It’s officially Autumn. New television shows are starting to come out of the woodwork. After the season premieres of The Blacklist (which was excellent) and Sleepy Hollow (as delightfully and shamelessly fun and adventurous as always), I watched the pilot of the new series Gotham. With the sort of premise that guarantees a built-in fan base, a top shelf cast, and the promotional power of the FOX network, I was curious to see what the show might bring to the table every Monday night.
Most stories involving Batman gloss over the years that follow the murder of his parents. Gotham opens with that event, and what follows immediately after. The focal point of the story is James Gordon, who is a recently-promoted homicide detective of the Gotham City Police Department. He and his salty, potentially dirty partner Harvey Bullock get saddled with the Wayne murders, and tasked with solving the case as quickly as possible to allay the fears of the populace. In their investigation, the detectives inadvertently become involved in the underworld rivalry of crime bosses Carmine Falcone and Fish Mooney, and come across more than a few characters with names quite familiar to Batman fans watching the show.
While I have only seen a few episodes of Smallville, I got a very definite and similar vibe from Gotham. As much as stories that blossom from the fertile fields of comic books tend to be grandiose in scale and scope, this show is more intimate, more human, and more gritty than a lot of that fare. We’re dealing with the origins of a great deal of characters beyond Batman, which is definitely not a bad thing – it’s been said that Batman is the least interesting character in the Batman mythos. But as I said, the overarching plotlines write themselves, as they have already been written, and the end of the series is likely to be Bruce donning the cape and cowl, so the devil is clearly going to be found in the details.
If nothing else, Gotham has an excellent cast. Donal Logue is doing fantastic work as Harvey Bullock. In the animated series, Bullock was mostly a fat slob bent on arresting Batman and being a pain in Gordon’s ass, but here, he’s a nuanced character who is not necessarily completely corrupt but nonetheless operates in a gray area between the law and the underworld. The nascent versions of the Caped Crusader’s villains are appropriately cast, from the sadistic and ambitious Oswald Cobblepot (Robin Lord Taylor) to the quiet and meticulous Edward Nygma (Cory Michael Smith). The incomparable Sean Pertwee plays Alfred Pennyworth opposite a young actor named David Mazouz who is already showing the sort of deep disturbance that would cause a grown man to dress up like a bat and fight crime. So far, the linchpin of the whole enterprise, Ben McKenzie’s James Gordon, seems a bit non-descript, but there are hints to more going on beneath his surface, so in spite of his dry delivery, I’d say I’m on board.
Gotham looks to be off to a decent start. The background of the city feels authentic, and rather than drawing direct parallels to the animated series, the Burton/Schumaker years, or Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, television’s Gotham City feels very much like its own urban beast. The characters have bite to them, and the performances come from authentic places. It’s entirely possible that this will fall off as the series goes on, and not every episode will be up to snuff, but this is a good start. I would recommend checking it out, even if you’re not that fond of the Caped Crusader.
