Batman: The Great Train Robbery

"You cheated! You know we ain't no good in a fair fight!"

Just to recap, before I discuss this splendid episode... I've seen the first season as a young adult, some parts more than once, albeit more than twenty years ago. But, although I've seen many, but by no means all, of the second and third season, we're looking at childhood memories, so watching certain episodes can lead to a completely unexpected wave of nostalgia. That's what happened tonight where Chief Standing Pat, the episode's totally non-problematic Native American character, spoke of a time "when little hand is on eleven, and big hand is on twelve." I remember this line from having seen it once, as a child of about ten, in about 1987. That's weird.

Stanley Ralph Ross has a knack for superb scripts, and this is his best. Shame (and the institution f the two parter) get the best of send-offs here, in a rare second episode that far exceeds the first. Not even the dodgy accent of Hermione Baddesley as (snigger) Frontier Fanny can take away from it.

We have a splendid deconstruction of Western tropes here, with a train robbery and ending with a shootout at High Noon and "a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do". All the characters know full well what genre they're in. The wit of this script is a joy. And Cliff Robertson is superb; Shane hasn't really appeaed that much but there's a reason why the character is so fondly remembered. And, while the third season may (we can now see) perhaps be the least good overall, it can still hit real heights.

Batman: The Great Escape

"They've got Batgirl, and we've got Fanny."

There are two things which are probably worh mentioning as I start to blog this episode. The first is that, in this final run of episodes with their many last times, this two parter is both the final appearance of Shame and, well, the last two parter.The other thing, no less importantly, is that Hermione Baddesley- the maid from Mary Poppins- is playing a character called (titter) Frontier Fanny.

This is a hilarious episode for many reasons, not least Shame's sidekicks: a Native American who communicates solely in shorthand smoke signals and a Mexican bandit with a cut glass RP accent, neither of which you would see today, but this kind of playfulness with stereotypes is not, I don't think, mean-spirited.

There's more, though, from the latest variation on the ever entertaining "Commissioner rings the Batphone with Bruce Wayne present" trope to Batman reading the note from Shame in Shame's own vernacular, reminding us that Adam West is a terrific comic actor. I've peraps been remiss, too, in my praise for the penmanship of Stanley Ralph Ross.

Still no cliffhanger, though, and this was the last chance...