MIB #401: "The Future's So Bright Syndrome". Though chronologically this should have been shown first in season five (since L is not yet a field agent), it was pushed back. It had a definite flavor of rehash to it--sort of "Planet of the Apes" with worms. Or perhaps a cross of the MIB ep with the conspiracy nut who traveled back in time to kill off the MIB and the Superman ep where Lois found an alternate world where Metropolis was in ruins and the people despised The Man of Steel.
J and K intercept a goon with a time travel device in Jeebs' shop, but he slips through the worm hole before the boys pinch him. J disappears into the hole too and finds himeself in a world where worms dominate and humans are hated. He meets up with Frank (who even though a decagenarian is still up to his old tricks) and the great-grandsons of the coffee worms, who help bust him out of prison along with a band of human freedom fighters led by K.
Meanwhile MIB is overrun with worms. Seems the coffepot Jeebs sold them actually contained a goo that causes worms to divide like amoeba, and the little buggers are drinking every drop of coffee in the place. It was the influence of the goo--I think, because this plot was really twisted and confusing--that resulted in the Big Apple getting "all wormy", as J puts it. The escaped worm seems to be the tyrant who rules over the Big Worm-Riddled Apple and had originally planne dto clone himself, but he finds this twist much more to his liking--a world of subserviants under his thumb.
J turns the tables on him and returns to the point it all began, in Jeebs' shop. A fair episode, but not the most memorable of the lot.

POK JJ #313: "The Double Trouble Header"
This is one for all the baseball fans, and judging from the posts I saw several days ago, there's quite a few in the stands. Baseball, I've heard, is also very popular in Japan (cf. the movie "Mr. Baseball", with Tom Selleck).
Our heroes meet up with a girl who is obsessed with baseball and her team colors, black and yellow. She roots for an underdog team called the Electrabuzzes, which is comparable to our Mets (meaning they suck). She also seems to be a bit of a masochist--she grabs Pikachu and begs it to shock her, which he does. Next she'll be begging for bondage straps and candle wax. >8D
She challenges Ash with Chikarita, Pidgey, and Rattata, who easily beats them with Charizard. She then runs into Team Rocket, who convince her of a little known-rule about trainers using Charizards on newbies. Soon she's spoiling for a rematch.
The whole thing turns into a stadium baseball match complete with cheering robot fans and a whole lot of baseball puns (which got a little weird for me since I'm not a fan). Though I was amused by Ash and Pikachu's amorous looks after Chikorita sprayed them with an aphrodesiac mist. Between that stuff and her masochist leanings, that girl trainer sounds like a fun time.
Misty says at one point something like, "Finally Ash has met a girl who's just as hotheaded and stubborn as he is." Just look in the mirror, doll, if you want to see another.
At the end Brock and Ash make *very suggestive* remarks about what a great trainer she'll be someday and how quickly she'll go from rookie to pro. I don't know if those lines were translated *exactly* from the Japanese, but something tells me those boys have more than Pokeballs on their minds. >8D

BAT BEY #44: "Out of the Past"
The episode opens with "Batman--The Musical!" Oh good Lord, I thought that sugar plum fairy Schumacher did enough to drive the Batfranchise down the porcelain. I hope this isn't going to come to pass.
It's his birthday, and the evening's entertainment has only made Bruce feel more like Methuselah than before. While in the Batcace looking aver a computerized scrapbook of all his female conquests (including Selina Kyle and Babs Gordon), he is visited by a ghost from the past. More precisely, a spry and youthful Talia. She offers him a roast peasant...and immortality. He says no.
Next night Bruce realizes his age when he has to save a girl from a group of thugs (led by a dude who looks like Mr. T's grandson) and is almost turned to prune pate by an oncoming truck. If not for Terry's intervention, he'd be dead...and this make him more receptive to Talia's offer.
The Lazarus pit has been refined...though persoanally I thought that in the future it's be available in an injection or something. It isn't--Bruce is encased in a metal egg and dipped like a chicken nugget. He has his youth, and a brief burst of aggression, which Talia sassures Terry is far less nasty than in her father's day. Terry is not comforted. He knows if Bruce decides to put on hte Bat-mantle again he will be out of a job.
Now the sick part. Bruce learns that Ra's Al Ghul, long thought left for dead in a near-apocolyptic final fight in 2009, had his brain spliced into Talia's body. I nearly crapped myself when Talia spoke in Ra's voice. That has got to be the most bizarre act of existential incest I have ever seen! "I kissed her," muses Bruce at one point, most likely mentally vomiting his guts out.
Ra's/Talia wants to return to Gotham in young Bruce's body, once the youth process is complete, and pass himself off as the illegitimate son of Bruce and Talia. He wishes to use Wayne's wealth to rebuild his empire and crown himself a god.
Rather a stock ending for a Ra's episode, what with everything exploding and the plans going up in smoke...though a great twist, where Talia/Ra's manages to put the fire out by releasing sand on it from compartments hidden in the ceiling--then that high-tension wire breaks loose and ignites the pit!
Terry wants to save Talia, but Bruce stops him. "The woman I knew was dead years ago," he says. In a few days the process wears off and the wrinkles start to return...but Bruce doesn't care. The old soldier has earned every grey hair on his head.
This ep may be a strong contender with "Ace in the Hole" for best ep of season 3.
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