King Tut (Victor Buono) is back after getting a bump on the head bringing back his royal Egyptian personality. And amongst his gang? Star Trek’s Grace Lee Whitney!

This two-parter was written by Stanley Ralph Ross from a story by Leo and Pauline Townsend. The first episode, King Tut’s Coup, debuted on 8 March, 1967.

It seems there’s a big costume to-do being held and Batman’s (Adam West) alter-ego, Bruce Wayne will be in attendance, dressed as Caesar, with his current romance, Lisa (Lee Meriwether) going as Cleopatra.

Tut is enchanted with Lisa and is determined to kidnap her and take her back to Egypt so that they can be wed, something that causes the moll in the group, Nelia (Whitney) some consternation.

Happily, Batman and Robin (Burt Ward) are able to track down the villain’s lair, interrupted briefly with a window cameo by Aileen Mehle as her society and gossip-columnist alter-ego Suzy Knickerbocker.

This far into the series, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that once they get into the lair, fisticuffs ensue, and just when you think our heroes have won, they fall victim to a trap and get captured, This time, Batman is placed in a sarcophagus which is lowered into a water tank while Robin is forced to watch!

How will Batman survive? and is Bruce Wayne’s romance with Lisa meant to be? and why does Tut keep breaking out into a W.C. Fields impersonation?

The show remains fun and camp, but the formula is so set now that you can set a watch by it. This is unfortunate because, at this point in the series, it could do a lot more by subverting expectations.

The second part, which aired the following night on 9 March, 1967 leaves Robin in the hands of Tut, and the audience worrying about the fat of the Caped Crusader. There’s no way he could have survived in the water tank, trapped in the coffin.

But Alfred (Alan Napier), who just happened to be cleaning the bat-cave at the time, receives a Morse code message from Batman and is able to rescue the hero, who has apparently put himself into a trance to survive. Huh.

Once free, he has to find a way to track down his partner and stop Tut once and for all. Along the way, he’ll learn the reason behind the romance between Bruce and Lisa, something orchestrated by her father, John E. Carson (Nelson Olmstead), and Robin will find himself trussed up with both Lisa and Nelia as they struggle against Tut’s plan in their own way.

Everything has a happy ending, and though Bruce realizes he and Lisa won’t continue to see each other, that he’s not the right man for her, that doesn’t stop him from joining her for a nightcap of ‘milk and cookies’ and giving the audience a knowing look and statement.

The second part actually plays out more enjoyably than the first, and the fourth wall break is a hoot and could have been incorporated a little more into the series as a whole.

We’re coming up on the end of the lengthy second season, and next time we are introduced to a new villain!