An old friend of Batman's, named Dark Strike (who comes up with this stuff?) drops by the clocktower to spend some time with Barbara and seek her assistance in tracking down a killer called The Crawler, who abducts women, taunting Dark Strike by murdering them just as he arrives.

First off, this OTT show-off would never have worked with Batman, who would have told him to sod off about two seconds after meeting him. Plus his name is especially silly, means nothing, and doesn't come from the comics, so you know there's got to be something wrong with him. That something becomes blindingly obvious once Dark Strike explains his problem and the way he always arrives 'just too late'. He IS the Crawler. They're never seen in the same place together, they wear the same bloody jacket, for God's sake, and, ooh look, the episode's called Split. What could it possibly mean, dear viewer? That we're all wasting our time watching a show treating us with such contempt that even the title is a giveaway? And as if to add insult to injury, cast as The Crawler is Brian Thompson, a man known to millions of X-Files fans as the MORPHING alien bounty hunter. Just how much do they want to hit us about the head with this one?

On top of that, there's no sense to the plot at all. No one explains how Dark Strike and Crawler became merged, or indeed why he's called The Crawler – if he had some kind of noticeable superpower it would be more interesting. Instead his evil scheme is to abduct people, then kill them. Oh, how inventive. Plus, how come it's only at the end that Dark Strike works out what's going on? Surely he must have found it oddly puzzling getting blackouts long before now? And for all the weapons in her hi-tech arsenal, Oracle doesn't seem to have much luck spotting the discrepancy either.

Once again we have to suffer through Helena staring dewy-eyed at the latest visiting hunk, only to wind up a potential victim. Dinah continues to be of little use, as if everyone's afraid to put her in a fight sequence lasting longer than 15 seconds, and Babs sits about dispensing fortune cookie wisdom. Not one person working on this show seems to have the faintest idea what they should be doing. Which probably explains why it's been cancelled.

**

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