That is exactly what Bullock from comix would do. Bullock isn’t Batman smart, but he is far smarter than the average Gotham cop, and generally smarter than Gordon even, but he hides it behind cynicism, slovenliness and incompetent corruption. Bullock didn’t make it into the movies because he is far too interesting a character and ambiguous.
I got as far as the future Penguin hitting the guy in the alley. Lost interest. I felt like I was going down the same rabbit hole most of the movies went down.
I just can’t help but feel this is going to be another “made for 12-year olds” piece of crap. I got the same vibe from Scorpion.
I enjoyed it.
However…
I think it could have been better if it existed in a different era or place, not today with cell phones, tattoos and other reminders of today.
Why not create a city we don’t have now?
What was Gotham envisaged as before Batman grew up?
The minor characters could of at least been from a different time.
Anyway, I think it’s your standard police procedural, but with great actors.
That’s one of the things I really liked about it. Like Batman: The Animated Series, there is no real time and place.
The Waynes went to the movies in tuxes and fancy clothes, like you would in the 30s.
The thugs looked like they were pulled from any cop show of today.
Gordon was driving around a 1970s-style boat.
Gordon and Bullock used flip phones from the early 2000s.
Fish Mooney’s club looked like a 1940s-type establishment.
Mooney herself seems to live in the 60s of the original Batman show.
I can’t wait for more of this.
Watched it Friday. If it’s not going to be rebroadcast every week, I’m going to have trouble catching this, as both The Voice and Dancing With The Stars get recorded on Monday.
It’s…different. Not bad, just quite unlike anything I’ve watched lately. A few breaks with canon (the one that stood out for me the most was Bullock being crooked, something Commissioner Gordon once explicitly stated he wasn’t in the cartoon), but I’ve never been huge on that. Do agree that we’ve seen a helluva lot of characters in the pilot, but that’s just setting the stage (The Tick did something similar, and we hardly ever saw some of them again).
My main concern is if this is going to be entertaining. The biggest problem with a break from the normal continuity is that they can’t use what made the normal continuity fun…the elaborate costumes, the big schemes, the flashy machinery and gadgets, the daring escapes. If this series becomes dependent on gun violence to keep our attention, that’s going to get old pretty fast. And while a long arc can work, I’m really hoping the identity of the murderer doesn’t turn into one of those Lost-style eternal dense enigmas that gets so hopelessly muddled it can’t ever be seriously solved.
So, a story about the rise of Commissioner Gordon? Workable. Has potential. Time will tell.
Bullock was corrupt in his first appearances in the comics (unlike Montoya, he was created in the comics, in the 70s). Those have since been retconned (he’s one of the few honest cops during Zero Year), but it fits with Gotham - I’m sure Bullock and Gordon’s character arcs will intertwine - Bullock will teach Gordon how things work in Gotham to keep him alive, and Gordon will inspire Bullock to clean himself up (figuratively) and help him clean up the GCPD and the city.
Hulu has it. That’s how we watch nearly all the broadcast/general cable shows.
Wish they had gone the Gotham Central route here.
Have Batman as a disliked, but needed periphery character but focusing on the cops would have been fun I think.
Bumped because I wondered that, too.
All things being equal I would have preferred a straight Gotham Central adaptation (at least in premise if not the characters) but i didn’t hate what we did get.
I didn’t think it was very good. The direction was bad, and the guy playing Gordon talked in a weird toughguy way at times, moving only his bottom lip.
Why did they show the Penguin surfacing multiple times, as if it were a surprise that he survived, given we already knew that his death was faked?
And why in the world did Gordon go and tell Bruce Wayne stuff and then act like it was Bruce Wayne’s call about whether he, Gordon, stayed on the police force to clean it up? That was really weird.
We got a new TV and didn’t know how to turn off the soap opera effect until now, so that probably colored my viewing of the show, too.
I think my husband liked it more than I did.
The use of the words “lackadaisacal” (to describe Bullock) and “peril” (by Bullock) reminds me of how Nancy Drew books used to have a fancy word every chapter to increase readers’ vocabularies.
I’m torn on the show. On the one hand, I would like to see what they do with it. And I liked the '03? '04? Birds of Prey that hinted at Batman but didn’t have him, so I think it can be done. I agree that they tried to cram too much into it, though, and weren’t subtle enough. I keep hoping that producers learn we like to watch shows again and again to catch things, not be hit over the head with them and ruin repeat viewings.
On the other hand, this is going to be a depressing show and tough for me to watch if it’s just setting up Gotham to have a reason for Batman. It won’t be a cop show where they catch the bad guy, it will be a show were the bad guys get away with it again and again. Heck, they could have the bad guys commit a crime in front of most of the cops, with a few exceptions, and still not find who did it. As someone else said, if it’s to set up Batman, it’s going to be a depressing show.
So, I will watch it a few more times and see what it does.
You must not watch Torchwood as the last season did exactly that. Two guys in bed fully naked and all but showing penetration. No doom or sickness but it was set in the '20s, so one didn’t like being different but still knew he was homosexual.
vislor
Personally, I think the majority of the cop drama will revolve around Gordon cleaning up the GCPD. And it sets up a world where Batman is needed to combat crime, but has the assistance of the police too. Right now, the GCPD is too crooked to work with Batman. So the cleanup has to happen before Batman can happen.
I caught the second half on Friday night. So far, I think it’s below average, but I’m not writing it off just yet. The editing felt somewhat sloppy, though. A lot of the scene transitions were very clunky and abrupt, and not in a way that made it feel intentional.
I hope that the comedian doesn’t turn out to be the Joker, because I think that would be stupid. Still, he was shown to be visibly disturbed when Fish gave Cobblepot that beatdown, so I could see them doing that to set up a counterpoint for when he eventually becomes a ruthless criminal. I agree that less is more when dealing with the Joker’s backstory. However, since the whole show is one big, fat backstory for the rogue’s gallery, I find it very unlikely that they’ll just have the Joker show up at some point, like a force of nature.
They’ve said that they’ll be teasing a few different potential Jokers throughout the series. So it might be the comedian or it might be whatever other red herrings they throw into future episodes. One of them will eventually become the Joker. Or none of them. That’s how they intend to play it.
Ah. Then I guess that’s a little better. It all depends on the execution, which I don’t have much faith in, based on what I’ve seen so far. Still, perhaps they’ll be awesome and tease a bunch of potential Jokers and then have some other guy come out of left field instead. Or no Joker payoff at all. Either would be more interesting.
Still, based on all the clumsy “look, look, it’s <insert villain here>!” that’s been going on, I don’t expect the Joker teasing to be particularly elegant. Several million points out of ten for style if they bring in Mark Hamill as one of the phony Jokers.
Ooh! Ooh! Nah, too good to possibly happen.
The organised crime people should have taken care of the Penguin a looong time ago.
He doesn’t seem good for organised anything.
So, I think the second episode is an improvement.
The child snatchers were very comic booky, in a way I liked. They were unreal, but not completely implausible (like, say, a guy dressing up as a giant moth or whatever would be at this point in the show).
Just mentioning the Dollmaker was a good move. Imagination works much better at providing the creepy without the corny.
And Kitten Girl has some scary fight moves. Brrrr.
I’m optimistic about the rest of the show.
I liked the second episode much better…except for Jada Smith. Other than that, it was pretty solid. I like how they are developing Cobblepot. In the cartoons (BM:TAS), I seem to remember him always being a joke of a villian. It is nice to see him as a calculating, legit threat to the city.
Also, a nice nod to Batman’s secret power of sneaking up on people when Bruce enters the room. 