Written by Robert Goodman
Directed by Butch Lukic
Animation by Dong Yang
Original air date: May 1, 1999
My Rating:4/5

Description: Another enjoyable episode. As I write this review I've only seen a couple of episodes from Season 2 and I hope that season's gonna be worthy of the first one cause sofar, most of the first episodes have been good or even excellent!

The storyline is quite original. It's about a psychologist who manipulates teenagers' minds to steal rare or expensive goods from them. Sofar nothing very suprising but the thing is that to manipulate them, this psychologist, Ira Billings,aka Spellbinder, hypnotyses them and sends their mind in a dreamworld . That's when the story truly takes off. We get to see numerous and various dreamworlds, such as a jungle (the scene seems to refer to the very first sequence of 'Raiders of the lost Ark'), a battlefield during WW II, a world ruled over by giant bugs, and a supermarket, in which Terry thinks he is picking up cereal boxes and that kind of stuff, whereas he's in real stealing from Wayne Manor.

As I've said previously, there's a good plot, with some very outstanding and creepy dream scenes.
The animation is very good, and sometimes terrific in the action sequences. Such as a pursuit between Spellbinder and Batman on a railroad extremely well rendered and impressive. And the episode is very well directed by Butch Lukic, with impressive high-angle shots and that kind of stuff.
There's a nice reference to the old days when Terry finds a suit that used to belong to some guy named "DG". He asks Bruce who this is: Bruce turns away.
But there's still one problem that's staring you in the face when watching the episode. The same problem as in many many BB episodes. The villain's goal. He wants MONEY?? He has such a great knowledge of psychology and of the mind, and he only seeks for money! Oh, come on, where have been the desperate villains such as M. Freeze, whose aim was to save his wife, or the lunatics such as the Joker who had a real good origin?

Overall a very good episode.

Salvor