Cat Scratch Fever

Sadly, it seems the majority of Catwoman episodes are of rather low quality, this one being perhaps the worst. But it can't all be bad, can it? Let's find out. "Cat Scratch Fever" was the 36th episode produced and 33rd aired on Nov. 5, 1992.

At the beginning, we see Selina Kyle being sentenced by a judge for her activities as Catwoman, but she received a lighter sentence because she helped Batman stop the Red Claw. Not only was I happy with the nod to continuity there, but I was really happy to see a Batman villain actually stand before a judge after being caught. All too often they just immediately get sent to Arkham, so it was great to have a realistic change of pace. I'll add a point for this scene, which is unfortunately the best part of the episode.

The first point I'll take off is for the really bad, distracting animation. Not only were all the characters constantly off model, but their mouths often failed to match their words and their clothes randomly changed color from one scene to the next. A lot of parts were just extremely lazy. Like when Selina went to pull her cat out of a net. All she did was touch the side of it and it suddenly fell apart like it was cut with a knife. Maybe she was supposed to have a knife and then it got censored out, but I don't care; it looked stupid and served as a perfect example for how sloppily this episode was animated.

I'll take another point off for Roland Daggett's ridiculous, over-the-top evil plot. His goal was to infect a bunch of stray animals to spread a new disease through Gotham, to which only he had the cure. Come on, Daggett, I expected better from you. What are you going to do next, steal candy from the orphanage? What happened to the Daggett who wanted to blow up Crime Alley or blackmail Bruce Wayne? That Daggett was a good, realistic villain. This one is just looking for stupid ways to act evil.

Another main complaint with this episode is that it's really boring. Like, really, really boring. The main bulk of the action simply involves Batman being chased by a rabid dog. OK, that's kind of scary, I guess, but shouldn't Batman easily be able to defeat a dog? Apparently not. The score's down to a 3.

Now, this episode introduced us to a little-known, yet recurring character named Dr. Milo. I like the idea of Milo, an evil doctor specializing in animals, but in this episode, he really doesn't do anything. In fact, he acts more like an idiot than someone with title of doctor should act like. His worst line of the episode was when Batman was in the lake, hiding under the ice, and after about 20 seconds, Milo says "No one can withstand this degree of hypothermia!" Uhh, hypothermia is what you get after being in the cold for too long, not something you're you're "in" like he's suggesting. They should have had him say something smarter, like "At this temperature, Batman has only 2 minutes before hypothermia sets in." But I'm not a doctor, so maybe what he said wasn't wrong at all. But it did bug me, so that, combined with his terrible performance through the whole episode, will drop the score to a 2.

Final score: 2