DVD : The Batman - The Complete Fifth Season

In association with Amazon.com

Rating:

- Character Flaws
Overall this was one of the most disappointing seasons of The Batman series. It promised so much, but failed to deliver the goods. I asked myself after watching the entire season where their big mistakes were and almost every time it comes back to character. Batman is less brooding and compared to the Superman portrayed in the series they seem to have had a role reversal. I was not buying that at all. Then you have these writer liberties with characters that make no since to the characters at all. One such liberty was the center point to the first Green Lantern story. In this story Sinestro fails in his attempt to get Hal Jordan's "almost powerless" ring, and Hal sends it to Batman. I was ok with the story to that point, but then it takes this crazy drive through stupid. Penguin ends up with the ring, don't ask how. Suddenly it has enough power to rob half of Gotham even though it still has not been charged. Furthermore, anyone half familiar with the Green Lantern could tell you that the Penguin couldn't power the weapon even if it were at full power. Finally Batman ends up with the ring, which still appears to have enough power to take on a planet. Just when you think they may redeem the episode with something cool from the obviously will power full Batman, they totally do nothing with it except fly him around Gotham. It was a very lame episode. Another similar issue happens in the last two episodes were the writers seem to have forgotten that all the power of Green Lantern is in the ring. The plot has them "stealing" the power of Green Lantern and putting it in a "droid". If that happened, couldn't Green Lantern just recharge the ring? It is as if the character did not fit the formula for the story they just ignored the character and wrote the story anyway. The same could be said for Hawkman in the same episode. After all it is his Nth metal in his wing harness that allows him to fly. It was never removed and yet he lost the ability, disappointing. The creative team never seemed to get the hang of how to effectively tell a Batman story with another major hero in it. Aside from these very distracting story elements, many stories seemed to be rip offs of other animated cartoon series. One story in particular appeared to be a rip from Batman Beyond's Chimera storyline. The similarities were such that I found it annoying to watch and the worst part was it was not a better version of the story. Another issue was that most of the dialogue seemed tired and used up in every episode. It failed to be funny when it was trying and it failed to be clever when it had to be.

So what is good about it? Well, it is Batman. There are plenty of gadgets. The Batman armor in one show will no doubt remind many of Frank Miller's Dark Knight. The introductions of Superman, Flash, Green Arrow, Hawkman and Green Lantern brought some giddiness as they should due to some cool design work, but it was massively dulled by drab plotlines and weak dialogue. We get to see a few villains that are rarely seen on TV these days, Mirror Master was one of my favorites. A few episodes, notably the Joker Express and the Phosphorous episodes were actually pretty good, but that is likely due to the absence of guest stars. The great news is your 6 year old will like it. Mine did. However, your older kid may have a few complaints of his own. My 11-year-old thought the show was ripping off storylines from the other series as well and was not overly impressed with the season at all. Overall this season is worth picking up just to complete the series, but I think you will find yourself thanking them for ending this series with this season.

Rating:

- Show should not have ended
This was one of best produced animated shows out there, I wish it would have continued. Really got interesting with the addition of JLA members.

Rating:

- batie about the bat
love these dc comics batman animation series, if your into The batman this is worthy of adding to your collection, as I did

lots of fun , enjoy

Rating:

- The Batman TV Season 5
This third TV series of Batman is highly imaginative -- an important contribution to animated art! Rates triple A+++++.

Rating:

- Biased Batman fan...Loved it!
Yeah, I pretty much like anything Batman. However, this series was well done, from the music to the villians. I was excited (as were my kids) when a fifth season was released.

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