Expectations

Did Gotham live up to expectations? Given that the first series reached its conclusion this week, that question is on the lips of many viewers. Early episodes made it clear that is was not the gritty realism that we’ve come to know Christopher Nolan and Zack Synder for. It was lighthearted, fitting more with The CW adaptations of The Flash and Arrow than the DC films. At times though, it was goofy and cheesy, leaning more towards the days of Adam West than Michael Keaton. But, having been renewed for a second season later in the week, the indication would be ‘yes’.

But renewal does not always equal success. A series can be renewed despite low ratings because the channel hasn’t picked up enough new shows to fill the slot. Or it may appeal to a certain demographic that producers want to watch, yet draw poor overall ratings. If we were to measure success by ratings, Gotham would not come out smelling sweet. Gotham’s premiere drew a respectable eight million viewers. That grows to fourteen million when taking in DVR views. Looks good until you consider that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. first season premiere was watched by twelve million, a number that reaches seventeen with DVR added in. The Gotham finale was just shy of five million viewers. That’s three million viewers who lost interest.

It is slightly unfair to blame the quality of the show. Audiences can lose interest simply because of work and social obligations. Life, and the unpredictability that comes with it, is the most common interruption of our routine. It may just happen that we no longer have time for that show that we once loved. Conversely, it may be a scheduling conflict with the network. Gotham had a pretty consistent airing pattern and even a early mid-season hiatus didn’t slow down ratings. A month long break from March until April did hurt the series though. That gap lead to a drop from six million viewers to four and a half.

Selena, Cats eat Fish, not cops.

So a drop in ratings doesn’t necessarily indicate that Gotham was no longer entertaining. In fact, those last few episodes were better written than some of the higher rated mid-season episodes. The focus, both of the show and Jim Gordon, on a recurring, despicable villain helped reinvigorate some characters who felt like they were constantly repeating the same moves. Milo Ventimiglia’s ‘The Orge’ serial killer was refreshingly down to earth compared to the wacky ‘Balloon-Man’ and ‘Spirit of the Goat’. This being a Batman universe, some wackiness is to be expected, but some of Batman’s best villains, such as Black Mask and Penguin, are very straight forward characters.

Speaking of Penguin, the season finale wins up with Maroni dead, Falcone retired and Fish Mooney presumed dead which leaves Penguin in charge. At this point in time, that feels rather premature. Penguin was revealed to have been in Falcone’s employ prior to working with Mooney and Maroni in the series but we’ve actually seen him do very little to gain any support. Even Butch, his right hand man, once worked for Mooney and was turned by Victor Zsasz under Falcone’s orders. Penguin is a master manipulator, even here in the early stages, but he has no basis or support to be the mafia crime boss. That may be the point. Claiming to rule and ruling are two different things and his struggle to assert his dominance will likely be a theme for next season.

If anything, I’d prefer for Gotham to dial back on how much screen time The Penguin and Bruce Wayne are given in the second season. I touched on this briefly in the Daredevil review. Between Jim Gordon, Bruce Wayne and The Penguin there’s little time to develop any criminals for Gordon to chase. There usually ends up being four stories running in any one episode: Gordon clashing with his bosses in the police department or having a relationship issue with Leslie Thompson, Bruce investigating his parent’s death or his father’s business, possibly including Selena Kyle, The Penguin almost being killed by Mooney or Maroni or caring for his mother, and the crime of the week. In the later half of the series Mooney also had her own story, a rising through the ranks of an odd frankenstein alcatraz, which often felt like a dull and random aside to the main stories.

Don’t mind if I do.

Gotham is at its best when the story is narrowed in on one villain, such as the aforementioned ‘The Orge’. Unlike most villains in the series, Ventimiglia’s character was developed and pursued over the course of three episodes. In that way ‘The Orge’ came across as important and rounded as either The Penguin or Bruce Wayne which made the threat that he posed all the more formidable. While Gotham can’t devote three episodes to very villain, reducing the screen time of side characters would allow more time to develop the weekly villains so that they appear significant.

Bruce Wayne actually already pops up in Gotham much more than anticipated. David Mazouz is well cast and the role and I’m glad they’re making use of such a talented, young actor. However, Bruce is only twelve in the series. Even if he were to become Batman in his early 20’s, that’s a decade before we can see him don the cowl and cape. Imagining that the show can stay on air for ten years, Bruce is already displaying the intellect and deductive reasoning needed for his future detective work which means all he really has to do is learn to fight. And if the finale is to be believed, he just found the Batcave. Part of me wonders whether Gotham’s producers are so worried about being cancelled they’re rushing through these character’s overarching stories.

In terms of living up to expectations, I believe Gotham has done so. This first season has been a bit of trial and error and there is still room for improvement, but Gotham is entertaining. The writing is lighthearted and conscious of it’s audience, the acting is lively and engaging. If you can get past the more outlandish moments, you’ll find Gotham and it’s characters strangely endearing.

Judgement

This was a big week for television enthusiasts. Last Sunday saw the return of Mad Men, Monday brought us the finale of Better Call Saul and tonight sees the premiere of season five of Game of Thrones. Sandwiched between those blockbuster, monster shows, Netflix also released the first fruits of their partnership with Marvel Entertainment; Daredevil. By making all thirteen episodes public in the same week as the Better Call Saul finale, Netflix has managed a smooth transition from one popular show to another, keeping its subscribers hooked for another few weeks. Or at least a couple of days.

The story of Marvel’s Daredevil, in case you’ve blocked the Ben Affleck adaptation from memory, focuses on Matt Murdoch, a small time lawyer operating out of Hell’s Kitchen who was blinded by radioactive materials as a child. Borrowing from the popular myth, instead of blinding the kid, the loss of his sight elevates his other senses to the point where he can hear a person’s heartbeat just by standing nearby. His enhanced balance also allows him to execute martial arts techniques flawlessly. Murdoch, following the death of his boxer dad who refused to throw a fight, uses these newly developed abilities to fight crime and clean up Hell’s Kitchen.

So, Daredevil plays into a lot of the superhero tropes that we’re all familiar with by now; powers caused by exposure to an outside source, dead parent. But the Netflix series is very aware of that. While the show opens with a scene depicting Murdoch as a child having his sight destroyed, when we catch up to Charlie Cox as the adult superhero, he’s already fighting criminals and stopping human trafficking deals. It’s clear he has only just started but this isn’t his first outing in the costume. Which is nice. By now, viewers are getting bored with origin stories. It’s in the best interest of superhero media to show the origin in as succinct and concise as fashion as possible, which Daredevil does.

“It’s ok, I just bit my lip.”

Later episodes do develop Murdoch’s relationship with his father but in some senses this show was made for fans of the character. It doesn’t dwell much on the origin and comic book readers will recognise some of Daredevil most anti-heroic actions from Frank Miller’s run. But then it baffles me why Wilson Fisk, aka Kingpin is treated as a secret for three episodes. Fans of the comics, especially those reading post-Miller, will recognise Kingpin as Daredevil’s biggest and most notorious foe. And Marvel already announced that he would be in the show. Therefore the only reason to hide his face is to make Vincent D’Onofrio’s appearance a surprise. But it’s just not. We’ve already seen D’Onofrio bald as Private Leonard Lawrence in Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket. And Wilson Fisk just looks like Gomer Pyle stole a few too many donuts.

Along with the lack of focus on audience, there is also a lack of focus on character. While the show is predominantly about Matt Murdoch and his adventures as Daredevil, he also has to share screen time with Elden Henson as Foggy Nelson, Debrorah Ann Woll as Karen Page and Fisk’s romantic storyline with Ayelet Zurer as Vanessa Marianna. It’s good to develop supporting characters, and I actually like Foggy because he manages to be Murdoch’s partner without playing a wholly comic relief role, but at 50+ minutes, the episodes could benefit from being trimmed back slightly.

It’s not that I want the characters to be two dimensional or every scene to include Charlie Cox. However, I am sitting down to watch a show titled Daredevil so I do expect the character to be at the centre of the show. Instead I’m watching Fisk court his future wife. Yes it gives him a human side so that he’s not just evil for the sake of evil but it still detracts from the main character. Daredevil suffers from this in the same way that Fox’s Gotham devotes a lot of screen time to The Penguin and Fish Mooney as well as Jim Gordon. Gotham at least has the advantage of being about an entire city rather than just one man, but the problem is the same. I don’t want to see what the bad guys are doing. I want to see the good guy figure it out.

Not shown: a lot of recurring side characters.

Daredevil also suffers from a second structural issue but it’s one that seems to plague other Netflix original programming too. Daredevil, like House of Cards, and other shows that have all of their episodes released at once, episodes tend to lack a hook to entice the viewer to watch the next one. It doesn’t seem like a big deal if the viewer doesn’t watch another episode right away when all of the episodes will be available for months. But they’re looking at it wrong. Not watching the next episodes reflects a lack of interest. I can tell you now, if HBO released all of Game of Thrones at once tonight, I’d have the entire season watched by sunrise.

With Daredevil, I’m just not that eager and I don’t feel that the show is demanding to be watched in the same way other shows do. Even if the episode itself isn’t exciting a hook can still entice the viewer. Person of Interest does it all the time. A particular case might be dull but often the episode will end with a revelation or twist that will make me desperate to tune in next week. On demand shows are relegating this device, treating it as a remnant of weekly televised shows but its not. It’s a tool to draw the viewer into the next episode. Remember, there’s only a few seconds between episodes. The hook only has to stall them for that long and then the next episode can do the rest.

Most of the problems are structural. The acting is good, with Charlie Cox as the clear standout, and the choreography is great. It’s a joy to see a fight scene where the camera doesn’t move with every punch. I can actually see what’s happening. I like the neo-noir theme too; it fits the moral quandaries of the character. I’m hoping that the problems are due to producers or writers, as the series is created by Drew Goddard, the man who will direct the next solo Spider-Man. Otherwise I’m expecting good fight scenes but I’m a little worried that Aunt May might end up with as much screen time as our friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man.

Brooding

Earlier this week, Fox TV Show Gotham reached its mid season conclusion. The show, which details the events of Detective James Gordon in the crooked police force prior to the arrival of Batman, will return in January but, thus far, prospects are looking good. I was being cautious in my optimism when I previewed the show back in September, given that Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. wasted what I felt was vast potential. Of course, it still got a second season and it’s not really close to getting cancelled so it wasn’t that bad.

In regards to the numbers, Gotham is beating Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. in the ratings by virtue of about two million viewers. That’s actually a bit misleading though. When compared to Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. first season, Agent’s tenth episode actually did better than Gotham, though not by much. It might be worth noting though that Agent’s fell further, having drew over twelve million for the pilot before dropping to about six million for the mid season. Gotham started lower, at eight million but quickly leveled out to somewhere in the region of six million.

What that suggests is that Gotham has managed to hold on to most of it’s initial viewers. Two thirds of the viewers who tuned into the pilot are still hanging around to see the adventures of Benjamin McKenzie as Detective James Gordon. But it’s also useful in predicting the future by suggesting that by this time next year when Gotham is in its second season, it may have shed a further third. But that doesn’t necessarily matter. If Gotham goes to Netflix in the interim between seasons, it could pick up a strong online viewership and following that could keep it afloat despite fletching ratings, or could even help to improve ratings. Netflix was a big reason for Breaking Bad’s surge in popularity.

Anger is a common emotion of a man with a city fighting against him.

Ratings are not a reason to watch a show, however. Gotham’s premise is strong and it allows for some good stories. The story of Detective James Gordon coming up the ranks and cleaning up the police force in the years prior to Batman draws from the comic book arc ‘Batman: Year One’, written by Frank Millar, but with one notable change. No Batman. So often in Batman films and programmes and comics, we are told that Gotham is corrupt and needs Batman. Gotham presents that city and we begin to see how much it needs Batman’s intervention as Gordon struggles to enforce justice, constantly taking one step forward and falling two steps back.

Part of the problem I had with Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was that it never truly detached itself from the wider universe. The team would spend episodes going on cool sounding missions but those missions always had something to do with Extremis or they would talk about Thor and Captain America, basically reminding the audience of the more exciting things going on that this team isn’t a part of. It was like someone wrote a fanfiction where they and their friends were friends with the Marvel superheroes but the superheroes never show up. It gets boring when you’re watching a show for it’s special guest appearances.

As I said in my preview, Gotham avoids that issue by virtue of just being itself. Gotham can actually give us Batman, albeit the innocent boy version but that’s an interesting story in of itself. Viewers know the story of Bruce Wayne training to become Batman, but Gotham explores how seeing his parents murdered drives the boy to become a crime fighter. How did he become the world’s greatest detective? Gotham shows him poring over police files and analysing crime scenes. When did he begin to develop his physical strength and ability? Gotham reveals that Bruce was bullied and asks Alfred to teach him to fight. It’s very compelling to see Bruce Wayne growing into Batman.

This might be the most amicable that we’ve ever seen Batman and Catwoman.

The actors themselves are great, with David Mazouz, Sean Pertwee and Robin Lord Taylor as the standouts among the cast. Mazouz plays Bruce with surprising deftness considering his age and Pertwee manages to strike a well maintained balance of mentor, authority figure and servant which draws audiences into scenes without stealing the spotlight. Taylor too is truly creepy as Oswald Cobblepot, already known as The Penguin. Outside of those three I have seen praise for Jada Pinkett Smith and criticism of Benjamin McKenzie. My feelings are to the contrary. Personally, I believe McKenzie brings an earnestness to the role that makes him genuine and sympathetic. Furthermore, the show hasn’t given him much range to display other than gritted determinism and frustration. Pinkett Smith, on the other hand, often comes across as over the top.

That might be a problem with the tone of the show rather than the fault of Pinkett Smith’s acting. There is an issue in that at times the writers want Gotham to be gritty and realistic, like the recent Christopher Nolan trilogy, but then it veers towards Adam West territory by introducing villains such as ‘Balloonman’ who kills his victims by strapping them to weather balloons. It’s true that Batman has his fair share of silly villains and comical stories but they generally vary from writer to writer, not from scene to scene.

So far Gotham has been enjoyable to watch. There’s an obvious shelf life on the story, given that at some point Bruce Wayne has to disappear for training. If he waits too long, characters such as Harvey Dent and Edward Nygma, who are already several years older than the boy, will be old men by the time he takes up the mantle of Caped Crusader. Until then, I’m just going to enjoy the journey and look forward to the change of scenery as Gordon takes up a security position in the newly opened Arkham Asylum.

Gotham

Ah, yes, Gotham. How could I forget DC Comics and Warner Brothers big television adaptation of Commissioner James Gordon’s time in Gotham city prior to Batman’s arrival? It might be because I’m well and truly burnt out out from the squandering of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. potential last season. And I’ll be the first to admit that I was wrong in hyping up the show. But I still maintain that it could have been better and that’s really not a feeling I want to have again with Gotham.

That’s not to say that I’m not excited for Gotham because I am. I would label myself as quietly optimistic. Part of that optimism comes from the fact that the show will air on Fox. As I explained in my pre-Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. blog post, Disney owns the ABC network as Warner Bros. owns The CW. It makes sense that when Disney have a big TV project based off of a film series they would air it on ABC, which is one of the big four American networks along with NBC, CBS and Fox. The CW, where Warner Bros. airs The Flash and Arrow, doesn’t pull in the same options. It shows an incredible amount of faith in the product to go the hard way and present Gotham to another network, rather than taking the easy route and airing it on The CW.

Of course, Warner Bros. are getting increased exposure in the deal. Not that they probably need to promote Gotham much. Batman has become such a badass icon to millions of internet users that they’d probably flock to a television adaptation. But creator Bruno Heller should be commended for not relying on the name value alone. In fact, it seems that Batman will probably not feature in the show constantly but more as a recurring character because the caped crusader is still a child at this point. It is an interesting concept to see Bruce Wayne become the Dark Knight through the eyes of James Gordon. Cop shows and nerd culture are the two big staples of modern television and Gotham manages to draw on both.

The many faces of Gotham’s heroes and villains.

The question then is how does Gotham avoid becoming like Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Actually, that’s pretty easy because Gotham has already evaded Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s biggest flaw: Joss Whedon. For the record, I like Joss Whedon. Buffy the Vampire Slayer defined a generation and formed a lot of the tropes that modern television series’ abuse. Angel  was great too because for as much as it borrowed from Buffy it also carved its own path. That those were two shows that weaved seamlessly through each other. But none of Whedon’s other projects like Dollhouse or Firefly have come close to replicating that success and that’s really part of the problem; it feels like Whedon is trying to replicate Buffy.

So Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s greatest burden was never going to be Gotham’s problem anyway. And not having a pre-existing legacy to live up to will allow Gotham to forge its own path. Heller’s previous works include co-creating Rome and his own solo creation, The Mentalist. His work on those shows reflects clear experience with unorthodox police procedural shows and programs with more highly sexualised and violent content. What really works in his favour though is that Heller is not a household name in the same way that Whedon is. Gotham could quite possibly put him on the map but few people are likely to compare Gotham to The Mentalist or Rome whereas everyone was comparing Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. with Buffy the Vampire Slayer before the first episode was over.

It is unfair to nail all of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s faults and failures on to Joss Whedon and it is equally unjust to analyse Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. based entirely on its similarities to Buffy. That said, however, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn’t stand well on its own merits either. The show forces it does our throat that Chloe Bennet’s computer hacker Skye is special when she was really just annoying and stealing screentime from far more interesting and charming characters. Trying to intertwine the series with the cinematic universe utterly failed too. Rather than feeling rooted and connected to a wider world it felt segregated. And when it did tie into the films it was arbitrary and irrelevant, like ‘oh, look, we’re standing where Thor was standing.’ The response was a resounding meh.

Hopefully Gordon gives Bruce better advice than Clark received from Pa Kent.

Again, these are problems that Gotham should avoid by just being Gotham. As far as we know, this series won’t tie into the upcoming Batman Vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice film, although who knows, maybe David Mazouz could grow up to be Ben Affleck. That could happen and it still wouldn’t affect the show’s ability to just be itself. And we know for a fact that James Gordon isn’t special so he won’t get the Skye treatment. He’ll rise to Commissioner but for Batman’s presence to be necessary in Gotham City, crime and corruption must continue to run rampant.

What might put people off Gotham is possibly the casting of Ben McKenzie in the lead role. Most people will remember McKenzie as troubled teen Ryan Atwood in The O.C. That probably isn’t the first image that comes to mind when you imagine Commissioner Gordon. However, he’s also had roles as a cop in NBC/TNT’s Southland and voiced Batman and Bruce Wayne in the animated film, Batman: Year One. It’s safe to say then that he has both experience and a familiarity with the source material.

At the end of the day though, it’ll come down to the episode to episode content and whether the writing and acting can draw the viewer into these character’s lives. This has all the makings of a great television show but I’ve said that before and been wrong. Still, it is hard not to be excited for this series and when September 22nd rolls around I will definitely be watching.