Batman and Robin: Episodes 8 and 9

Episode Eight: Robin Meets the Wizard

“Don’t mind her. She’s always going around taking pictures nobody sees.”

Here we go again into sixteen minutes of peril and perfunctory plotting, beginning with an outrageous cheat as Batman and Harrison dodge the bomb by using a trap door to a cellar that wasn’t there last episode. But that’s part of the charm, as is the outrageous sexism directed at the only female cast member Vicki, as per the quote.

The plot engines start up again as the Wizard demands a ransom of $5 million, quite a lot in 1949, which is foiled by a ridiculous plan from silly old Batman involving painting old notes with radium for tracking purposes (it’s the early atomic age; radium is cool) and making them flammable when exposed to the air, which will in no way go disastrously wrong.

All this plays out predictably, with an interesting set piece involving Batman quickly jumping out of the boot of a car before it heads off a cliff, and the Wizard only manages to “meet” Robin by knocking him out by throwing a stick at him- and completely failing to either kill or capture him, because we have seven episodes to go and that wouldn’t do.

Oh, look. That flammable money has Batman in trouble. Who’d have thunk it?

Episode Nine: The Wizard Strikes Back

“Batman and Robin have got to follow ”’

We get the cliffhanger resolution out of the way and then have a scene with Barry Brown and Dunn the private detective acting like red herrings, and Batman tells us both of them are suspects for being the Wizard, even though we know damn well it’s the Professor.

And... that’s it. We’re out of plot. Fortunately, though, the Wizard’s machine breaks down and needs more diamonds, which will hopefully generate enough plot and set pieces to fill another eight episodes.

We then recycle another plot thread as Vicki’s brother Jimmy pretends to be a goodie again while really working for the Wizard. Of course, no one suspects him and the only purpose he seems to serve is to tell the Wizard where the diamonds are being moved to- even though it’s him who causes them to be moved in the first place. 

Fortunately, though, we can then forget about the plot for a bit as the diamonds are nicked and there’s an exciting chase scene. The Wizard’s device seems to be suddenly working again, though, even without the diamonds being back at his base yet, and Batman’s car heads down yet another cliff. Sigh.