Didn’t see a thread yet, thought I’d start one.
The second ep brings a rather shocking main-cast death and some screwing up of the canon… it will be interesting to see how they resolve it. There’s also a new introduction of a major support character.
What cracked me up was that at the end of E2, they had to watch a news report. In the strange retro-future look of the show, they turn on a box TV… which is clearly a box built around a small flatscreen TV. The wheel turns…
I stopped watching halfway through the second episode.
Alfred “quitting” was probably the cheapest bit of false drama since the “cliffhangers” in Lost in Space – did anyone really think it wouldn’t be resolved? And I hear it was even resolved by the end of the episode, so it was a complete waste of time.
The new Joker is just plain uninteresting. It’s just an excuse to ramp up the sadism, and he’s is so one dimensional that you can’t even see him. He’s just going to do the most eeeeeeee-villlll thing possible. <yawn> Same for the Joker’s boss.
There’s a major structural issue, too. Last year, the Penguin was fully formed because we knew about his home life (and because he was far less predictable, switching from toady to hardass when needed). You don’t know that about the Joker (other than in “The Killing Joke,” which was all you needed to know).
Years ago, Howard Chaykin said that the problem with the then-current Batman comic was that the writers had turned the Joker into a boring psychopath. That’s what he is here: a boring, predictable psychopath.
I’ve had enough.
Yeah, I can’t argue that. The whole concept was crippled at the start, since its endpoint has to dovetail with some variation of the origin mythos (probably the Nolan trilogy). So we know who’s important and who’s not and all they can do is move the pieces around a very small, tightly packed chess board for a while.
And David Mafouz is maturing WAY too fast. He’s already almost as tall as the adult leads.
Edit: should probably spoiler this for anyone who hasn’t seen anything this season yet.
[spoiler]Has Thomas Wayne as proto-Batman been done before, though?
Further thought: the vest with two bullets stuck in it begs the horrid question: is Thomas Wayne still alive in this variation? At least, so far?[/spoiler]
I mostly agree with your criticisms except this one: Alfred didn’t quit, Bruce fired him. And yes of course it was going to be resolved, but I don’t think it was a waste because we saw Bruce start to grow up (just a little bit).
I am astonished about how much Pertwee looks like his old man…
But I am not a fan of the show. “Batman” is one thing, but “I was a teenage Bruce Wayne” is quite another. If you’re going to make a police procedural set in Gotham, that’s one thing, and has been done, with admirable success. This wasn’t it.
That, and I have a really tough time with the changes in canon. How many “interpretations” are we going to get before people get confused enough to quit the legend altogether? In particular, I would hope our “Joker” dies in a fire for reasons most succinctly put, up above, by RealityChuck.
Keep in mind that Circus Freak “Joker” is only one candidate for the real Joker (so to speak). Remember the “Red Hook” ep from last season? The one cannonical thing that ties just about every Joker origin together is that red hood and Circus Boy hasn’t touched the hood. This could all be an elaborate set-up.
And yeah, the jump from (excellent) police procedural set in Gotham to “Super Villains running amok” is jarring.
Not quite the same thing, but in the Flashpoint series that led into the line-wide “New 52” reboot a few years ago, a change to the timeline meant that instead of Thomas and Martha being killed by a mugger, and Bruce becoming Batman, Bruce is gunned down, and Thomas becomes Batman.
Martha becomes the Joker.
I was tickled, just a bit, when [del]“Joker”[/del] tells the muscle to throw the next guy off the roof, and prefaces it with “Would you kindly…”
Little SO to Bioshock fans… 
For all you Golden Age Comics fans, in one comic, Batman discovers an old reel of film… and something resembling a Batman costume… that had belonged to his father. Investigation reveals that Thomas and Martha Wayne went to a costume party when Brucie was a toddler, and Thomas was dressed as a bat. Later, when crooks arrived, Thomas beatumall up… thus making Thomas the First Batman! (fanfare)
Hello Amateur Barbarian and thank you for starting this thread.
I always enjoy learning about a film or TV show that I had never heard of before and I was never aware of “Gotham” until I saw your thread.
I watched the very first episode which was not really an episode at all but more of an introduction to the show. It was called, “The Legend Reborn”. But it consisted mostly of the show runner(s) and director(s) discussing issues in the production of the show.
Before I watched any of the episodes, I was kind of worried about this show because it seemed to me the show runner(s) and director(s) were very concerned with CGI and other kinds of artificial effects. Damn! I forget what they called these. But it’s a very common term used in the production of films and TV shows. They must have mentioned this term at least 50 or 100 times during that intro episode and I just don’t have the interest to re-watch that 40 minutes.
Anyway, it was much like I expected. I got up to the third episode in Season 1. Unless I’m mistaken, that was the one with the “weather balloons”. Seeing some of the bad guys floating up to heaven via one of these weather balloons gave me a real genuine laugh. But unfortunately, that was one of the very few genuine enjoyable moments in this show for me.
It definitely seems to be heavily invested in CGI and other effects to make the action appear to be more than what it is. IMHO, that is really not necessary. I just want to see good stories with good morals and good outcomes. It is really unnecessary for them to “dress up” the sets to make them appear to be more in the 1970s than they already are.
I don’t care when this show is supposed to take place. That is really a minor concern for me.
So, after watching three episodes from Season One, I think I’m pretty much through watching Gotham.
The one point I’d like to make is that I think the quality of Jada Pinkett Smith’s acting is mediocre at best and most of the time, it is just pretty bad. On the other hand, I can’t remember ever seeing Ben McKenzie before and he makes this show a lot better than it would be with just an average actor. I think he is really pretty terrific.
P.S. I looked it up and saw that as well as being called “The Legend Reborn”, it is also called “The Exclusive Preview”.
I don’t think either name is very good. Neither one give a good description of what this thing is really about.
There are three ways they can go:
The current Jokerish character is killed and we realize that, despite everything in the show pointing to him as the Joker, he wasn’t really the Joker at all. Fuck you, audience! And, of course, that brings up the idea that there are two Jokerish madmen running around Gotham.
The current character IS the Joker. We don’t know who has the red hood, so it’s easy to show he does. Also, you can fix the problem of giving the Joker a name by merely saying that Jerome was an alias and we don’t know who is using it.
Something even lamer and nonsensical – like Jerome is the Joker’s evil twin!
Given the way the show has been going, I wouldn’t bet against #3.
If Bruce doesn’t start toughening up and smartening up, well… come on, already!
#4 - something (not) entirely unexpected occurs -
Nah, I’m pretty sure the ending counts as #3.
Dude laughs into a camera and suddenly kids all over Gotham becomes raging psychopathic killers? Sure…
It was the phsychic dad’s dying “curse” coming to pass - it’s a varient but not a ‘twin’ - not entirely lame (dude was a psychic after all).
More of a variant/combo with #1 and #3 - Jerome dies - lots of other jokers pop up.
I only recently started to watch this show and I find it most enjoyable.
I believe that anyone who can accept the idea that it is not intended to be a serious attempt at comedy will also find it very enjoyable.
I just like it one whole lot. It’s really and truly great! Really. Truly.
I don’t find many shows to be this enjoyable. But, it just takes me back to my childhood and as long as I view this show through the eyes of a young child, it is very enjoyable.
Thank you for posting this thread. I don’t think I would have ever found this show had you not posted this thread. So … thanks again!
Are you posting in the right thread? Gotham isn’t remotely a comedy, and if you’re looking at it through the eyes of a young child, you’re doing it VERY WRONG. I don’t think young children should watch other young children be out in life-threatening situations, or see men get stabbed in the eye, or any of the otter various gruesome things on the show.
The Otter is going to appear? He’s the sleekest supervillain EVER!
Shhhhh…SPOILERS!! 