Perchance to Dream

This is where Volume 2 of Batman: The Animated Series really starts rolling, especially when it comes to the deep, introspective looks into Batman's mind. We have already seen a little psychoanalysis of Bruce and Batman in this show, but in my opinion, this episode takes the biggest leap forward in this regard. "Perchance to Dream" was the 30th-produced episode and 26th-aired on Oct. 19, 1992.

I just love the premise of this episode. After a brief car chase, Batman is quickly knocked out. He wakes up in his bed and everything is wrong. He, Alfred and the audience are all confused, and it's wonderful. Unlike "Eternal Youth," the producers didn't show the villain and then try to keep it a secret. We didn't know the Mad Hatter was behind this until the very end, which is exactly how a surprise is supposed to work. Anyway, I'm going to add a point for this great setup.

I'll bring the score up to a 7 for the subtle foreshadowing. If you pay attention, you'll notice that all of the signs are in gibberish well before Bruce realizes he can't read anything. Details like this really enhance the repeated viewing experience, and no one loves to re-watch these shows more than me.

Of course I have to add a point whenever I see Leslie Thompkins. She is just such a wonderful character, and this episode really demonstrates her importance. Bruce trusts her above everybody else. When he thinks he's going crazy, he doesn't talk to Alfred or Selina about it — he goes straight to Leslie. I also really enjoyed Leslie's analysis of Bruce. She said that he'd grown tired and dissatisfied with his life of leisure so that his mind created an alternate reality where he was somebody who really made a difference in the world — Batman. Of course, from her perspective, Bruce wasn't really Batman, but a lot of what she said can be easily applied to the real Bruce. Yes, he became Batman to avenge his parents, wage a war on crime and prevent future tragedies. But I also think he did it to put some meaning into his life. He probably often feels like the billionaire Bruce Wayne hasn't earned or accomplished anything, but when he puts on his cape and cowl, he can directly see the results of his labors and feel like he is making a positive impact on the world.

I'll raise the score to a 9 for probably one of the scariest moments in the whole show: Bruce deciding he isn't Batman and accepting his new dream world. Of course, it didn't last too long (little kids would be confused/upset and this episode was a little constrained for time), but it really was the closest we've come to the "death" of Batman so far. If he decides he likes living with his parents and being engaged to Selina, then there would essentially be no more Batman. I would have liked to see them extend this, perhaps over a two-parter, but that probably would've been too hard on little kids who wouldn't understand why Batman stopped being Batman but there's still another Batman out there.

This episode will earn a perfect 10 because it is a great thinker. At the end, it leaves you tons of wonderful questions to ponder over. First, there's the relationship between Bruce and Batman. Do they really resent each other? Does Batman see Bruce as a lazy, worthless billionaire? Does Bruce see Batman as an obsessed lunatic who has ruined his chance at a normal life? You can also ask a bunch of questions about reality and happiness. Will we be truly happy if we have everything we've ever wanted? Are we willing to live in a world of lies because it's more pleasant? And then there's the Mad Hatter, who orchestrated this whole event. Could he really be considered a bad guy in this episode? Even though it was just a dream, he really did give Batman everything he wanted. So many directions to go, so many philosophical debates to have from this wonderful episode!

Final score: 10

Eternal Youth

Today I start the second season of Batman: The Animated Series. Of course, this is only according to the production order and DVD organization. According to the airing schedule, Season 1 lasted 60 episodes, Season 2 was 10 episodes, Season 3, also known as The Adventures of Batman & Robin, was 10 episodes, and a small Season 4 showed the last five episodes they had sitting around before the production team went on to make Superman cartoons. Then two years later, The New Batman Adventures produced two seasons with 13 and 11 episodes, respectively. It would be kind of fun to go through all these episodes in their airing order, but I prefer to see the progression through the production order (which is also easier for me to do). So here begins Volume 2 of the Batman DVDs, which is where the show really hit its prime. Unfortunately, this episode is not a good example of that.

"Eternal Youth" was the 29th-produced episode, but was oddly bumped up to be the 16th-aired episode on Sept. 23, 1992. (Wow, I didn't even intend this, but today marks the 20th anniversary of this episode's airing!) But I imagine the main reason it was bumped up in airing order was because it is the second official appearance of Poison Ivy, even though she did make several non-speaking cameos in Arkham Asylum and Scarecrow-induced hallucinations.

But even though Poison Ivy had been seen before, the producers of this episode must have thought Poison Ivy was still a relatively unknown villain. That's the only reason I can find for having them hide Ivy's face for half the episode, even though it was painfully obvious who was going around turning people into trees. Honestly, who else would turn people into trees? There was no surprise to keep or any great "reveal" when they finally showed the face of the red-headed woman wearing green tights. I have to take a point off for that.

But I will bring the score back to an average 5 for a nice Bruce Wayne scene. Bruce is at home working out when he gets a phone call about a company he's involved with starting a slash-and-burn operation in the rainforest without his permission. Here, we got to see the strong, angry side of Bruce the businessman, who was equally upset about harming the environment as he was about letting that deal slip past his attention until it was too late. I love having a Batman who doesn't immediately know everything and a Bruce who shows he deserves to be the head of a multi-billion dollar company.

The score falls back to a 4 for the unusual and unexplained appearance of Maggie Page. Who is she? Where did she come from? Apparently she's Alfred's love interest, but how and why? I'm all for expanding Alfred's character, but I would like a little background, please. I didn't really feel one way or the other about Maggie, I just wasn't sure where to place her in the Batman world. For better or worse, we never saw her again.

I'm going to take off another point for the ridiculous, overly-elaborate plot of this episode. So let's get this straight, Poison Ivy escaped Arkham, somehow came across millions of dollars to buy and set up an elaborate getaway spa for the rich and famous, just so she can turn them into trees for their crimes against nature. I'm all for Poison Ivy targeting leaders of environment-harming companies, but couldn't she have done that without the massive spa? This just felt too over-the-top, even by Ivy's standards. Things only get stranger when she sends the tape to Bruce, to punish him for the slash-and-burn operation, but Alfred and Maggie show up instead. After a few days, Ivy lets them go home for some reason. Later, they show up at the spa again, and Ivy immediately turns them into trees. I don't get it — if you were hoping to target Bruce Wayne, then why not wait for him, or insist that only he can use the spa's coupon. But if you were going to turn Alfred and Maggie into trees anyway, then why let them leave in the first place? Sloppy writing.

Speaking of sloppiness, I have to take the score down to a 2 for overall sloppy writing and animation. Things just looked bad and rough, and the little details that normally make the show so great were missing here. One example is having Poison Ivy's henchgirls spray down her victims without wearing gas masks or anything. Wouldn't they be at risk of turning into trees as well, especially with the extra-concentrate dose they hit Batman with? Come on, guys, step up your game.

I will bring the score back up to a 3 for the relatively decent ending. The giant tree at the end was pretty cool and exciting, but even better was the final scene where Bruce showed his sense of humor by giving Alfred and Maggie a potted plant while they were recovering from being trees. It was a nice little moment between Bruce and Alfred similar to the end of the April Fools Day episode. Alfred's usually the one giving Bruce a hard time, but every now and then the Dark Knight can strike back with a playful joke.

Final score: 3

BYU vs. Utah 2012

And Chris Hill wants to end this?

Despite how ugly and messy it was, this truly was a classic BYU-Utah game for the ages. I've never seen a game end like that. It had plenty of drama and controversy to last three years (at least it's going to have to). For something this epic, I felt I needed to get everything out in blog form to find out where BYU went wrong and who is to blame.

Let's start with a quick recap of the game:

On BYU's first possession, a false start (one of eight) took away a 4th-down conversion, forcing the Cougars to punt, which they did rather poorly. Several Cougars slipped down or ran past Utah's Charles Henderson, who returned the punt 57 yards to set up an easy Jon Hays touchdown pass.

On Utah's next possession, they put together a rather impressive 14-play drive that included a fake punt and took seven and a half minutes off the clock. It ended with a 37-yard field goal attempt, which BYU blocked.

At the start of the second quarter, BYU put together a pretty impressive drive that included a 4th-down conversion, but it ended with Justin Sorensen missing a 44-yard field goal. He shouldn't be blamed too much, though, as he had to deal with a high snap and it was his first attempt of the season after coming back from a back injury. But the real loss on this drive was the injury of Houston Reynolds, one of BYU's best offensive lineman. After he went down, I noticed a marked increase in false starts and a drastic decrease of pocket time for Riley.

The Cougar defense was able to force the Utes to punt away quickly, which would be expected with them missing Jordan Wynn and John White IV, and JD Falslev had a nice 33-yard return, which was wasted after BYU fumbled the ball twice. The first was caused by miscommunication (something that haunted BYU all day): Nelson dropped back for a pass, but Mike Alisa was expecting a handoff and knocked the ball out of his hands. The second fumble was a result of the pocket collapsing and Nelson forgetting Dave Kruger was right behind him. The drive was shot, but BYU was able to pin the Utes inside their 1-yard line.

Again the strong BYU defense forced a quick Utah punt, and Sean Sellwood's shanked kick only went 23 yards, setting up a Riley Nelson touchdown pass to Cody Hoffman. Hoffman did push off the exact same way the Utes did against Utah State last week, but the refs didn't call it, so what're you going to do?

But the end of the second quarter was really frustrating for BYU. Pinned at their own 8-yard line with a minute left, the Cougars shot themselves in the foot with back-to-back false starts. Facing a 3rd and 16 from the 2, Bronco had to call not one, but two timeouts before Nelson could throw the ball away to narrowly avoid a safety. This was just one more example of how sloppiness killed the Cougars.

The third quarter is where things really began to fall apart for BYU. Utah was able to put a lot of pressure on Nelson by rushing just three guys, but when they rushed four — look out! Nelson had a near-fumble that was later ruled an incomplete pass, then Alisa also came close to fumbling soon after. Now, some fans will blame Riley Nelson for this loss, but I think he played really hard and made some great plays. I also take into consideration the rumor I heard that he was a game-time decision with back spasms. That said, however, I do blame Nelson entirely for the interception he threw. Facing a 3rd and 3 at midfield, Nelson threw the ball ... right to Utah's Ryan Lacy. This gave Utah a short enough field to get a 48-yard field goal.

BYU's next possession was a complete disaster. But it wasn't just the one play. Nearly everything went wrong before it. A bad snap caused Nelson to have another near-fumble incomplete pass. Then he actually fumbled it later on an option play. BYU did recover it, but Bronco felt they were rattled enough to used his first timeout on a 2nd and 4 with 4:38 left in the third quarter. Turned out BYU really could have used that timeout later in the game. The timeout really didn't settle down the Cougars, who were later called for another false start and then had a major communication breakdown right after that. Nelson was in the shotgun, looking to his left, probably speaking with someone on the sideline, when his trusty center randomly decided to snap the ball. Nelson barely saw it coming and let it slip through his hands. Alisa got to the ball, but instead of smothering it, he tried to scoop it up, only to push it further toward the end zone. Finally Mo Lee picked it up and there wasn't a Cougar in sight to catch him. That was the play of the day that completely changed the game. Before that, BYU was playing sloppily, but they were still in it. But after it, they kind of gave up a little bit. My proof is what happened immediately after.

BYU's drive started off with an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty and false start penalties number 7 and 8. Henderson dropped the punt, but there were no Cougars around to make him pay for it or prevent him from returning it 18 yards, putting the Utes in good field position, who only needed one play for Jon Hays to complete a 39-yard touchdown pass. Even a pass interference couldn't stop Utah from scoring. This felt like 2011's 54-10 all over again.

But something interesting happened in the fourth quarter. Unlike the 2011 team, BYU did not give up. Riley Nelson never was, nor ever will be as talented as Jake Heaps, but he never gives up, which I think resonated through the whole team. A part of me believes a Heaps-led team would collapse after such a rough third quarter.

To BYU's luck, a couple of Utah personal fouls set the Cougars up with good field position and a couple of freshmen, Taysom Hill and Jamaal Williams, successfully ran an option play to score a touchdown. The defense then did its job, by forcing a 3-and-out with 11:30 left. But the offense didn't take advantage of this. With about eight and a half minutes left, BYU faced a 3rd and 9 from Utah's 35. Nelson dropped back to pass and Utah rushed two players, which was way too many for BYU's offensive line. Nelson was quickly sacked and the conservative Cougars punted it away.

But BYU lucked out again. Not only was the defense able to hold Utah, but they tackled Sellwood, who was worried about having his punt blocked. Riley Nelson then threw a touchdown pass to make it a 3-point game with 3:39 left.

Now BYU's defense really did have a good game. The only points they gave up came after a freak special teams play or an offensive turnover. But ultimately, the defense didn't give BYU enough to win. It didn't force a single turnover, which would have helped a lot, and it didn't get a stop when it most needed. On Utah's first play of its final drive, Hays found Reggie Dunn on a short screen pass, who somehow evaded five Cougars on his way toward a 29-yard gain. Yes, I counted five Cougars who could have tackled him, but didn't. The Utes eventually did have to punt, but by the time Nelson got the ball back, there was only 1:11 on the clock and he was at his 8-yard line. Preventing the Dunn play would have given BYU more time and better field position at the end of the game.

Now we get to the fun part. Nelson's 47-yard pass to Hoffman on 4th and 12 was nothing short of legendary. When that happened, I believed I was about to witness another BYU miracle. Maybe not quite like Johnny Hairline, but definitely another Andrew George. Anyway, Hoffman was tackled with 10 seconds left. Nelson spiked the ball, which somehow took two seconds to do. Whatever, eight seconds was enough. But then the clock started acting goofy. BYU was still in a huddle when it started up again, going down to four seconds before the ref stopped it and reset it. But once the Cougars got lined up, I think the clock again started a little early because Nelson snapped the ball with six seconds left. (It really took two seconds to snap the ball?) Nelson's pass was tipped at the line of scrimmage (for probably the fifth time that day) and it hit the ground with one second left. But the Ute fans didn't notice that and began storming the field.

Now I found this field-storming rather interesting. It seems like a lot of BYU fans think that Utah fans don't value the rivalry anymore. But I think all that mainly comes from Chris Hill and Kyle Whittingham. The average Ute fan wants to play BYU every year — it's only the high-up guys who care about strength of schedule and such nonsense. Of course, on paper, this was a big win for Utah — beating a (barely) ranked team without their starting quarterback or running back. But if the Utes beat someone like Washington State in similar circumstances, I don't think the fans would have stormed the field. They only did it because it was BYU and it really looked like BYU was going to win this one.

So anyway, Sorensen got up to kick a 51-yard field goal, which was blocked to little surprise to me. Why is it that BYU can't kick a long field goal without having it blocked? But once again, luck would come in BYU's favor. The field was stormed by the fans and the rest of the Utah team too soon and the refs had to clear the field for an unprecedented second time. (I believe I did hear my little brother Collin whine "Come on!" when that happened.) So BYU got one last field goal, from 15 yards closer, which Bronco felt for some reason that punter/interim kicker Riley Stephenson should take. If Sorensen would've hit the upright, I don't think I would have asked why Stephenson didn't kick it — his long is only 33 yards, and this was a 36-yarder. I did hear that Bronco said Stephenson is more accurate for shorter field goals, but I don't consider 36 yards a short kick.

But actually, a part of me is glad that kick didn't go in. Utah fans would have cried and complained for decades that that kick should never have happened, and they would have been slightly justified. True, there were a lot of people on the field, but none of them were near the action. It's not like Falslev had to push down a flag-waving lunatic to get into the end zone. As for me, I really don't care. BYU should have been able to win this game without resorting to last-second miracles.

And so now the season is over. Well, technically it's not. There's still a small chance the Cougars could win the rest of their games and beat Notre Dame in South Bend and sneak into a BCS game, but that's about as likely as Utah beating USC, winning their division and beating Stanford or Oregon in the conference championship game. And I don't think either one of those is going to happen. No, BYU will just finish with a fairly decent record and go to a mediocre bowl game, which it may or may not win, just like it has been the past eight years under Bronco Mendenhall.

So who's to blame for this collapse? First, I'll credit Utah's defense. They took BYU out of its rhythm, never letting the hurry-up or the running game get going. Nelson never had enough time to try to take a shot downfield, and receivers were rarely open when he did.

Second, I'll blame the offensive line. Yes, the Ute defense was good, but it shouldn't have had that big of an impact on BYU's offense. They got called for way too many false starts, some of which can be blamed on the MUSS; but the MUSS can't take credit for the sacks and all the passes knocked down at the line of scrimmage. BYU's big guys were just plain sloppy.

The third and final person who gets the most blame from me is Bronco Mendenhall. Simply put, he did not prepare the team well enough for this game. This game was riddled with too many fumbles (and near-fumbles), way too many dumb penalties, a lot of confusion on plays, some poor clock management and little too much conservatism. All those things go directly on his shoulders. He keeps saying "the Utah game is just another game" so much, that I think he's begun to push himself too far and is actually treating the Utah game as less than other games. To say that he doesn't care at all about beating Utah would definitely explain the last three years, where conservative play-calling led to a blocked field goal, a team that quit lost 54-10 at home, and a ranked team played too sloppy to take advantage of the short-handed Utes. Shooting yourself in the foot isn't as bad as giving up, but it's not much better. Ultimately, Bronco needs to stop pretending the rivalry doesn't matter and start treating it the way the fans and players view it, as the most important game of the year where legends are created and legacies are validated. Just ask Max Hall and John Beck. They never were considered great BYU quarterbacks until they beat Utah. Sadly, Riley Nelson will forever have the "Didn't beat Utah" line on his resume.

This season follows the same pattern Bronco has followed the past few years of starting off strong in Week 1, then looking woefully unprepared the next couple of games. This trend started in 2009 with an amazing win over Oklahoma quickly followed by a crushing defeat to Florida State. In both 2010 and 2011, he started 1-2. This year, BYU looked amazing against Washington State, but admittedly looked pretty rough against Weber State in the first quarter. Of course, Bronco will pull it together, get BYU at least eight wins and continue to perform well enough to keep his job, but not well enough to move BYU up to the next level. He just isn't that great of a coach.

And so that ends the BYU-Utah rivalry, at least for now. It really is something special that shouldn't be so easily set aside for the sake of risking a non-conference loss. Strangely, it seems like the two people who are most heavily involved in the rivalry, Kyle Whittingham and Bronco Mendenhall, don't care about it at all. If Coach Whit really cared, he'd make Chris Hill schedule game, Michigan or no Michigan. And if Bronco really cared he'd have his players completely prepared to play the game of their life when they go against the Utes. If we leave the fate of this rivalry on their shoulders, I fear it will die.

Was Kevin O'Connor a Good GM? Part 10

About this time four years ago, I was adjusting to post-mission life, catching up on everything I missed, and eagerly anticipating the upcoming Jazz season. (Football season is great, but it always reminds me that basketball season isn't too far away.) There was a lot of excitement surrounding the Jazz in 2008, as they were coming off back-to-back division titles and were returning every major player. Would they keep winning at this great pace now that I was home and able to properly enjoy them?

Season 10: 2008-09

With the 23rd pick in the draft, Kevin O'Connor simply wanted to get bigger, which he did by taking Ohio State freshman Kosta Koufos. On the night of the draft, ESPN's Chad Ford praised the pick, calling Koufos a "steal" and "a little like the second coming of Mehmet Okur." Yeah ... O'Connor easily could have (and maybe should have) taken Serge Ibaka, Nicolas Batum, Darrell Arthur, Nikola Pekovic, DeAndre Jordan, Omer Asik and Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, all of whom I consider as good as or better than Koufos. Of course, Koufos isn't terrible — he just never really got it going with the Jazz. He played 84 games in his first two seasons in Utah before he was traded for Al Jefferson. Last season, Koufos averaged 5.5 points per game and 5.4 rebounds per game with the Denver Nuggets. Not terrible, but definitely not the second coming of Mehmet Okur.

In 2008, the Jazz had two second-round picks, which ended up being completely worthless, but I still like tracking down where the extra pick came from. In 2004, the Jazz traded Keon Clark to Phoenix for Tom Gugliotta and three draft picks, including a 2005 second-rounder, which ended up being the 60th (and last) pick of the draft. That year, the Jazz had five draft picks, so they traded the unneeded 60th pick to Philadelphia for a 2008 second-round pick, which ended up being No. 44. With Koufos on board, the Jazz already had a full 15-man roster that looked pretty good, so once again, they really didn't need this pick. But instead of trading it away for a second time, O'Connor decided to use it on a European project. The lucky guy was 7-foot-2 center Ante Tomic, whom the Jazz planned to keep in Croatia for a couple of years, but then two years turned to three, now four, and it looks like he'll never make it to the NBA. Since O'Connor was content to waste that pick, why didn't he waste it on BYU's Trent Plaisted? They didn't have to sign him — it just would've been fun to have a local guy at training camp.

With Utah's own 53rd pick, O'Connor repeated himself by choosing Serbian power forward Tadija Dragicevic, who also is very unlikely to play in an NBA game. Recently, his draft rights were traded to Dallas to help facilitate the Lamar Odom/Mo Williams trade. So Kevin O'Connor ultimately came away from the 2008 draft with a disappointing big man who only played 84 games for the Jazz. Chalk up one more lackluster draft to O'Connor's career.

As I said earlier, the Jazz were already looking at a 15-man roster that they really liked, so O'Connor had a really quiet offseason in 2008. He did make one trade, attempting to upgrade the backup point guard spot by sending Jason Hart to the Clippers for Brevin Knight. Knight used to average about 10 points and nine assists a game, but in 2008, he was entering his 12th season and his ninth team, and we quickly found out why he had played for nine different teams in his career — he was just awful. Even though he appeared in 74 games for the Jazz, he shot only 34.9 percent from the field and whenever he came onto the court, I usually began yelling for Ronnie Price to take his place. So Knight's one year in Utah was his last in the NBA, and he ultimately failed to fill that veteran backup point guard role the Jazz needed from him. However, he was an upgrade to Jason Hart, who bounced around four different teams over the next two years.

There was more slightly interesting thing O'Connor did in 2008, and that was matching Oklahoma City's offer sheet it gave to C.J. Miles. I really wish he wouldn't have done that. I know he was hoping this wouldn't be another Mo Williams situation, but in this case, letting Miles go would have saved me four years of headaches. But now C.J. is finally gone!

So the Jazz entered the 2008-09 season with virtually the same roster from the previous year. Deron Williams led the way with 19.4 ppg and 10.7 apg. Okur had an un-Koufos-like season with 17 ppg and 7.7 rpg. Carlos Boozer, who had the best two seasons of his career during my mission, decided to go back to disappointing and angering Jazz fans. He only played in 37 games, averaging 16.2 ppg and 10.4 rpg. This wouldn't have been so bad if each one of his little injuries didn't last much longer than they were supposed to. We'd be told that he'd be out for two weeks, only to watch those weeks turn into months, all while we heard stories about doctors cutting into his knee, only to find nothing wrong with it. But the absolute worst thing he did was to say in an interview that he was for sure going to opt out of his contract because he was for sure going to get a big raise. Did I mention he gave this interview while he was injured and the Jazz were in the middle of a losing streak? I also need to mention that after Boozer's awful 37-game season, he did not receive any offers and had to return to Utah for one more year. At least he's now busy infuriating Chicago fans. It's almost like we're getting a little bit of revenge for those Finals losses. Almost.

Back to the 2008 roster. Ronnie Brewer was the starting shooting guard and put up 13.7 ppg off 50.8 percent from the field, while leading the team with 1.7 steals per game. I still don't think he was as expendable as O'Connor treated him. Anyway, Boozer's injuries were the best thing for Paul Millsap, who started 38 games and averaged 13.5 ppg and 8.6 rpg. Andrei Kirilenko was pushed down to the bench, where he scored 11.6 ppg, while C.J. Miles became the starting small forward and had 9.1 ppg. Kyle Korver rounded out the main rotation with 9 ppg off the bench.

Sadly, I returned from my mission to find one of my favorite players, Matt Harpring, was on his last legs, literally. He was able to play in 63 games, but his minutes were severely limited, as was his mobility and production. I remember watching him get completely gassed after just a couple of plays, while I didn't want to believe this was the end for him. But it was. He never played another game after this season, and now he is the new Ron Boone with Craig Bolerjack. Hopefully he'll pick up his color commentary game next season. He was starting to get a bit stale last year.

Nobody else really made a significant impact on the Jazz this year, but I like to mention everyone anyway. Ronnie Price did start 17 games, but he only played in 52 because of injuries. He was one of those exciting guys who never had a chance to develop because he couldn't stay healthy. Morris Almond spent his last season in Utah by appearing in 25 games and doing nothing more than that. Last, and least, were two big men, Kyrylo Fesenko and Jarron Collins, who played in 21 and 26 games, respectively.

Fighting through a few injuries, inconsistent play at small forward, and a really thin bench, the Jazz struggled to a 48-34 record and the eighth seed in the playoffs. Matching up the Lakers (again), the Jazz were crushed in the first two games of the series before Carlos Boozer guaranteed a win for Game 3. Boozer put up 23 points and 22 rebounds to help the Jazz get a 2-point win at home, but we didn't get another win the rest of the series. The most frustrating thing about this was we saw one game where Boozer truly was the best power forward in the NBA. He had it in him — so why couldn't he bring it out on a more consistent basis?

So my first Jazz season after my mission was a bit of a dud. But I was happy to be back home and able to fully enjoy professional basketball and closely follow the upcoming offseason to see how Kevin O'Connor would get us back to the Finals.

Dreams in Darkness

The last episode in the Volume 1 box set of Batman: The Animated Series brought back Scarecrow, sadly for the last time. "Dreams in Darkness" was the 28th episode produced and 31st aired on Nov. 3, 1992.

The beginning was intriguing and captivating. Starting with Batman in a straight jacket in Arkham Asylum was a great way to draw in the audience. It also was kind of fun to start the episode in the middle of the story and letting Batman narrate for us. A welcome change of pace that earns a point.

But the score slides back to a 5 because of Scarecrow's henchman, Torchy, who had a robotic hand that could be a power drill or a welding torch. And yes, his name really was Torchy, and yes, he used that hand as his main weapon while fighting Batman. Just all-around stupid.

Luckily, this episode answered one question that so many others fail to address: Why don't you take off Batman's mask after you capture him? Batman gets captured quite a bit, and most of the time the bad guys do little more than removing his utility belt. But here, Batman found himself trapped in Arkham and the orderly tried to remove his mask several times, but the doctor refused, saying the mask was at the root of Batman's delusions, and removing it too soon would cause more psychological harm. Good reason! It also explains why all the super villains in Arkham get to wear their costumes. I'll add a point for that.

I'll add another point for the haunting and rather dark hallucinations Batman had of his parents being shot. For this show, they really pushed the boundaries, and I think it paid off. Again, this show never actually showed Batman's origin story, so any little glimpses we can get like this are gold. Batman's hallucinations here also reminded me of Arkham Asylum the video game. But this episode came first, of course.

One unfortunate thing about this episode was that it followed so closely on the heels of another Scarecrow episode, and there were quite a bit of similarities between the two. In the last one, we got a quick tour through Arkham and saw a few villains, heard their musical themes and even had a quick line from the Joker. In this episode, Batman hallucinated several villains, who were accompanied by their musical themes again, which was nice. But the main villain Batman saw was the Joker, who was laughing. The only problem with that is it was not Mark Hamill's trademarked Joker laugh. Why is someone else laughing for the Joker? Why couldn't the producers go back into their audio files and replay an authentic Joker laugh? That, combined with the inconsistency of Arkham Asylum's design, will drop the score to a 6.

Now, the Scarecrow's main plot here was actually kind of cool. He wanted to pour fear toxin into Gotham's water supply. An idea so good that the wonderful Batman Begins did basically the same thing. I would add a point here, but I really hated that Batman defeated the Scarecrow's goons by whistling really loud into a microphone. Lord Slug, anyone? So sadly, I have to keep the score at 6.

Final score: 6

So that wraps it up for the first season of Batman: The Animated Series. Technically speaking, it wasn't really the first season because the airing order and production order were so messed up and overlapping, but the DVDs were organized this way, so that's what I'm going off. Season 1 had 28 episodes, with an average score of 7.2. Four episodes earned a perfect 10: "On Leather Wings," "The Last Laugh," "Two-Face" and "Heart of Ice." The worst episode was "I've Got Batman in My Basement," with a score of 1. All in all, not a bad start for the first serious, yet still kid-friendly, superhero cartoon. Let's see how Season 2 holds up.