Batman: The Animated Series (1992-1995) remains one of the best and most influential cartoon shows ever made. From modernizing and reinventing classic villains, like Mr. Freeze, to creating enduring characters like Harley Quinn, and even kicking off Mark Hamill's now prolific voice-acting career, the show's impact on comics and pop culture is impossible to ignore. With two seasons to its name, plus a third one frequently associated with it (The New Batman Adventures), the show has fantastic episodes in all three seasons. Let's rank them all and see which season is the best.
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3 Season 2 - The Adventures of Batman & Robin
Even though this season ranks last on our list, that doesn't mean it's not worth watching. There are still some great episodes to seek out; it's just that there's only three seasons of the show, and somebody has to take the third spot. The show's second season only ran for twenty episodes, nine of which were labeled The Adventures of Batman and Robin. Fox had demanded that Robin appear in more episodes this season to appeal more to kids.
Standout episodes in this season include "Riddler's Reform," the best of the show's three Riddler episodes (the writers admitted he was the hardest villain for them to do episodes for), "Baby Doll," where a child actress with the mind of an adult and the body of a little girl kidnaps the co-stars of the sitcom she used to star in, and "Harlequinade," where the Joker steals a nuclear bomb, and the Dynamic Duo must enlist Harley Quinn's help in finding him. All of these, plus a handful of other episodes are quite good, but the season's best episode is "Trial," where all of Batman's villains (and we mean ALL of them) kidnap Batman and put him on trial, blaming him for creating the very villains he's sworn to fight.
While this season has more hits than misses, the few misses are quite noteworthy. This is the season that has the episode "The Terrible Trio," an episode that the show's creator Bruce Timm considers the worst episode in the DC Animated Universe. Still, at least we have other good episodes this season to watch instead.
2 Season 3 - The New Batman Adventures
This season has some major differences from the first two. For starters, it premiered on WB instead of Fox. There was less censorship at WB, which allowed the show to go places it wasn't able to before. The biggest and most notable change, however, comes from the redesign of virtually every character, to match the animation style of Superman: The Animated Series. While some characters were redesigned for the better, like the Scarecrow, other characters like The Joker, the Riddler, and Commissioner Gordon left more to be desired. The Bat-Family itself received major changes. Dick Grayson was no longer Robin, having moved out of Wayne Manor and taken up the mantle of Nightwing. Tim Drake would take over the mantle of Robin, with Barbara Gordon/Batgirl becoming a regular mainstay for this season.
The New Batman Adventures contains some of the show's best episodes... and some of its darkest. Some of these episodes including "Growing Pains," where Robin tries to assist an amnesiac girl with a strange connection to one of Batman's deadliest foes, "Mad Love," the origin of Harley Quinn, which shows a painfully realistic look at spousal abuse, "Old Wounds," which details why Dick Grayson quit being Robin and decided to become Nightwing, and "Over the Edge," easily the darkest episode across all three seasons of the show.
While this season has a few duds, the highs are incredibly high and far outweigh any negatives. This season ran from 1997 to 1999, with the writers choosing to end it and move on to newer shows as opposed to canceling it.
1 Season 1 - Batman: The Animated Series
Admittedly, this is a bit of an unfair fight. The New Batman Adventures ran for twenty-four episodes. The second season of Batman: The Animated Series ran for twenty. The first season of the show? It ran for an impressive sixty-five episodes! Not only does this give the first season of the show such a huge advantage, but the vast majority of the show's best and most memorable episodes can be found here. We're talking episodes like "Heart of Ice," which not only reinvented Mr. Freeze by giving him a tragic backstory, but won the show a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Writing in an Animated Program. Or "Joker's Favor," which was the first time Harley Quinn, a character created for the show, appeared. With other classic episodes like "Almost Got 'Im," "Two-Face," "Beware the Grey Ghost," "Robin's Reckoning," and "Perchance to Dream" (Batman voice-actor Kevin Conroy's personal favorite episode), the first season of Batman: The Animated Series emerges as the unquestioned best season of the show.
Does this season have a few less-than-stellar episodes? Sure, but you can literally count them on one hand. "Prophecy of Doom" and "I've Got Batman In My Basement" can be probably be skipped, and "The Cape and Cowl Conspiracy" will feel pointless after its big twist is revealed, but there are plenty of other shows that would beg for episodes like that to be considered amongst their worst. There are plenty of other fantastic episodes in this season that haven't been mentioned yet, but let's leave those for you to discover and enjoy on your own. After all, there is no shortage of fantastic episodes to choose from.