By season 3 "Batman" was really running out of steam. It had lost its twice a week slots, so no more regular "Bat trap" cliff hangars, and budgets had been dramatically reduced. All the producers had was the new addition of Batgirl (Yvonne Craig) to the show to help rescue sagging ratings - which didn't work. In this environment, viewers who still bothered to tune in were confronted by a whole raft of season 3 stinkers, of which "Nora Clavicle" is one of the grimmest examples.
As to what makes this episode so bad, it's hard to know where to start. It has a plot hinging on women being too terrified to do anything about an invasion of mechanical mice, said mice eventually being "pied pipered" into Gotham river by Batman and co dancing about playing tin whistles! There is confusion in the writing as to the motivations of the villainess. She is an extreme feminist, fighting for women's rights/she is just a straightforward selfish and greedy crook, using a "cause" cynically to loot Gotham to make herself rich. Which is it? The lazy, incoherent script never deals with this. The portrayal of the useless, gossipping, shopping obsessed policewomen, who make up the new Gotham police force after Nora gets herself made commissioner, is something which looks antediluvian, even for 1968, and its sheer crassness might stun a dedicated male chauvinist. In mitigation, it could have been said that Nora chose deliberately to recruit only certain sorts of unsuitable women for the job, so her gang would have little trouble from them when it came to looting the city - however, we aren't told that by the script, so it comes across just as a blanket piece of clunking "satire" saying "Hey guys! This is funny - see how girlies make terrible cops"! But it's not all a one way street. We see a man, one who has managed to become mayor of a big city, is incapable of cleaning a shirt, or of cooking for himself when his wife goes on strike. Gotham should rename itself "Stereotype city". And, most terrible of all, the sheer ill disguised cheapness of the thing. A lot of season 3 is shot on indoor studio sound stages that the makers can no longer be bothered to make look like anything but indoor studio sound stages. "Nora Clavicle" has its share of sound stage pantomime like scenes, the worst being the one at Gotham river side, which features a painted backdrop of supposed buildings which would shame a kindergarten school play. To cap it all, this wretched little episode, uniquely, doesn't even have a Bat fight! Not content with parading the reactionary concept across the screen that women are not suited to being good cops (had the guys not heard of Batgirl then?), these producers and writers were too priggish to even let them fight, in an episode where the situation demanded that they should.
Is there anything to be ventured to attempt a defence of this episode? Well, Barbara Rush, who plays Nora, is a good enough actress, but she's too serious a player to adapt comfortably into the "Batman" atmosphere (something which happened with a few other guest villains, such as Michael Rennie) - this is not her forte. She's also cursed with probably the worst script of her career, portraying a baddie whose motivations are inconsistent. Nora's statuesque "Greek goddess" henchwomen are a sight to behold, but the ridiculous script asks us to believe these nasty gun toting women and their cunning boss can be captured (off screen - naturally) by 2 old men, Alfred and Gordon, along with the inept Chief O'Hara (who couldn't catch a cold!). The human knot is an interestingly unique "death trap", which leads the series into slightly "kinky" areas - which one might speculate the maker's were not really aware of.
So, despite a few little hints at the potential of a "Nora" story, in sum this is a really horrible episode. One where the makers had clearly forgotten" camp" does not mean simply "stupid", the attempt to mine humour from extreme stereotypes comes across as jaw droppingly outrageous, and it appears nobody cared any more about having quality in any aspect of the "entertainment" they were presenting to audiences.
As to what makes this episode so bad, it's hard to know where to start. It has a plot hinging on women being too terrified to do anything about an invasion of mechanical mice, said mice eventually being "pied pipered" into Gotham river by Batman and co dancing about playing tin whistles! There is confusion in the writing as to the motivations of the villainess. She is an extreme feminist, fighting for women's rights/she is just a straightforward selfish and greedy crook, using a "cause" cynically to loot Gotham to make herself rich. Which is it? The lazy, incoherent script never deals with this. The portrayal of the useless, gossipping, shopping obsessed policewomen, who make up the new Gotham police force after Nora gets herself made commissioner, is something which looks antediluvian, even for 1968, and its sheer crassness might stun a dedicated male chauvinist. In mitigation, it could have been said that Nora chose deliberately to recruit only certain sorts of unsuitable women for the job, so her gang would have little trouble from them when it came to looting the city - however, we aren't told that by the script, so it comes across just as a blanket piece of clunking "satire" saying "Hey guys! This is funny - see how girlies make terrible cops"! But it's not all a one way street. We see a man, one who has managed to become mayor of a big city, is incapable of cleaning a shirt, or of cooking for himself when his wife goes on strike. Gotham should rename itself "Stereotype city". And, most terrible of all, the sheer ill disguised cheapness of the thing. A lot of season 3 is shot on indoor studio sound stages that the makers can no longer be bothered to make look like anything but indoor studio sound stages. "Nora Clavicle" has its share of sound stage pantomime like scenes, the worst being the one at Gotham river side, which features a painted backdrop of supposed buildings which would shame a kindergarten school play. To cap it all, this wretched little episode, uniquely, doesn't even have a Bat fight! Not content with parading the reactionary concept across the screen that women are not suited to being good cops (had the guys not heard of Batgirl then?), these producers and writers were too priggish to even let them fight, in an episode where the situation demanded that they should.
Is there anything to be ventured to attempt a defence of this episode? Well, Barbara Rush, who plays Nora, is a good enough actress, but she's too serious a player to adapt comfortably into the "Batman" atmosphere (something which happened with a few other guest villains, such as Michael Rennie) - this is not her forte. She's also cursed with probably the worst script of her career, portraying a baddie whose motivations are inconsistent. Nora's statuesque "Greek goddess" henchwomen are a sight to behold, but the ridiculous script asks us to believe these nasty gun toting women and their cunning boss can be captured (off screen - naturally) by 2 old men, Alfred and Gordon, along with the inept Chief O'Hara (who couldn't catch a cold!). The human knot is an interestingly unique "death trap", which leads the series into slightly "kinky" areas - which one might speculate the maker's were not really aware of.
So, despite a few little hints at the potential of a "Nora" story, in sum this is a really horrible episode. One where the makers had clearly forgotten" camp" does not mean simply "stupid", the attempt to mine humour from extreme stereotypes comes across as jaw droppingly outrageous, and it appears nobody cared any more about having quality in any aspect of the "entertainment" they were presenting to audiences.