I tried to watch this last night. I haven't watched since early in the first season, as the writing drove me away. I've vaguely remained aware of things happening on the show, mostly through osmosis. But a couple of people I work with were hyped, so I figured I'd at least try the season 3 finale.
Man is this show terrible. In some places it veers into "so bad, it's good" territory. But mostly it just left me with a headache. How are Bruce and Gordon both not in jail? Bruce especially, since the police have him at the scene of a major bio-terrorism attack, and his fingerprints are all over the detonator. And Gordon remains as much the criminal as the "villains" he's hunting. Thought at least I don't recall him outright murdering anybody last night. So, I suppose, progress?
I'm still not fan of this take on Penguin. It just doesn't work for me. Riddler was similarly over the top, but they do bounce off each other pretty well. And I'll give them points for putting so many Batman villains in just two hours. Penguin, Riddler, Freeze, Ivy, Catwoman (sorta), Hugo Strange, was that a female Firefly? The show's take on Strange I actually liked, though that may be due to the uncontrollable likability of BD Wong.
But what a waste of Alexander Siddig! All the hype for that? Maybe he'll return now that this show is getting another year.
Honestly, the best bits were the Bruce and Alfred scenes. They at least seemed to adhere to their own internal logic, and the two actors really went for it. A close second were the scenes between Bruce and Selina. The two younger cast members do a nice job even with some of the ridiculous material. But Gordon remains completely unlikable, completely corrupt, and completely incapable of actually emoting in a scene. I remembered how much I'd come to loathe this character in just the two episodes of last evening.
If David Mazouz is going to slowly take a bigger part in being the show's main action hero and Ben McKenzie is also set on a path to be more like Commissioner Gordon than Killer Gordon, we are probably going to a see a nice change of pace in the series overall. They got rid of a bunch of characters, there's the addition of some nice traditional elements like the Iceberg Lounge and the main plot seems to be centered around the League of Assassins.