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Gotham season 1

Eggs Mayonnaise

Eggs Mayonnaise

All In With The Nuts
FIRST, I liked it, and I'll keep watching. Let's get that out of the way.

But it wasn't perfect, and I wonder if it will notice and fix its imperfections over time.

Blame it on The Crow. Ever since the first Crow movie, Hollywood has always walked a tightrope when depicting comics and graphic novels on the screen. Should it be gritty and real, or should it use the heightened sense of reality that is more natural to the books?

So far Gotham wants it both ways. But it's going to have to decide if it's a comic book show or a realistic show at some point. For the most part, the way in which the Bat-myth elements were introduced was subtle and sometimes clever. But there's an imbalance in the acting styles of all the characters that makes some moments slightly cringe-worthy for me. Some of them, like Jim Gordon and Falcone and Montoya (and even Cobblepot to a degree), are being as realistic as possible. And others, like Bullock and Montoya's partner, and most of the villains, are fine being comic book characters. I hope they all find a common ground in the weeks ahead. It's only the first episode, and most shows take a whole season to work out bugs like this.

That's why I'm optimistic, and will keep watching. They got Bruce's story out of the way, and came up with a way so that they can come back to it when they feel like it, but it's not central to every week's plot. And they OD'd on introducing all the proto-Bat-villains, but with Fish Mooney being such a central character, we won't be seeing Catwoman and Penguin and Riddler every week either. It's really Gordon's story, and there's a lot of untapped/unimagined backstory there.

So me likee for now.
 
I thought it was pretty good, too. I thought they did a pretty good job introducing some of the future villains the show will face, and I thought they did a pretty good job with Bruce Wayne - letting the viewers know this is in the Batman universe, but not about Batman. Right from the start I knew I was seeing some of the famous villains before they were famous! Catwoman, the Penguin (they went a bit overboard making sure we knew that one), Poison Ivy. I think my favorite introduction was Poison Ivy's. I'm not really familiar with all the Batman characters, but having said that I think even someone not familiar at all could watch the show and like it.

Anyway, I do think they got off to a good start, and I agree with EGGS MAYO, there are some things they need to work out. Personally I hope they go more towards the comic books than realistic, although if they do it right they can sort of merge the styles without going too far in either direction. I can definitely see the Christian Bale Batman movies style in the show a bit.
 
It just looks like another police procedural (which I don't watch) but with Batman characters shoved in (and no Batman.)
 
What I'm hoping is that instead of a case of the week, there will be cases that span several episodes.
 
Yeah that... wasn't good. I'd go as far to call it bad.

Paper thin characters: The most boring Jim Gordon I've ever seen who is so awkwardly written as a goody two-shoes it really makes me hate him. The "bad cop" who is so laughably over the top that he just doesn't feel like a person. And the generic "hot girlfriend" who can't act.

The worst part, I felt, is that the show was so excited to blow it's recognisable characters wad that it just got annoying. Look! It's young Catwoman! Look! There's The Ridder! Look! There's Penguin! "My name's Ivy" FUCK OFFFFFFFFFFFF. This show so obviously has no restraint that I'm guessing we're going to get some stupid young-Bruce-Wayne-as-proto-Batman stuff before the end of the season. And I really don't want to see that.

But of course without that it's just a badly written cop show with two badly written characters.
 
I don't think it was possible for them not to go overboard introducing all the Bat-characters in the pilot, otherwise why use them at all, or call the show Gotham? They have to establish the universe right away, all comic-based shows have to. I doubt we're going to see all these characters every week -- they will be spread out over the season and given their own episodes. That's how it will avoid being a generic procedural.

Yes it could all go horribly wrong, but I'm willing to give it time.
 
Eggs Mayonnaise said:
I don't think it was possible for them not to go overboard introducing all the Bat-characters in the pilot, otherwise why use them at all, or call the show Gotham? They have to establish the universe right away, all comic-based shows have to. I doubt we're going to see all these characters every week -- they will be spread out over the season and given their own episodes. That's how it will avoid being a generic procedural.
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Yeeeeeeeeeeahhh but it just got stupid. There were too many too quick, and most of them were really terribly done. Like if you're going to introduce The Riddler you can do it with a bit more subtly then just having a guy walk in screen and literally only talk in riddles, with the order characters just saying "Hey, EDWARD NYGMA, quit it with all those RIDDLES."

Heck there's literally no reason why Penguin is actually called Penguin. They just call him that so we, the dumb audience, know that he's the Penguin.
 
I thought they called him Penguin because he always dressed in black suits, and was following Fish around.

I grant that the Riddler scene was kind of a throwaway, and not at all necessary. But I think having Nygma working inside the GCPD is an interesting twist, however clumsily it was introduced.

It definitely needs improvement, but I thought enough was there to work with. I kind of hope Bullock gets bumped off soon, because as much as I love Donal Logue, his portrayal is kind of gawdawful. But I was pleasantly surprised by Jada Pinkett Smith, and the guy playing Falcone. And I think we'll see a lot more of them than the arch Batvillains.
 
The Tomtrek said:
Yeah that... wasn't good. I'd go as far to call it bad.

Paper thin characters: The most boring Jim Gordon I've ever seen who is so awkwardly written as a goody two-shoes it really makes me hate him. The "bad cop" who is so laughably over the top that he just doesn't feel like a person. And the generic "hot girlfriend" who can't act.

The worst part, I felt, is that the show was so excited to blow it's recognisable characters wad that it just got annoying. Look! It's young Catwoman! Look! There's The Ridder! Look! There's Penguin! "My name's Ivy" FUCK OFFFFFFFFFFFF. This show so obviously has no restraint that I'm guessing we're going to get some stupid young-Bruce-Wayne-as-proto-Batman stuff before the end of the season. And I really don't want to see that.

But of course without that it's just a badly written cop show with two badly written characters.
Click to expand...
yeah I didn't like Ivy's introduction. I was like shouldn't that be Pamela Ivy, not Ivy Pepper.
 
I haven't seen it yet, but I couldn't help read AV Club's review -- all the problem we see, they see, and they said it was worse this week.

But I'm not expecting it to improve markedly until at least halfway into the season -- they started filming in the summer and it takes time to implement changes.
 
Nicholas D'Agosto is going to be Harvey Dent.

(NOW we know what happened to Virginia's boyfriend!)
 
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