Gotham (Season 1)

So I've been on a bit of a Batman kick lately and it has caused me to grit my teeth, and finally work my way through at least the first season of Gotham for... reasons. There are clearly other Batman properties I could be reviewing but for some reason, there was an element about Gotham that intrigued me, even though past attempts to watch this show have ended with me rolling my eyes and stopping after the first or second episode.

I don't know exactly when the show started to kick in for me, hopefully I'll find out by the end of this review, but the truth is, it took at least 5 to 8 episodes before I was actually half enjoying the show. I don't know if it was because I had become numb to it, or if there was an actual plot change, but it is definitely a show you have to ride out a little because there are some pretty dumb aspects of it. If you want to get hooked on a show right away, Gotham might not be the one for your up front. But I do think there are some redeeming qualities of this show that are worth talking about.

Gotham takes place in the iconic DC comics hometown of Batman, however the show begins right as Bruce Wayne and his parents are taking that faithful walk home from the theater and the Waynes are brutally gunned down.

At the same time, James "Jim" Gordon (played by Ben McKenzie) is a newly minted, go getter detective with the Gotham Police Department, paired with Harvey Bullock (played by Donal Logue), a lazy, jaded veteran detective with an all too friendly relationship with the criminal underbelly of Gotham.

The two are assigned to investigate the death of the Waynes and this sets off an episodic criminal procedural set in the well known criminal town as Gordon proves himself as an incorruptible cop in the most corrupt city in the world. All the while, the show provides origin stories for many of the iconic members of the Batman rogue gallery like Oswald Cobblepot/The Penguin (played by Robin Lord Taylor), Edward Nygma/The Riddler (played by Cory Michael Smith), Selina Kyle/Catwoman  (played by Camren Bicondova), Harvey Dent/Two-Face (played by Nicholas D'Agosto), and others.

A quick note on this because this is a common blunder the show finds itself in. Too many times, the show centers an episode on the fact that these are characters that will eventually turn into the Batman villain, but they have a long time to get there. Even if the show wasn't counting on having multiple seasons (its on its 5th and final season), 22 episodes is still a long time to just have Edward Nygma hang out as a forensics expert in the GCPD, or randomly show the Scarecrow for an episode.

Those actually aren't the worst examples, but after you are over the initial fun easter egg recognition, you do wonder what the point of these characters are besides making the viewer go, "OH THERE'S POISON IVY! She's not doing anything and she's just a kid with no powers... BUT THAT'S POISON IVY!" (better example).

The first few episodes for sure, it just feels like a name recognition show than actually progressing a real story where these people feel like actual characters.

There are a couple of strings and plot lines this show goes down so it is worth talking about general arcs rather than individual episodes, because we could be here all day if I examined every episode.

The first obvious thread is that of Jim Gordon himself and I didn't realize until this show that Jim Gordon is a complicated character to adapt, especially if he's the main character.

Jim Gordon was always a supporting character to Batman. He's the good cop in a bad city. While they clearly have made 5 seasons on that, they don't really know what to do with him besides have him be the stereotypical lawful good white dude and he's pretty milk toast.

It's also difficult that they set up such a stark contrast between him and the rest of the city that it wouldn't make sense for him to stay in Gotham after the second episode. In the first episode, it just seems that even he's under the boot of the system and that's what makes the first few episode feel very handcuffed. They make it very clear that Gotham needs to be cleaned up and until Batman can come do it, Gordon is the one who needs to do it, but he's just impotent in the first few episodes to do anything meaningful because he's beholden to a corrupt system. Not only is it boring, it doesn't feel true to Gordon as a character, no matter how simple he's been in previous films.

This is exacerbated by the dynamic he has with Harvey because they are so polar opposites and its only the plot that keeps them together. If the plot made sense, Gordon would have arrested Harvey in episode 3 and Harvey would have killed Gordon in episode 1.

The dynamic only starts to work when there is some give on Harvey's character as a lazy corrupt cop and Gordon starts to make him want to change. The dynamic no longer becomes two people that are incompatible, it becomes two people that are polar opposites, play well off each other, but are working towards the same goal, and like the rest of this show, that takes a while for the dynamic to get there. When it gets there, there are some good moments like the fact that Gordon is a bit of a dork for being so upright and Harvey calls him out on it, but they still feel like they're on the same page.

Gordon's romantic relationships in the show are fascinating because for the most part (minus the final episode, which I will talk about) the women in his life are just supportive of him no matter what. Erin Richards and Morena Baccarin do a really good job in the show, there's just not really any conflict unless its external, and while you are glad a good character like Gordon has some comfort in his loved ones, its kind of milk toast. Again, worth giving some credit because it paints Gordon as a dork with an excellent moral compass, making him relatable as opposed to this incorruptible paragon, but still not very interesting.

The most interesting part about Gordon is almost where this show could have gone. The first half of this show keeps things, for the most part, grounded in reality. It feels like the show was going for a Nolan Batman feel and everything was so dark and gritty. And while that is the half of the season I didn't like, I do think it could have worked if they had changed one pairing. Instead of pairing Gordon with a lazy cop like Harvey, pair him with another paragon (albeit a flawed one) in Harvey Dent.

So the actor they chose to play Harvey Dent was the wrong choice and the inkling that he's going to turn into Two-Face just didn't work in the few episodes he shows up.

However, I was telling myself throughout the season that this show should have been Law and Order with Batman serial killers and villains. Gordon goes around catching the criminals and Dent prosecutes them. A friendship would build throughout the season (or seasons), and while Gorodn would only get more incorruptible, Harvey would start to slip towards the darker side of himself.

Totally a hypothetical, but I think I would have preferred that... if the show wanted to stay in the realistic world, and especially by the end, it is clear that the show is moving away from a Nolan Gotham and more towards a Schumacher Gotham... and I kind of dig it.

While Gordon represents the law in Gotham and the problems that lie in that realm, there is a whole other side of the show that portrays the criminal underground of Gotham. There are a couple of characters, but a consistent on is Oswald Cobblepot.

Now Robin Taylor Lord is not a great actor and represents how this show took a page from the CW and casted these unique characters with standard sexy models. However, you do have to kind of respect the arc he's given where he goes from absolutely nothing to being just one of the cookiest characters in the show. Lord is clearly having fun with the role and I'd prefer him and his journey in the show over that of Fish Mooney...

So Fish Mooney is by far the worst character in the show and part of that is due to the weird choices made by Jada Pickett Smith... however...

Smith really seemed to be the only one who knew what this show was from the beginning. Again, the context of the show really changes after the last episode of the season where it takes a right turn and goes bananas, but from the beginning Fish Mooney was always this over-the-top character that could have been pulled out of one of the Schumacher Batman films and fit right in.

But she also shows the tonal conflict this show has throughout and it all depends on what Batman movie you're trying to recreate. There are moments at the beginning that feel like they're trying to create the Gotham from the Dark Knight Trilogy, and in that case, while she does have moments where she could be an intriguing political figure in the organized crime political world, her mellow drama just feels weird.

But then she goes on this side quest, which was ultimately pointless, but she comes back and suddenly she feels right at home in this new Gotham that feels more like the animated series or Batman Forever.

But furthermore, even if you didn't know the Batman mythos that well, you could probably guess that this was a character that was created exclusively for the show because she just feels out of place, especially in the beginning.

I don't like crapping on Smith's performance too much because again, I think she had the foresight to know where this show is probably going in season 2, but she fell victim to a script that was confused on the tone, didn't really know what to do with her, and her parts are very clearly the slowest.

One thing that really surprised me was how much I liked Bruce Wayne in this show. When the show initially started, I thought Bruce Wayne would be in the first episode or so and then disappear, because why would you dedicate a good portion of the show to a kid and his butler?

But then they dig into it a little more and suddenly this kid and his butler investigating the death of his parents while trusting but not fully believing that Gordon (or the system) can help him, he turns to his own investigation work that smell of the origins of an iconic caped crusader? Suddenly Bruce Wayne (played by David Mazouz) and Alfred (played by Sean Pertwee) became a really interesting part of the show.

I'm discovering more and more that I love the relationship between Bruce Wayne and Alfred Pennyworth and this show has some pretty great moments, in no small credit due to Mazouz and Pertwee.

This is a very minute detail but one small thing I'll mention is that I loved it how Alfred calls Bruce "Master Bruce", but I really didn't like it when he called him "Master B". I think it only happens once so I'll forgive it, but it felt weird at the time.

They also dive into Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle's early relationship and I'll admit that while I didn't initially love Bicondova and how she was inserted throughout the show, I did think that she had an interesting connection to Bruce Wayne, to Gordon, even to Fish Mooney and the organized crime war occurring in Gotham, so I think they did a surprisingly good job with her as well.

Is the show perfect? Absolutely not. It doesn't even get perfect by the end. It's uneven, the actors are far too attractive for these complicated and often grotesque characters, and Jada Pickett Smith isn't the only one who gives weird melodramatic performances for no reason. However, the show does have some really interesting takes on a world we've seemed to have seen a billion times over, and like most adaptations, the show really only works when it doesn't try to be the Nolan Gotham, or even the Schumacher Gotham, but just when it tries to be its own Gotham.

Again, even the individualistic version of Gotham has some weird kinks to it. But its clear someone said half way through this season that they were just gonna start throwing caution to the wind and have some fun with this universe.

I won't go too much into spoilers because I do believe half of the fun is the build up to this episode, but while all 20 episodes prior to this episode had their wacky moments, they always felt a little reserved, somewhat able to reconcile what was happening with a sense of realism.

Not in the last episode. Gordon's gunning down gangsters like Chow Yung Fat in Hard Boiled, people are losing their minds, and all the wacky elements of the show just come to a climax that is so entertaining, it doesn't matter that a lot of the beats in it are kind of stupid. The show suspends all reality and just starts feeling more like a comic book, but while a lot of live action shows can manufacture that feeling, this feels like Silver Age Batman and I really dug it.

Now I would say, if you were looking for a Nolan type Gotham show with gritty realism, keep looking cause this ain't it. This almost feels like Adam West Batman at times and despite all its flaws, it feels different. And that's what excites me to continue watching. I have no illusions that the show is going to be good or any kind of high art. But if its anything like that last episode, I don't think the show sees itself that way anyways.

Overall, Gotham is a hot mess. There's not really a rational reason why I enjoyed this show and hopefully I can figure that out in Season 2, but it's an entertaining bad that has inklings of hope... if they execute correctly. As long as the show stops trying to be previous iterations of Batman and tries to be its own thing, warts and all, I can accept it as an alternate take of Batman. But that also requires the viewer to disregard previous preconceived notions of the Gotham universe you prefer. It's its own thing and might be able to pull it off... maybe.

But those are my thoughts on Gotham. I hope it gets better in later seasons. Without spoilers, do it? Should I keep watching? What do you think? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading!