I couldn't find a recent discussion thread for Batman:TB&TB here, so I figured I'd start a new one for the season that's just begun airing on Cartoon Network with "The Scorn of the Star Sapphire!" (The exclamation point belongs to the title -- I'm not shouting or anything.)
Although the main thing I wanted to say was, am I the only one both pleasantly surprised and a bit disappointed that, when Wonder Woman finally made her BB&B screen debut in the teaser, they actually licensed and re-recorded the theme music from the '70s Lynda Carter TV series? I mean, it's cool for the nostalgia value, and it's nice that composers Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel get royalties for its reuse. But sometimes this show embraces the nostalgia factor a bit too much. At its best, this show generates fresh, imaginatively told stories that draw inspiration from the DC comics and TV adaptations of decades past; but sometimes it just seems to fall back on slavish imitation and "Hey, look how many obscure continuity references we can fit in!"
Although I suppose if they only have two minutes to distill Wonder Woman for the audience, it's not easy to be subtle.
The Hal Jordan/Star Sapphire story that made up the bulk of the episode was fairly good. It drew a lot on the established history of the characters (I don't know if that reporter is an established GL character, but I'd be surprised if she weren't), but distilled it into a story with some fresh aspects (like Hal Jordan being the test pilot for Batman's Ferris-designed vehicles, which makes sense in the context of this universe where Batman is practically a government unto himself) and a nice emotional hook, particularly that last line about the one thing Hal Jordan fears.
Oh, hey, and Hal Jordan was played by Loren Lester, who was Robin/Nightwing on B:TAS! (That exclamation point is mine.)
Although the main thing I wanted to say was, am I the only one both pleasantly surprised and a bit disappointed that, when Wonder Woman finally made her BB&B screen debut in the teaser, they actually licensed and re-recorded the theme music from the '70s Lynda Carter TV series? I mean, it's cool for the nostalgia value, and it's nice that composers Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel get royalties for its reuse. But sometimes this show embraces the nostalgia factor a bit too much. At its best, this show generates fresh, imaginatively told stories that draw inspiration from the DC comics and TV adaptations of decades past; but sometimes it just seems to fall back on slavish imitation and "Hey, look how many obscure continuity references we can fit in!"
Although I suppose if they only have two minutes to distill Wonder Woman for the audience, it's not easy to be subtle.
The Hal Jordan/Star Sapphire story that made up the bulk of the episode was fairly good. It drew a lot on the established history of the characters (I don't know if that reporter is an established GL character, but I'd be surprised if she weren't), but distilled it into a story with some fresh aspects (like Hal Jordan being the test pilot for Batman's Ferris-designed vehicles, which makes sense in the context of this universe where Batman is practically a government unto himself) and a nice emotional hook, particularly that last line about the one thing Hal Jordan fears.
Oh, hey, and Hal Jordan was played by Loren Lester, who was Robin/Nightwing on B:TAS! (That exclamation point is mine.)
