Walk the Straight and Narrow

My recurring memory of this episode is Alfred the Butler standing in for Batman. All because Bruce Wayne is needed to appear in public.

Alfred has to put his hand over his mouth to hide his moustache. He does not speak a lot, as Robin tells Commissioner Gordon. Batman has a sore throat.

Commissioner Gordon notices that Batman has gone thinner (and presumably) taller.

In fact Alan Napier gets a lot to do in this episode. He takes on the Archer in an archery contest. Splitting arrows to give the dynamic duo time to enter the Archer's lair.

There is no doubt that this is a lacklustre episode. It was clear by the end of the first series that Batman was recycling plots. Now it has got worse.

"Walk the Straight and Narrow" concludes the dreary Archer opener featuring a disinterested Art Carney shooting more crooked arrows than Cupid, forgivable considering the incredibly poor script from the usually reliable Stanley Ralph Ross. After foiling The Archer's attempt to spear the Dynamic Duo, Batman keeps an eye on the smarmy Allan A. Dale (Robert Cornthwaite), eventually revealed to be in league with the nefarious Archer. Sam Jaffe puts in a cameo as Zoltan Zorba, calling attention to the arch criminal's hoax, the money intended for Gotham City's destitute counterfeit, the actual stash hoarded on a ship off of Fire Cove, the show's first sighting of the Batboat, in stock footage shot for the recently completed feature film (only one further appearance, in "The Catwoman Goeth"). A sadly pedestrian sword fight provides a fitting climax to a lackluster two parter, after which things could only get better.

It is strange that this episode was chosen to open the second season since it is quite mediocre. The Archer is a villain who at first steals from the rich and distributes the loot to the poor neighborhoods, but then changes his tactics and begins to steal for himself, he has an employee of the Wayne Foundation as an undercover collaborator and together they plan seize an important sum of money that will be allocated to works in poor neighborhoods. The Archer does not have enough personality to be a prominent villain, the cliffhanger of this story has nothing spectacular or diabolical either. A pretty poor chapter.