn't age well, nor does the love-crazed unattractive Spanish princess humor. But hey! A young Jim Broadbent as the translator was great! And there was a farce-ing good time with the attempted wedding of the commoner (and the interjection of her husband.) Frankly, one of the better episodes of the season, though that's not saying much.
This episode was definitely the most fun and the most funny the show has done so far. Leave it to Paul Dini, of course. The continuity gags, the references to B:TAS, the fun take on the villains from Batman 66 showing up in animated form, the Looney Tunes and Bewitched riffs -- it was all gold. I particularly like the Comicon cutaway where a "gritty urban" Batman fan (who suspiciously resembled Kevin Smith) was shut down by the head writer for B:TAS on the basis that a lighter Batman is no less valid. I'll always be partial to B:TAS, but Brave & Bold has been a lot of goofy fun as well, and it was a fun meta-moment.
And Ace the Bat Hound! A perfectly ridiculous episode that had me laughing and smiling the whole time.
Once it turned into a farce at the nunnery, it was pretty enjoyable, and the riffs on the curses and relics were fun, but there was a lot of cornballness that keeps turning me off. Holding out for Hugh Laurie, damnit!
Always nice to hear Jeffrey Tambor doing his thing. To anyone who's seen Batman works before, the story of a Robin who wants to be his own man and resents Batman's continued paternalistic tone is pretty well-trodden territory. This didn't do much to shake up that standard boy-wonder narrative, but it was still done ably enough. I did enjoy the Batman 66 vibe to the opening short. Otherwise, it wasn't the most creative episode the show's ever done, but it was solid enough. Probably a 6.5/10 if I'm being a little more precise.
Pretty broad and pretty silly. It has a very theatrical comedy quality to it, with the exaggerated mannerisms from everyone and the painted prop aesthetic it has going. The fractured takes on Shakespeare were fun, and while the humor was pretty cornball, there was an easygoing sense that helped make the goofiness work. Didn't love it right off the bat, but there's a certain zaniness the proceedings that I can appreciate.
Perfectly acceptable. Booster Gold split the difference between being annoying and being funny, and it's a tough balance. For a story about folks from the future, it was nice to see Billy West and Michael Dorn voicing characters here. I get tired of the Power Rangers-esque plot of the bad guys getting some super-powering boost in the last third of the episode (the show did it in the Kung Fu one as well), but otherwise it was an enjoyable enough, if occasionally lumpy half hour.
Enjoyable episode. The Eden and Grim Reaper sketch had some fun biblical humor, and the clown-car crash was oddly as artistic as it was funny.
The Twilight guy as an old man was a pretty funny bit, but otherwise the comedy was pretty thin broth. A lot of Back the Future riffs (presumably because of Christopher Lloyd's presence, but little of it really landed, and the Jiggy/Jiggawat connection was a pretty thin excuse to throw Doc Brown in with Jay-Z at the end. Not one of the show's better episodes.
The main story was a little all over the place, and could have done with a little more focus, but it was still an important salient issue, especially in the wake of the gay marriage decision and the sense that a lot of folks think the war's been won. As usual, Oliver manages to find the comedy in even the most repugnant situations and be informative at the same time. The opening stories were a little more disposable than usual, but otherwise it was a good episode.
It was interesting to depict the game through the lens of Vince Young and Matt Leinart specifically, though it seemed to short change other major players like Reggie Bush. Still, it's understandable that you're going to have to narrow your focus to depict everything in 45 minutes. I thought the choice to intersperse the build to the game itself with the progression of Vince and Matt's pro careers was an interesting one that gave the documentary some perspective and made it more unique. The celebrity stuff grew a little tiresome after a while, but otherwise it was an engaging encapsulation of one of the greatest college football games of all time.
One of the cheesier episodes of an already cheesy show. Don't me wrong, normally I like the cheesiness, but the goofy villains crossed the line from "self-aware corniness" to "just corniness" for me. And the Blue Beetle having a crush on Huntress business felt a little warmed over as well. Batman's hokey one-liners had a certain charm to them, but overall it was a pretty forgettable episode.
7.5/10. This was mostly an excuse to give us a Victorian-era Batman, and have him pal around with Sherlock Holmes, but it was entertaining enough at the end of the day. The fantasy stuff never lands as well for me as the sci-fi stuff for whatever reason, so I wasn't as into the Etragon business, but it was still nice to get an origin story for Gentleman Ghost. Not the best episode the show ever did, but it did introduce a new character and have Batman galavanting around Victorian England, so it definitely had its moments.
Oh and the opening shorts are becoming my favorite part of the show. Old School Flash was goofy but fun, and it's a nice hint as to what time period of comics history this show is riffing on.
(I know it's a part of his character, but the Etragon rhyming thing felt pretty forced after a while.)
I've more or less loved every time we see Aquaman so far, but I just couldn't get into his story here. I like the concept of him suffering a setback and being discouraged by it, but I didn't buy the execution in this episode for whatever reason. Maybe it was the Adam Strange setting, which I'm only vaguely familiar with and thus made the whole thing a little disorienting. The stuff on Strange's adopted planet felt a little too hokey for some reason. (Which is unfair, it's not like this is the first time Batman's traveled to an alien realm.) The big conflict with the Gordians also seemed a little too cookie cutter. What can I say? Just fell flat for me.
That said, I did like the opening short with Equinox, and it's always nice to see The Question (or as I'll always think of him, alternate universe Rorschach.
One of the best and certainly the most epic episode of the show so far. I'm always a little skeptical of any non-Mark Hammil Joker, but I liked the tack that the writers took with him here in teaming up with Batman. There's less of the menace from the character that was present in B:TAS, but there's a wacky, playful, comedic vibe to him that is still eminently appropriate and enjoyable. All of the heroes and villains and alternate Batmans coming together in the end was a hell of a finish, with all kinds of creative visual sequences among them. And the overall premise of Joker and Batman teaming up to defeat and evil Batman, while the pair are mistakenly being hunted by the good guys in the process led to lots of cool scenes and fun match ups. Good humor, well animated, and creative storytelling all around.
I have to admit that I finally figured out what the twist with "Normal" Bob would be around the halfway point of the episode. I won't be churlish about a kids' show and point out how many things would have to fall into place for Megabyte's plan to work, but it does seem a bit silly in retrospect. Some of the wedding stuff is fun (Cecil especially), and the little surprises like Dot's Dad were nice if convenient, but a lot of it dragged. (Not to mention the fact that the humor from the gay binome character hasn't aged well.) The final reveal of Megabyte and the ensuing fight scene were enjoyable. All-in-all this was decidedly solid, if a little uninspiring in the final evaluation.
Look, it's Classic Simpsons, so you're going to laugh, but there was something a bit weightless about the episode at base. The Homer storyline was mostly just an excuse for a series of beer-related sketches from the show. And each is very funny, so it works! But it doesn't have the polish and great sense of structure that a lot of the best episodes of the show have. The same is true for the Lisa/Bart/hamster storyline which is good comic fun but seems to be lacking much in a point beyond some Looney Tunes-esque riffs. Again, as usual, the comedy keeps the episode afloat -- if you can be funny enough, the audience will stick with you -- and the moment of sweetness at the end is more affecting that one might think given the freewheeling comedic stuff that came before it. But especially considering how many amazing episodes are in this season, "Duffless" can't help feeling like something of a lesser light by comparison.
So I'm a sucker for parallel universe stories with superheroes. And if the heroes meet alternate universe evil versions of themselves? All the better. Sure, there was some clunky stuff with Evil Tornado narrating Good Joker's origin story, but each twist and turn of getting to know the bad guys and the good guys was fun. There was a lot of entertaining action, and some solid comedic moments as well. The final fight scene in particular had all sorts of creative stuff. Good clean (or evil) fun.
There was nothing particularly striking about this episode -- if anything it felt sort of like a table setting entry from ReBoot. On the other hand, the tables being set were far more interesting than more of Dot agonizing unconvincingly over which Bob she would be with.
I have to admit, I didn't terribly care for the prior Rocky the Rabid Raccoon episode, but the part of the episode featuring his game was much more enjoyable this time around. I don't know if it was evincing the style of Tom & Jerry more than Roadrunner, the greater sense of inventiveness with the cartoony, Rube Goldberg machine set pieces, or if the improved animation helped to better depict the Looney Tunes style, but it was much more fun this time around. The random Star Wars parodies didn't do much for me, but otherwise it was entertaining.
And Glitch-Bob's attempts to split himself from Glitch were interesting as well. There was a clear motivation, his various plans for how to do it cohered with things we'd seen previously on the show, and there was some small but subtle pathos to it as well. Here is Glitch-Bob taking great risks because someone he cares for deeply can't accept it. There's something very sad about that, and it makes it meaningful when his tear-splitter plan goes awry at the end.
To the same end, there's also something forboding about Bob Classic at the end of the episode. Maybe I've just seen too many stories about evil twins and doppelgangers and the like, but there was an air of quiet menace to the whole thing.
The sitcom stuff didn't do much for me, and the Pokemon/Dragon Ball Z was pretty weak broth as well. There is something interesting about both Matrix and Dot feeling nostalgic for the old Bob (maybe some meta-commentary about either the show's creators or its fans?) but the show rarely succeeds when it leans hard into its characters' more extreme emotions. I buy Dot's conflict at a conceptual level, but he anguish just feels pretty unconvincing at the end of the day, and the storyline suffers because of it.
So again, the show leans a little too far into technobabble and poorly established world-building elements for my taste. I do like the focus on Hex, and the fact that the major "battle" in the episode was between two women for once. But everything felt pretty jumbled. Enzo wanting to be a guardian once again seemed a little cheap, and Matrix suddenly having a cure for Daemon felt too convenient. It was obviously nice to see Dot and Bob finally express their feelings (and I liked the fact that Dot was the one to make the proposal) but it got to the point of soap opera or sitcom will-they-won't-they at some point. The Daemon thing ultimately came off as a non-starter, and the pod people aspect of it had promise, but fell pretty flat.
The show isn't bad at this point. If anything, it's more competent than it's been in certain early outings. But it's kind of soulless. The backstory on Bob's arrival feels too neat, and starts to get into the "small universe" complaint that was eventually leveled at Star Wars over this sort of thing. I've reached the point where I kind of hate flashback stories for this reason; everything seems a little too orchestrated.
A lot of nonsensical technobabble in this one. The show's never been great about keeping that stuff straight, but the wider it casts its net, the harder it is for the show to keep things coherent. It was nice to see Turbo again though, and have that come back in some way. Mike TV's song was fun and Daemonized Hex was...interesting? Not sure what the deal is with that, and Daemon herself hasn't really interested me thus far, but we'll see.
And we're back! So the animation is drastically better, yet again, which is kind of interesting, but takes away another little bit of the charm. Matrix is still kind of a grump and Dot is fraying at the seams a bit. Hexadecimal is always nice, especially when she's acting up to her usual craziness. And Bob has gone all Gandalf the White and it actually seems to be affecting him for once. Plus we have a new French Cameron Diaz type to cause trouble (as mentioned last season). Making daemon a religious analogue is kind of interesting, and I have to imagine, controversial at the time. I still sort of roll my eyes at the Bob-Matrix conflict that feels overdone and cliche, but as usual, I'm curious to see where they're going with everything.
Never really my thing, but the parade of correspondents was nice, as was his "bullshit speech." Nice that he shined a light on the behind the scenes folks, but it was pretty meaningless to me. Still a nice farewell.
Just good, solid, science fictiony fun. Not a lot of heft to it, but what it lacked in any real character moments, it more than made up for in the humor department.
The Cowboy intro and the Kung Fu riffs were enjoyable enough. Everyone turning into mutants was kind of eh, but it was a simple and entertaining little tale.
