B:TAS reviews: The Forgotten

(8/23/09)

Say I was forced to choose an episode of the series overfull of clichés, one that is so brimming with contrivance that I feel absolutely no emotion while watching it.  Nothing to Fear comes to mind immediately but I’d let it slide for its mediocre sense of competence. Cat Scratch Fever is also a tempting choice.  I’ve Got Batman In My Basement wouldn’t be a bad answer either.  But The Forgotten takes it easily.

Let me first say that the environment of a labor camp run by harsh overseers takes after one of my favorite films, Cool Hand Luke.  Yet while that film was a piercing exploration of character, rebellion, and vicarious living, this is a story about a fat man who overeats who steals homeless people off the streets and subjects them forced labor.

I already played my cliché counting game in my review for Nothing to Fear, but it is too tempting not to play again for this outing.  The villain is a fat glutton who chews with his mouth open, one of Bruce’s friends he meets in the camp is the strong moral support, while the other friend is eye-rolling comic relief.  Bruce undergoes amnesia, the most contrived of all plot conflicts.  And to top it off, the mine that is the showdown for the final battle explodes at the climax.

What is sickening is the link to homelessness that is the root of the story.  We know that Sean Catherine Derek, infamous for her patronizing moral tales and social commentaries, was clearly trying to raise awareness for the homeless.  Tackling such an issue is always going to be ambitious in an action cartoon, which is why it is best not to try unless you are an ingenious storyteller.  Derek is not.  She does not know what children are capable of understanding; instead of saying something about the true plight of these underprivileged men, she suggests that such people are preyed upon by evil men who run filthy labor outfits.

The aesthetic value of The Forgotten consists of dull brown desert landscapes.  Desolation can look beautiful if captured with appropriate skill, attention to detail, and evocation of mood.  But the background unit shot instead for drab emptiness.  The music strays from typical orchestral fare, but quickly grows repetitive.  The only scene that visually stimulated me was that in the mines, during which Batman apprehends every man from within the thick shadows of the caves.

What puzzles me the most is that a main component of the story is about Bruce undergoing amnesia.  It has absolutely nothing to do with the social commentary and if anything is a way to strain the conflict so that we spend more time in the labor camp than is necessary, awaiting the inevitable.  The first rule of amnesia in fiction is that it is not permanent.  The trick, perhaps, is to make the experience mean something for the character, make the catalyst that rejuvenates his memory something deep or meaningful.  But no, just like in Dreams in Darkness, it seems the creators love meaningless abstract visual references to Bruce’s past, so that we tread old ground and learn nothing new or exciting.

I loathe this episode.  I loathe it because it helps tarnish a wonderful series, and because it patronizes me with every demeaning fiber of its demeaning being.  After the embarrassing writing I had to suffer through as I watched the episode, surely it is fitting if I offer an atrocity of my own: The Forgotten is best forgotten.