I Love Season 3

[Quarhog]

) I also wanted to know the in-story explaination of the Catwoman switch (I always thought she was an off-camera member of Catwoman's gang who took over after the real Catwoman retired/disappeared.)

Catwoman was supposed to be the same person in the series and movie, just as the Riddler--in-story--was the same person.

I somehow missed Season 3 as a kid - I didn't even know there was one. So when Yorkshire Television finally re-ran the series in 1976 (when I was 17) I had two big surprises: there was a character in it I'd never heard of called Batgirl; and when Catwoman gatecrashed a fashion show at the start of 'Catwoman's Dressed to Kill' it wasn't Julie Newmar but Eartha Kitt! Most surprising of all what their response to her intrusion: I was expecting them to say "Eartha Kitt! What are you doing dressed as Catwoman??" But they didn't!

[John Mack]

Things worked exactly opposite for me. I started the series with season 3 and then watching the other seasons I can remember thinking, gee...where's Batgirl! She could be helping them! I also found myself having to get used to Riddle's music. May's was so NOW and hip that hearing the first two seasons, I was wondering why things were so different. Remember, I was 6 or 7 lol.

[BatBrain]

I just finished up with season 3 a couple nights ago. Minerva was pretty good, and that fight scene towards the end is really intense (those stunt double close-ups though)! It climaxed and got wrapped up way too quick, however. It also is unfortunate that we didn't get to see Catwoman and Riddler at least one more time though before the series ended, especially seeing as Gorshin returned as Riddler for season 3, but we only got to see him back in the role once!

[cammy85]

Minerva's episode is also the only one to take place in a proper set unlike the simpler sets plaguing this season. Perhaps if they shortened or just didn't do the Londinium trilogy, Riddler could've come back again. I guess after everything they went through with Frank, it was either one appearance or none at all.

[Pengy]

Oh yeah Minerva's episode didn't have a single one of those awful black sound stage sets.

[Dr. Shimel]

Oh yeah Minerva's episode didn't have a single one of those awful black sound stage sets.

Or the Nora Clavicle "Honeymooners" set rejects.

[BatBrain]

Gosh yeah! Season 3 sets were atrocious! Even on the episodes I enjoyed!

[The Boss]

Gosh yeah! Season 3 sets were atrocious! Even on the episodes I enjoyed!

As a fan of theatrical cartoons I look at the season 3 sets in the same way that I look at the flatter backgrounds of the 50s. Rather than cheap I prefer to look at the sets as stylized and imaginative.

[Pengy]

Or the Nora Clavicle "Honeymooners" set rejects.

You mean the "Dock side" set. Good god that has to be the worst set they ever done. I don't know how they kept a straight face filming on that. Bad enough they were doing a pied piper act with multi colored mice while on it.

[Golddragon71]

Watching the penguin/Lola Two-parter tonight and tomorrow and something occurred to me. Penguin attempts to steal a priceless folio of parasols out of a library and then runs a book-making racket out of an old bookstore....could this have been a script originally set up for bookworm and then changed to fit Penguin when Mcdowell wasn't available to return?....just a thought.

[dell]

Watching the penguin/Lola Two-parter tonight and tomorrow and something occurred to me. Penguin attempts to steal a priceless folio of parasols out of a library and then runs a book-making racket out of an old bookstore....could this have been a script originally set up for bookworm and then changed to fit Penguin when Mcdowell wasn't available to return?....just a thought.

Maybe, but book-making really has nothing to do with books so no good connection to Bookworm.

[AndyFish]

While I agree with all the negatives of Season 3, the budget cuts, the lack of sets, etc -- it's the laziness of the writing that causes me to dislike the season. In the first season Catwoman episode when Batman is confronted by a tiger he doesn't just pull out anti tiger spray and dispatch the threat. Compare that to Surf's Up where the threat of the shark is no more suspenseful than the flick of a button on his shark repellent. It was like the writers (and to a slightly lesser extent) the actors were phoning it in. Even as a kid I thought the final season was more like a group of grown ups playing Batman than the real thing.

I'm in the vast minority in that I actually LIKE the Londinium Episodes despite all their terrible shortcomings. I thought the school girls were creepy, the alt Batcave with its skeleton ditto and despite the dungeon Batgirl being held in was of the representative design so apparent in this final season it still worked for me. I thought Ffogg himself seemed pretty serious with deadly intent towards our heroes.

I remain in the minority in that I also really dislike ALL of the Penguin's appearances in 3 and I felt the Gorshin episode was weak too. I'm also not a fan of Nora, Siren, Minerva, Louie and pretty much ANY character introduced in this season except for Batgirl and her handyman. I don't like Eartha's take on Catwoman even though I can see why on paper she seems like a great choice-- she just didn't deliver for me. I wish they were able to get Lee back, I think she was every bit as good as Julie was. If it weren't for Joker, King Tut and Ffogg this Season would be a no watch for me.

But it's the bad writing that kills it for me. Had Season 3 been Season 1 Batman would have had the shelf life of the Green Hornet.

[Dr. Shimel]

But it's the bad writing that kills it for me. Had Season 3 been Season 1 Batman would have had the shelf life of the Green Hornet.

Season 3 was bad enough that ABC never bothered repeating any of the episodes.

[Progress Pigment]

Agreed! It probably wouldn't have lasted even that long. In season one Dozier had lightning in a bottle, but he never understood it. Probably Semple didn't either, judging by the movie script he wrote. They needed someone to gage the series scripts, and they needed to assign the shows to good directors. Regard, the season 2 opener for Star Trek was "Amok Time". About the best episode the series ever filmed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amok_Time

The second season opener for Batman was "Shoot a Crooked Arrow"/Walk the Straight and Narrow! With Art Carney! What an incredibly ugly hour of TV that is. But at least the 2-parter titles still rhymed. Which was about the only good thing about it. I thought season 3 was partially re-run? Anyway, bad wasn't the problem. Some bad shows (Happy Days!) were quite popular. The problem was that the ratings were near the bottom of the Neilson poll, and (according to an old newspaper I saw a couple decades ago) that Batman was ranked by viewers as one of the ten worst current TV shows. It really hurt to see that. Thanks Stanley Ralph Ross! Thanks William Dozier!

[AndyFish]

That's a great point Progress, the second season opener is very telling.
It's still my opinion though that Lorenzo did "get it" because in a memo after the pilot he wrote to the effect that the show should never devolve into parody. I didn't think the Feature was that far off the mark, but it's definitely a rush job.

I think had Lorenzo remained a stronger hand in the creative direction of the show the quality would have remained a bit longer. I dislike a lot of what Stanley did but if I'm not mistaken he did the first Catwoman episodes which to me are the pinnacle of the show.