The penultimate episode of Batman introduces us to two new criminals and gives us a glimpse of Batman’s regular rogues gallery (but don’t look to close, because it’s someone else in their costumes).

Written by Stanley Ralph Ross, The Entrancing Dr. Cassandra first aired on 7 March, 1968. Dr. Cassandra (Ida Lupino) and her cohort, Cabala (Howard Duff) have come to Gotham to set up a criminal empire using her invisibility pills and knowledge of alchemy and the occult.

Batman (Adam West), Robin (Burt Ward) and Batgirl (Yvonne Craig) think that they can easily take on the baddies, but get zapped into cardboard cutouts of themselves when hit with Cassandra’s ray gun!

It takes Alfred (Alan Napier) to save them, but by the time they are restored to their three-dimensional selves Cassandra is already at Gotham Penitentiary releasing Joker, Riddler, Catwoman, Penguin, Egghead, and King Tut!

And when they take invisibility pills will the heroic trio be able to stop them before they are able to take over Gotham?

This could have been a huge way for the series to go out if they had turned this into a multi-part finale and brought back all the actors for one final hurrah. Instead, it all gets wrapped up in the episode’s runtime, and still has time to hint at the final villain of the series, the devious Minerva (Zsa Zsa Gabor).

There’s lots of fun banter, a gentle hint about Robin’s puberty and interest in girls (something we’d seen before, but around Batgirl, you can’t blame him).

The series closed out with Minerva, Mayhem and Millionaires which was written by Charles Hoffman, and was broadcast on 14 March, 1968.

So it seems Minerva runs a health spa which caters to the healthiest and wealthiest elite of Gotham City, including Bruce Wayne, and there have been a number of crimes occurring around it that seem to defy logic, thefts of personal items and effects that no one knew were hidden in very specific places except for the person who hid them.

It seems Miberva has a process of hearing the deepest secrets hidden in the brain. So why didn’t she learn that Bruce Wayne was Batman and instead only got the combination to his diamond safe? I don’t know.

But Batman, Robin and Batgirl dig into the mystery and are determined to put paid to Minerva, even if they end up in her steam pressure machine!

It’s definitely not the best way to end the series, I would have hoped for a bigger baddie, and honestly, I’ve never seen the pop culture appeal of Gabor.

And just like that I made it through all 120 episodes, broadcast from 1966 to 1968. It’s still a vastly entertaining series, and is just so much fun to watch, especially when the camp is done just right. I can see why the series endures, and people still love it so.

Now what to watch…