Bruce Timm's Batman Caped Crusader is an iteration on the Dark Deco style of his work on Batman: The Animated Series. This like that show has a villain/monster of the week format but unlike that show Gotham itself is not a character. Bruce Wayne is good, but Hamish Linklater hasn't found Batman's menace yet.

The villains are..okay. I enjoyed the Boris Karloff spin on Clayface. Christina Ricci's Catwoman is an entertaining spend-thrift kleptomaniac. Even more entertaining was her long-suffering housekeeper. If they don't put both of them together again in a second season that would be an unforgivable crime. As for the rest? Forgettable. And in Harvey Dent's case, boring. It feels like we've seen Two Face's origin as often as Batman's.

Harley Quinn has drawn the most ire of the re-interpretations. She's seen as not chaotic enough or sexy enough. Or both. As a character Quinn was at peak popularity during her "Margot Robbie changes clothes on the Suicide Squad runway" phase. Women cosplayed Daddy's Little Monster for months afterwards. But that was the high point. As the character shifted to become less sexual and more zany the interest dropped off.

Harley Quinn here is interesting because she's Harleen Quinzel the way Batman is Bruce Wayne. The energetic psychiatrist is the character she plays, the sadist in the sly looking clown mask is who she is. But here the writers fail to make her a villain. She does terrible things, but only to people the writers want you to believe deserve it. I like the character, but what she does is abhorrent. Harley Quinn is an evil person. The way Hannibal Lecter is an evil person. It doesn't matter if the victims are the rich or the rude. They're still being preyed on by an evil person.

This is a fine watch for those who remember the 1990s series but it gets tedious in the last three episodes. With luck it'll get enough viewers for a second season.