“This is torture... at its most bizarre and terrible.
Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear. One must always be careful not to treat television programmes from fifty years ago in the same way as something made today; social mores have changed, and one must make allowances. But, having made said allowances... this is (mostly) unfunny sexist claptrap that is simply jaw-dropping to watch. Batman does second wave feminism. In 1968. And it’s every bit as squirmingly awful as you might fear.
Feminism can be the subject of humour, of course, like anything can. But here we have a feminist activist (later shown to have purely venal motives) who seems to fire all male police officers for no other reason but one-up(wo)manship. And their female replacements turn out to be rubbsh at their jobs because they're too busy doing lipstick, discussing recipes and shopping. Yes, really. And all this only happens because Mayor Linseed's wife forces his hand by refusing to cook or wash his clothes, which all of us real men routinely do for ourselves (and our wives). This is bad, cringeworthy and frankly alienating stuff. And it's a nasty, very lazy, knee jerk stye of "humour", weaponising the patriarchy to mock those who point at its existence.
It's a pity, as there are a couple of gloriously silly moments with the "Siamese human knot" and the slendidly absurd Pied Piper ending. But this doesn't wash away the nasty, punching down, sexism of the episode. Given how few episodes there are left of Batman, I suspect this will end up as my least favourite of the lot.
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