Review: Gotham Season 1

GothamWith the second season premiere of Gotham just around the corner, I want to take this time to do my season wrap up review of the first season. If you want to check out my review of the first few episodes of the season you can go here.

So did the season improve as it went along?

Well, yes and no.

The problem that plagued Gotham (from the beginning) was its uneven mix of good, passible, and bad elements. As the season progressed the good elements got better, the passible elements improved, and the bad parts generally got worse.

Last time I started with the good, so this time lets lead with the bad.

From the beginning, Gotham’s biggest problem was that it did not know what to do with its female characters. None fared worse than Fish Mooney (Jada Pinkett Smith); as an original character, Fish had no predestined arc. This would not have been a problem, but most of her story was always a tonal shift from the rest of the show and would bring everything to a screeching halt. It got worse as the season went on, with a truly awful arc that took her out of Gotham and had nothing to do with the rest of the show. It was literally a waste of screen time. In the final episode of the season she met up with Selina Kyle (Camren Bicondova) and made the young girl part of her new gang. Since Fish was played like a version of Eartha Kitt’s Catwoman, if she had been played as a mentor to Selina early on, that would have made sense, be here it was too little too late. Fortunately, Fish was killed off in the finale, which can only help the next season.

The only complete waste of potential was Gordon’s fiancée Barbara Keen (Erin Richards). At first Barbara was just a bland girlfriend for Gordon, with the only tension that she had previously dated Rene Montoya (Victoria Cartagena), who wanted her back, causing friction between Montoya and Gordon. After that was resolved, Barbara left Gotham after getting caught in the crossfire of Gordon’s crusade against the corruption in Gotham. After a bad visit with her parents, she came home, took in Selina (and her friend Ivy), and generally showed signs of not being all that stable. Her season story ends with her actually going insane and becoming a murderer. I don’t mind that they are departing from her comic book depiction, I mind that her arc was so badly written.

As for Montoya, right after Barbara leaves town we never see her or her partner, Crispus Allen, (Andrew Stewart-Jones) again.

On the plus side, the show added Firefly vet Morena Baccarin as Dr. Leslie Thompkins. In the comics, Leslie was a college friend of Thomas Wayne and one of the few people to know Bruce Wayne is Batman as she was the closest thing he had to a maternal figure in his life. Here she is introduced as Jim Gordon’s new girlfriend and the new city corner, after a bad stint on the Arkham Asylum staff. While she doesn’t have a great arc of her own yet, she makes a good compliment to Gordon as she actively wants to help Gordon and understands what he is fighting for.

One character I did not really touch on the first time was Edward Nygma (Cory Michael Smith), the future Riddler. At that time he was a walk-on character who provided exposition and would insist on making it a riddle to remind us how he ends up. His character ended up getting more of an arc when they had him develop a crush on a fellow staff member at the GCPD and kill her abusive cop boyfriend. The problem is that his parts of the story feel shoehorned in.

Bruce Wayne (David Mazouz) had his arc improve as the season went on. A lot of that was thanks to having Bruce and Selina meet, as she was the only witness to his parents’ murder. This actually helped both characters as it gave both important interactions and set a lot of foreshadowing to their future selves. It also had romantic tension, which was handled well considering we are talking about two fourteen year olds. Bruce’s scenes were also helped by the presence of Sean Pertwee as Alfred. Pertwee continues to be one of the best things about the show and is arguably the best on-screen Alfred ever.

One of the best interactions that Alfred had were scenes with Donal Logue as Harvey Bullock. Not surprising, as Logue is another of the big reasons to keep watching the show. Harvey’s arc the entire season has been one of the corrupt cop having his former idealism reawakened. Logue plays the conflict perfectly and is always a treat when he is on-screen.

Since we are talking about the best things on the show, we might as well talk about Oswald Cobblepot, aka The Penguin (Robin Lord Taylor). The Penguin’s story was easily the most engaging as he was always actively working towards something. In this case that something was taking out all the Gotham city mob bosses and leaving himself on top. Taylor did an amazing job with the role, which was also the best written of the whole cast.

And that takes us to our star Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie). I will say this, since I wrote the first review Gordon became less passive and started to truly drive for change in how the GCPD operated. So he is definitely more interesting now, especially with his relationship with Thompkins. Sadly he is stuck with a characterization that is just going to pale in comparison to the presence of Bullock, Penguin, and Alfred.

In the end, I am giving the full first season of Gotham a C+. As I said the first time, it is going to drive the long time Batman fans up the wall with its handling of the characters and story arcs. It probably does better with non-comic fans who are not as invested in the mythos, but even they still have to deal with the uneven mix of good and bad performances, writing, and characters.

Fanboy News Network Episode 21

Fanboy News Network Episode 21

“Fanboy News Network 2.0”

The podcast returns from hiatus with a new format

In this episode

Jeff introduces his new co-host Daniel Christensen.

Wishing Nichelle Nichols a speedy recovery.

Going over the harassment incident that happened at Momocon.

The Hugo Awards and the Sad Puppies

Comic Book inspired TV shows:

  • The Flash
  • Arrow
  • Agents of SHEILD
  • Gotham
  • IZombie
  • Daredevil

Avengers: Age of Ultron

Tomorrowland

Mad Max: Fury Road

What Jeff and Daniel are looking forward to.

Review: Gotham

GothamThree new TV series debuted, this fall, all based on DC comics characters. With all this comic love on TV this season I will be doing early season reviews for all three in the order they debuted, and follow with season wrap up reviews, just as I have done with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Arrow.

The first of these reviews is Gotham.

Even though it has the highest profile of the three new shows (as it is part of the Batman mythos), Gotham has a huge Smallville shaped albatross hanging around its neck. The premise of the show is that it takes place directly after Bruce Wayne’s parents are murdered and follows newly minted police detective Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie) as he investigates the murder and deals with the rampant corruption in Gotham. The show also follows the formative years of Bruce Wayne (David Mazouz), along with several other prominent Batman characters, with special focus on Oswald Cobblepot, aka The Penguin (Robin Lord Taylor).

There is a lot of baggage a series has to deal with when it is a prequel to a well-known story. I have made my feelings about Smallville (and all the things that went wrong there) known previously. It is, however, possible to have a well done prequel (e.g. Hannibal). The challenge is in which parts of the story canon you keep as sacred, and which parts you are willing to change. Above all else, it needs to be a good show, with strong writing and acting.

So how does Gotham do on this front?

The series was created by Bruno Heller, who also created The Mentalist and HBO’s Rome. As such, it does have some decent writing, but it often comes off as uneven; although, to be fair, some of that could also be the acting. Basically, the show is a frustrating mix of wonderful, passable, and awful. On the plus side, you have the Penguin; his storyline is far and away the best thing about the show, and Taylor’s performance is great, showing the Penguin as a grand manipulator – sniveling in one scene and cunning the next, but always with an eye towards getting what he wants. If the show were just about the Penguin, it would be great.

Another of the pluses is Jim Gordon’s partner Harvey Bullock (Donal Logue) who is corrupt, a drunk, and still one of the best cops in the GCPD. Logue is always good in everything he does, and he goes all out here. The best thing about Harvey is that it is clear that Gordon is getting to him and that his story will be one of redemption.

The final gem of the series is Alfred (Sean Pertwee). Unlike previous versions of the character, this Alfred is more of a rough and tumble type, willing to bawl Bruce out, while simultaneously calling him sir. He is portrayed as struggling to figure out how to raise Bruce and help him deal with the death of his parents.

As to the passable parts, sadly we find our lead character Jim Gordon. Gordon is upstanding and unwilling to compromise his principles, but must find a way to navigate the corruption of both the GCPD and Gotham in general. There is nothing wrong with McKenzie’s performance, or how the character is written, it’s that the series seems to just happen to him, rather than him being a driving force.

There’s also Selena Kyle (Camren Bicondova), who is portrayed as a homeless street urchin and thief. She witnesses the murder of the Waynes and becomes somewhat obsessed with Bruce. I really have no problem with Bicondova’s performance, but she has only had dialogue in two of the episodes so far despite appearing in every one. Most of the time we see her silently skulking around either watching Bruce, or tailing Gordon. There is potential for her to be engaging, but they haven’t done anything with her, so far.

And then we have Bruce Wayne (David Mazouz) himself. Bruce is portrayed as channeling his grief into an obsession with figuring out why his parents were murdered. They are showing his development as a detective and his scenes do work, with a lot of thanks to support from Pertwee’s Alfred. But he is not the focus of the series and in some episodes only gets one scene.

And then there are the bad parts of the show.

Chief amongst these is Fish Mooney (Jada Pinkett Smith), lieutenant to mob boss Carmine Falcone (John Doman). Fish wants to overthrow Falcone and goes through a lot of elaborate steps in her efforts to do so. However, her primary purpose is to be a foil for her former underling, The Penguin, whom she ordered killed in the first episode. His defection to another outfit does not sit well with her. Any scene with Fish just drags on the momentum of each episode. Her outfits are crimes against both fashion and logic and her performance seems to be a bargain basement version of Eartha Kitt’s Catwoman. This is particularly frustrating because we know Jada Pinkett Smith is a good actress, so I have to assume this is how Fish is written and directed and Jada is just going along with it.

Another drag on most episodes is Gordon’s fiancée, Barbara Keen (Erin Richards). She just seems to be someone for him to worry about, or to create complications for him due to his needing to keep a variety of city secrets. She hasn’t been given any real character traits beyond worrying about Gordon, or being upset with him. Her only other arc is that she had a relationship with Detective Rene Montoya (Victoria Cartagena), which has led Montoya to have an obsession with proving that Gordon is dirty. Beyond that, Montoya herself also has no personality.

And this leads to one of the great fanboy complaints about the series. Most of the characters are from the Batman mythos, but other than Selena and Tommy Elliot (who will become Hush), all of the other characters are all roughly Gordon’s age. In the case of Penguin this works fine, but for Montoya, her partner Crispus Allen (Andrew Stewart-Jones), future Riddler Edward Nygma (Cory Michael Smith), Victor Zsasz (Anthony Carrigan), and Harvey Dent (Nicholas D’Agosto), these are characters that are traditionally roughly Batman’s age. Here they are all roughly 15 years older than their usual presentation.

This is where the show falls apart for me. They want to have their Batman villains in a show that does not have Batman himself. And with the rate they are introducing characters, if the show gets multiple seasons I’m afraid they will start advancing arcs that make no sense without Batman’s presence.

This leads me to my final problem. The grade. I am giving Gotham a C – at this time. It is going to drive the long time Batman fans up the wall with its handling of the characters and story arcs. It is actually going to be more enjoyable to non-fans who are not as invested in the mythos, but even they still have to deal with the uneven mix of good and bad performances, writing, and characters.

Fanboy News Network Episode 9

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Fanboy News Network Episode 9

A look at the buzz surrounding the release of the Guardians of the Galaxy trailer.

The fan reaction to the announced casting for the new Fantastic Four film.

Casting news for the Constantine and Gotham pilots.

Coverage on the recent drop in overall comic book sales.