Batman Beyond:Spellbound

Spellbinder greets Hill High cheerleader Chelsea Cunningham, and next thing she knows, she is in a jungle adventure straight out of Indiana Jones - all the while stealing a valuable statue owned by her father. When the police, led by Commissioner Barbara Gordon (Stockard Channing), arrest Chelsea, Terry McGuiness knows something is wrong - "she's flaky, but she's not stupid," he pointedly tells Bruce. When Terry attends the wedding of a friend's mother, chaos erupts as the woman goes berserk in fleeing imaginary gigantic insects. Her horror is magnified when Batman intervenes and is soon locked in combat with Spellbinder on his insect-shaped hovercraft. Terry himself then gets a blast of Spellbinder's power, and it is all he can handle to find the villian and dodge the horrors within his own mind. Among the horros are illusions of diving off a high waterfall, being pursied by the dead, and a hilarious spending binge contest.

This episode digs back to the 1970s by employing two veteran actors from that decade - Vernee Watson (from the Captain Caveman cartoon) and Richard "Les Nesman" Sanders.

Spellbinder returns in the tape's third episode via an elaborate virtual reality system that snares Terry's girlfriend and crime-fighting aide-de-camp Max (Cree Summer). Max is far and away a superior character to Terry's other girlfriend, the useless Dana Tan, and the series should have used Max instead of Dana far more often.

Sandwiched between Spellbinder's antics is the outstanding study in the relationship between Bruce and Barbara Gordon, A Touch of Curare. Curare is an ace assassin out to kill Barbara's husband, DA Sam Young (Paul Winfield). But the real fight is between Barbara and both Bruce Wayne and Terry. The reason for this surprising hostility is explained by Barbara in a heart-to-heart talk with Terry. The action in this episode is faster and more vicious than usual, and closes with a great "killer" ending.