The Forgotten

I still consider this episode to be in the experimental, not-so-good era of Batman: The Animated Series, but that doesn't necessarily make it a terrible episode. "The Forgotten" was the eighth produced and 23rd aired on Oct. 8, 1992.

Normally, I like to see episodes with Batman in his suit fighting main villains, but every now and then, it's nice to have Batman do something different. This episode started off with Bruce volunteering at a soup kitchen (a great thing for him to do), where he learns about homeless people going missing. Instead of attacking this problem as Batman, he puts a disguise on, which I absolutely love. We also saw some nice fighting from Bruce with his hands in his pockets, until he let himself get knocked out. I will add a point for this unique and entertaining start of the episode.

I'll add another point for the involvement of Alfred. He gave us a deeper look into the Batcave, showing that Bruce has a huge garage with tons of cars, which is a concept I've always enjoyed. And then Alfred did some serious detective work. Yes, it was a little corny with him in the Batplane, but that part was redeemed with Bruce's affectionate slug to Alfred's jaw when they were reunited.

The score will rise to an 8 for some really cool, though brief scenes of Batman fighting the bad guys in the dark cave. The way he slowly picked them off one by one and made them all terrified made me wonder if this episode served as a major inspiration for the Arkham Asylum game. This scene really was that good.

True, this episode may be rather unglamorous, but I really enjoyed it. I almost took a point off for the nameless fat villain, who was little more than a grown up Sewer King, but I found I kind of enjoyed his enormous obesity and repulsiveness. This was an episode where they tried something new, and I think it really worked out for the most part.

Final score: 8