Gotham

See is most definitely aiming for Eartha Kitt with her performance. It is looking more and more like the writers don't really have a clear idea of where they are going with the story. They set up a diorama with the pilot episode seeded with a ton of call-forward characters and now have to somehow turn out a passable police procedural while still having an excuse to have Bruce Wayne in the show each week.

Moonarchia_sl said:

Anyone else turned on by Barbara and Montoya?

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I looked ahead to see if any synopsis spoils a half hour scissoring scene.

Mostly all I found was
Maybe if you cut them all together you can make fap material out of it.

Qhue_sl said:

See is most definitely aiming for Eartha Kitt with her performance. It is looking more and more like the writers don't really have a clear idea of where they are going with the story. They set up a diorama with the pilot episode seeded with a ton of call-forward characters and now have to somehow turn out a passable police procedural while still having an excuse to have Bruce Wayne in the show each week.

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That's why I didn't like that they blew their load on the pilot with all the villains. We all knew this was basically a cop drama set in Gotham. The only thing going for it is the setting and villains. If you introduce all of them right at the beginning, you just have Gotham. I don't know that the setting is enough to carry the show.

Had they been able to introduce a new villain every other episode, it would have added something to look forward to. The worst part is that there are tons of villains they have to work with, and they literally introduced almost every single major one in the pilot. Now all we have are the ones only hardcore comic nerds know of.

Well the Good Samaritan types last week were an original concept I think, certainly the balloon man from last night was. With all this crazy as a backdrop having a multibillionaire run around in body armor seems almost sane.

Well, you knew going in there would be stories about vigilantes that go too far / get themselves killed etc. There should be a whole mountain of failed Batmen before Batman - just likely without the costumes, the billions of dollars, and the lifelong training. (although Balloon man looked a bit like The Spirit in his getup) Bruce learns from their mistakes ("killing made him a criminal" dun dun dunnnn obvious), and it sets up how Gordon is initially reluctant to accept Batman etc.

I don't think it's that bad that they introduced a lot of baddies in the pilot, it's part of why I tuned into the show (what's the Penguin up to now? Oh look, it's the Riddler being weird, etc etc). Certainly there are a lot of characters, but the fact that they're known makes it easier to digest them all.

My only beef is that Bruce Wayne's story seems the most shoe-horned into the construct. Yeah, Gordon wants to find the Wayne's real killer, but I'm not sold on Gordon being that big of an influence on Bruce Wayne growing up. Maybe it's depicted that way in one of the comics, but from my limited knowledge (animated TV series and movies), Jim was never the father figure to Bruce, it's always Alfred.

TV canon seems heavily based on Nolanverse. I half expect to see Gordon writing Lucius Fox a parking ticket.

I'm liking this more than that I thought I would, I'm definitely in to at least see through the whole season. I'm not concerned about the breaks from comic canon, like someone else mentioned this is basically an Elseworlds story. I will say the whole conceit of Gordon being the only straight arrow in a cesspool of corruption is already getting tiresome, which is a problem since that's likely to be a main pillar of the story for pretty much the duration of the show. Maybe at least Bullock will come around a bit so they can focus on it less, his character in the comics is gruff/combative and he never liked Batman, but I never really thought he was corrupt.

Kreugen_sl said:

Well, you knew going in there would be stories about vigilantes that go too far / get themselves killed etc. There should be a whole mountain of failed Batmen before Batman - just likely without the costumes, the billions of dollars, and the lifelong training. (although Balloon man looked a bit like The Spirit in his getup) Bruce learns from their mistakes ("killing made him a criminal" dun dun dunnnn obvious), and it sets up how Gordon is initially reluctant to accept Batman etc.

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After last night's episode, I was sort of wishing they could drag out the vigilante thing for more episodes. Not only would it make a good subplot for the season (instead of the criminal of the week format they've been going with thus far), but it'd also be a great way to explore Gordon's morality while also giving Bruce Wayne a solid connection to the story. Like you said, seeing Bruce watching a vigilante try and fail would be a good way of showing his growth and how he is influenced to become Batman. Having a vigilante attempt to take on the criminal underworld - no matter how poorly he does - would also serve as a catalyst for showing how Gotham is pushed more and more towards having supervillains rather than just mob bosses and corrupt politicians.

Kreugen_sl said:

TV canon seems heavily based on Nolanverse. I half expect to see Gordon writing Lucius Fox a parking ticket.

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I'm still unsure of whose lead they are taking. It seems darker like Nolan's take, but then you have certain characters that have Burton's wackiness (and the actors they cast for Catwoman and Penguin strongly resemble the ones from his universe). Then you had the kidnappers from last weekend that were so campy they seemed to be straight out of the '60s Adam West show, not to mention Jada Pinkett Smith is apparently channeling Eartha Kitt. That's what I find to be one of the weakest parts of the show at the moment. The tone is really uneven.

Jada's drawl is fucking tiresome.

Kinda already tired of fish' character, really hope Maroni or Falcon kill her at the end of the season. Was really happy with Zayas showing up on the show and like the cliffhanger at the end

Yeah Fish is a boring ass character. She has like 1 level of depth and I'm already over it.

Fight_sl said:

My biggest concern is that it is on network TV. Too many rules and conventions for a network series to ever be truly great.

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I was thinking the same thing. It's definitely a bit campy, and the acting choppy at parts. Typical of network TV shows no doubt. It's not that that big a deal really, but when it comes to stories I really want to see well done, it just gets in the way. I would kill to see this on HBO, Showtime, etc.

I'm gonna dissent a bit here and say just because it's on HBO, etc does not always mean better.

Gotham has held me more than the first episodes of Arrow and AOS did so who knows.

Gotham has been picked upfor a full season, with an additional 6 episodes ordered (22 episodes total).

I kinda wish this was the Oswald Cobblepot show... His story seems much more interesting than the terrible crime of the week.

yeah between the crappy villain and eartha pin-kitt smith this episode was pretty lame. cobblepot is baller though. he had a cameo this week on Walking Dead, he was the first to die at the killing floor.

Liza

Be nice for them to make a reference in the show without feeling the need to club the audience over the head with it. I was actually impressed with the a Viper storyline as a subtle precursor to Venom, but then they had to go and directly reference it in a blast of exposition to make sure everyone knew explicitly what was going on.