Batman: The Bookworm Turns & While Gotham City Burns

The Bookworm Turns

"I solemnly swear by my oath as a crimefighter that this outrage will not go unavenged!"

This episode boasts two important firsts. This may not be, after we saw the splendid King Tut  last week, the series' first original villain, but it's the first of many one-off baddies played by big names- and the Bookworm is a magnificent character. Just as importantly, it's the first episode I've blogged that I've never seen before. All episodes up until now I saw as part of a series of repeats in the '90s.  I've seen many more episodes, of course, but in a haphazard fashion.

More importantly, this two-parter is superb in every way, and truly special.

To begin with, the Bookworm is both an inspired character with a real backstory and layed with both charisma and unusual depth by Roddy McDowall. He’s fun, with that silly reading lamp on his head and all the literary quotations, and what’s particularly cool is that he’s a nerd who essentially gets to be cool, to have a gang of his own and, of course, to have a pretty girlfriend in Lydia. But, like Frank Gorshin, he’s dangerous and unstable, see-sawing between his calm and rational side and his fits of rage, especially when reminded of his failed literary career.

His plan, such as it is, consists at this point only in set pieces which make no sense, but we don’t care because this is Batman. And this episode shakes up the format daringly by opening with the apparent assassination of Commissioner Gordon, a deliberately shocking and effective opening which packs a punch even if it does result in a bit of a cheat. It’s worth it, quite frankly, just to see the passion with which Adam West’s Batman vows revenge.

There are little firsts, too: a new POV shot for the Batmobile at the start and, of course, the first time a celebrity guest- in this case Jerry Lewis- opens the window while the Dynamic Duo are climbing a building. We also get used of asbestos that definitely wouldn’t happen these days plus some wonderful literary cleverness- there are not many episodes where the cliffhanger is a devilishly I genius riff on a John Donne lyrics. And, of course, the Bookworm ordering his gang to remove their glasses before fighting while Batman implored Robin to “never hit a man with glasses”.


While Gotham City Burns

"Red alert! Red alert! We are trapped inside a Cookbook at 5th and Cedar!"

I know the cliffhanger is really an outrageous cheat, skipping back in time a few minutes to give Batman time to work out the danger Robin is in and come up with a creative solution, to the amazement of Chief O’Hara. But it’s so fun to see Batman being the detective he is and working it all out, and worth the rather large amount of time we spend on the cliffhanger resolution.

This is another episode of set pieces, really, with Bookworm’s actual criminal plot almost racked on as an afterthought at the end. But, as with the previous episode, we don’t care. There’s a giant cookbook and an outrageous escape. It’s all such fun. And the Bookworm’s comeuppance is not so much his capture as the moment Bruce corrects him on a quotation from Don Quixote. This is one of the finest two patters yet, with a splendid new villain who deserved another outing at least as much as any we’ve seen so far.