Earth Mover
Episode #15 - Earth Mover
Original Airdate - September 25th, 1999
A monster, capable of manipulating earth, appears in Gotham to reclaim
his human daughter from the man who is responsible for turning him into
a mud-creature.
Media by Bird Boy
Review by Tim "Two-Face" Leighton |
Credits:
Story by Stan Berkowitz and Alan Burnett
Written by Stan Berkowitz
Directed by Dan Riba
Music by Kristopher Carter
Animation by Koko / Dong Yang
Voices:
Will Friedle as Terry McGinnis/Batman
Kevin Conroy as Bruce Wayne
Lindsay Sloane as Jackie
Dan Lauria as Bill Wallace
Stephen Collins as Tony Maycheck/Earthmover
Lauren Tom as Dana
Mark Jonathan Davis as Newscaster
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Review
I wish I could say I like this episode. I really do. Alan Burnett and
Stan Berkowitz are two of the best writers for the series, and I was
hoping for something great, seeing how this episode involved BOTH of
them. I was wrong.
A girl named Jackie is being hunted - by whom? She doesn't know. During
one of these stalking incidents, Terry and Dana are at her house
studying; Terry takes off after the stalker, only to discover that he's
made of...dirt? No, this isn't another futuristic version of Clayface,
either.
The episode sounded hopeful. Stalking teenaged girls? I usually applaud
the BEYOND crew for tackling real-life issues...but here it's just
crazy. It turns out that Jackie is being stalked by her father. Y'see,
her adoptive father accidentally killed her real father on the job at a
construction site; he fell into a pit, and soonafter was covered with
toxic waste. Years later he mutated into a living corpse that had the
power to control earth - he could make it move, quake, whatever. He was
sending these mud men (reminds me of an "Aladdin" episode) to find her
and bring her to him.
Yeesh. A touching basic premise, but when you introduce the superpowered-mutant-villain
aspect into the story, it all goes to waste. There are a few nice
moments here and there; the writing is far from terrible, it's just
average. In the future, I hope that when the touching, real-life issues
are addressed in future issues, "normal" characters are used. Still, a
satisfactory episode, just don't expect anything special.
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