Somehow a Women’s Right’s Activist, Nora Clavicle (Barbara Rush) is a villain in Nora Clavicle and the Ladies’ Crime Club. Written by Stanford Sherman this episode first aired on 18 January, 1968.

Nora gets Gordon (Neil Hamilton) ousted as Commissioner taking on the role herself, and installing all female officers (which sounds progressive, but they all focus on sales and shoes). Gordon and O’Hara (Stafford Repp) find themselves at a loss for what to do, and Batman (Adam West), Robin (Burt Ward) and Batgirl (Yvonne Craig) find themselves at the mercy of the female criminals as they infiltrate the police force, and all aspects of crime.

The whole episode plays with silly sexist stereotypes as Clavicle uses her criminal forces to use explosive robotic mice to scare all the female police officers so that she can blow the city up and claim the insurance.

Sure the set design is cool, but holy crap is this story offensive and sure Clavicle is using that sexism to try and take over the city, but none of it works. I think we have found my least favourite episode of the series.

Just ugh. There’s no sense of fun, camp, or innuendo in this one at all – and the human knot that Batman, Batgirl and Robin find themselves in is rife for that. But nothing. It’s just a bland episode that seems intent on woman-bashing and showing that our heroes are the Pied Pipers of Gotham.

This one wasn’t for me. The only upside was the finale of the episode when we discover that Penguin (Burgess Meredith) is back again!

Penguin’s Clean Sweep was also written by Stanford Sherman and was first broadcast on 25 January, 1968.

Penguin is scheming once again, and this time he’s using Lygerian Sleeping Sickness, contaminating cash with it, but Batman and Robin are ready to take him on. Even as they confront the dangerous fruit flies that carry the sickness.

Batgirl deals with the banks and attempts to help the Dynamic Duo recover all the infected money. But will they be able to foil Penguin’s scheme and put him away (again)? Or is he counting on their interference as all of Gotham throws their infected money into the street for Penguin to sweep up.

But perhaps Bruce Wayne is able to outwit Penguin in a way that Batman is unable to.

Unfortunately, this is Burgess Meredith’s final appearance as Penguin in the series. He and Frank Gorshin are so delightful in their performances, it’s too bad that they won’t be around to finish out the series, there are only six episodes to go, and the next one sounds like we’re going western again when Shame (Cliff Robertson) returns!

And we know that back then, they didn’t finish off television series with a finale like they do nowadays. Batman, Robin and Batgirl will be left to their own devices in Gotham as the channel gets changed on them.