Batman: Come Back Shame & It's How You Play the Game

Come Back Shame

"Moo."

Shame is, I think, the last of the truly iconic villains created for the TV series to appear, and first impressions of both Cliff Robertson and the character are very good indeed- he comes across as a menacing Western baddie from a real Western, but then this is the USA in 1966, when the Western was alive, well and popular both at the pictures and on the telly. There may well be silly henchmen (I like Messy James), but Shame himself is a surprisingly serious and dangerous character- his indulgence of little Andy is almost necessary to prevent the character from being too menacing.

It's back to a very formulaic opening few scenes again- there's only so many times you can mess with the format- this time with Bruce and Dick first seen playing Scalextric- then less than a decade old. It's appropriate to the racing car theme as Shame and his gang seek to steal parts for the ultimate getaway car to use in their main caper. The whole conceit makes for a splendidly exciting episode, with the first appearance of the Batcycle in some time. It's just a pity we have to see the bloody Alf-cycle again.

The fight, in a proper saloon bar, is awesome, with many tropes of fights from Western fisticuffs including using the full length of the bar for throwing one's assailant. And the cliffhanger, with the Dynamic Duo about to be trampled by cows, is a cut above most.

It's becoming decidedly apparent that Stanley Ralph Ross's name generally means a particularly good script.


It's How You Play the Game

"I knew he'd think I'd think he'd think I'd think he'd come back here."

The cliffhanger resolution is a bit pants, I suppose, but it's nevertheless fine by me on the grounds that it has Batman removing his cape and being a matador, providing some fun facts as a bonus. He gets an "ole" from Robin, and rightly so.

Also enjoyable are the splendidly stereotypical used car salesman and Cliff Robertson continuing to be awesome as Shame, a truly memorable villain. It's surprising that his ambitions go no higher than $1.2 million in, er cattle, but he is a cowboy, after all.

This week's wndo guest is some baddie from Hogan's Heroes, not a show that ever really crossed the Atlantic, but I sort of love how they brazenly ignore the fact that he's a) a Nazi and b) from a different time period. We also have a splendid shootout in a magnificent set, the "KO Corrall", and no doubt a thousand Western allusions I'm not getting.

The two parter is an utter triumph, and so is Shame as a character.