Oct 24, 2009 10:00 AM
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Neil Patrick Harris and The Brave and The Bold - Two great tastes that taste great together? Judging by the Doctor Horrible-esque musical episode of the Batman cartoon, definitely. We want a rematch (or several) already.
A straight plot recap of "Mayhem of The Music Meister!" wouldn't even scratch the surface of what made it such a joy to watch (But, if you need one: The Music Meister is a villain who can control people through music. He falls in love with Black Canary because of her singing voice, but even though she falls under his control like everyone else on the planet - with the exception of Batman - she's ultimately his undoing because of her canary cry superpower); it was, even more than usually for this series, all about the execution. Whether you came for the promise of Doctor Horrible-esque superheroic musical comedy, fanboy-baiting with characters like Green Arrow and Black Canary taking the first step down the road that's already led them to marriage in the comics, or just plain fun cartoonery with dancing gorillas, it's fair to say that this week, Batman: The Brave and The Bold delivered something for everyone.
It wasn't just NPH's dulcet tones that made this week's long-awaited episode of B&B so much fun; everyone involved raised their game, whether it was writers Michael Jelenic and James Tucker offering some of the best dialogue of the series so far (Who doesn't love Batman when he gets all pun-laded and sincere?) as well as a plot that's so ridiculous it approaches camp perfection (Never mind Batman singing, the explanation of how he managed to hit those notes afterwards was hilarious), or regular voice actors Diedrich Bader, John Di Maggio and especially Grey DeLisle (amongst many others) shamelessly singing their hearts out as well as managing to deliver their between-songs lines with straight faces. Although the casting coup and nerd cache of NPH has been getting all the plaudits for this ep, everyone involved did an amazing job.
After this, it'll be tough not to see the regular lunacy of the series as something of a comedown - but, at the same time, it was the uniqueness of the whole thing that made it as special as it was. Still, considering every jail in Gotham City is fitted with a revolving door and staffed by unreliable guards, is it really too much to hope that we might see a reprise sometime next season?
Send an email to Graeme McMillan, the author of this post, at graeme@io9.com.
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