We age in stages when it comes to television. Or at least that’s this writer’s theory.

First, TV is just a collection of colors, shapes, and noises. Hopefully, your parents have selected pleasant ones. Then you enter the era of your toddler programming, where Sesame Street and Bluey are your angels and Caillou and Peppa Pig are the demons. Action cartoons come next, followed by your Disney “teen” shows, and finally, just straight-up TV. However, when you become a parent, you repeat those early steps—for better and so, so much worse. As a parent, my children have gotten old enough that I’ve passed out the active “just going to have to tough out watching this for my kids’ sake” stage.

I say this to set the stage for this proclamation. The Mike Roth/Jase Ricci-developed Bat-Fam is fine. And so very much not for me.

I don’t intend the latter statement as snobby. It is not like I’m above it. I also don’t mean it isn’t faithful enough to Batman lore for me. It is very much not faithful to “mainstream” lore, but I don’t much care. Clearly, that isn’t its goal, and it is excessively dumb to judge it by those fanboy parameters. What I do mean is that as a middle-aged man, it isn’t for me. As a parent of a tween and teen, it isn’t for me. Or them, for that matter. So please feel free to take the rest of my review with a grain of salt.

Bat-Fam is a kid-friendly (and thus a bit gross and naughty) family sitcom skinned in superhero trappings. You have an overly earnest, kind of clueless dad, Batman/Bruce Wayne (Luke Wilson, perhaps the warmest incarnation of the character ever portrayed). He’s guiding two kids. One is his biological son, a grammar school-aged Damian (Yonas Kibreab), who has a good heart and a gift for making trouble. The other is a rebellious adopted tween, Claire (Haley Tju). As the de-aged and mindwiped by Lazarus Pit exposure adult supervillain Volcana, she struggles to trust and accept her place in the larger family.

Alfred (a nicely underplaying James Cromwell) is, well, the Alfred, the witheringly sarcastic elder figure. Ra’s al Ghul (Michael Benyaer) and Dr. Kurt Langstrom (Bobby Moynihan), Man-Bat if you’re nasty, fulfill the roles of the wacky uncles, even if Ra’s is literally the grandpa. In the first episode, Bruce’s childhood best friend and Alfred’s [WARNING: Batman and Robin reference incoming!] niece Alicia (London Hughes) moves in, fulfilling the role of the cast member who’s in the dark about all the weirdness going on around her.

To my eyes and ears, Bat-Fam is a middle-of-the-road effort. Its animation style adheres closely to one of the current dominant modes of the medium. There is a variety of body types, to the show’s credit. However, the characters are frequently framed by flat static backgrounds, giving the whole effort an artificial energy. The action sequences are more busy than kinetic. They’re easy enough to follow, but rarely exciting. The “lessons” are good ones to teach and related in a way that the 4- to 9-year-old set will grasp easily. Anyone older will likely find them a bit eyeroll-y, though.

 To be fair, the goal here is mostly jokes. On that front, Bat-Fam is also…fine. There are some moments of cleverness, to be sure. For instance, in the first episode, Ra’s, now a ghost, disappears into the painting of a horse’s butt. Get it? He’s a horse’s ass. Worth a smirk at least.

On the other hand, it immediately follows that with a fart sound, the scourge of children’s programming. I think all cartoons aimed at kids could do with, like, 50% less flatulence humor. But, again, middle-aged dad here, so others may disagree.

There is an appealingly gooey heart at Bat-Fam’s center, a rarity for the character’s appearances outside of comics. And it doesn’t just manifest as Bruce’s separation anxiety when it comes to Damian. Connection is a theme of the show, with each member of the lead cast struggling to connect, to be vulnerable, and to let others in. Volcana, as the most prominent outsider, is especially dynamic in this regard. Tju captures the ambivalence of wanting to belong running against the wariness of reaching out’s danger. Then she adds in a healthy dose of the usual adolescent resentment for good measure.

The characters I am especially partial to tend to get the least screentime. Benyaer playing Ra’s as the family stinker who vacillates between trying to ruin Bruce’s life and looking out for his grandchild is just fun. Not as much fun as Moynihan’s gross but unceasingly friendly Kurt, though. I don’t think you can give him much more screentime without ruining the delicate alchemy of his weirdness, but I do sort of wish they’d try.

But Bat-Fam isn’t for me. It’s for pre-school and early elementary school students. That said, it still is merely a slightly better version of that sort of thing. It will entertain the kids well enough. Parents won’t feel overly miserable even while sitting through an episode. Not a ringing endorsement, but better than it could be.

Bat-Fam is swinging into action on Prime Video now.

Bat-Fam Trailer: