I agree; Batwoman/Kate Kane should have her own rogues gallery much like Batman/Terry McGinnis got his.
The show is set in Gotham, and despite a whole bunch of spin-off titles over the years about 95% of what we know of Gotham comes from Batman-starring comics. Obviously she isn't going to fight the Joker, but to say that the show should avoid anything that isn't exclusive to her is kinda ridiculous. She had a short run in Tec and two solo runs, all together maybe little over a dozen stories, and since I very much doubt we'll get to see her team up with Wonder Woman and descend into hell to fight Medusa, some of those are (for the moment) unfilmable. Using villains that are exclusive to her is great, making up new ones - also great, but not to use the largest rogues gallery in the history of rogues galleries at all would be a wasted opportunity. This doesn't have to mean copying Batman stories and transposing them onto her, she can encounter and fight them those villains in her own way. So anyways, I think a healthy balance among the three should do the trick.
Gotham may be over, but FOX still has the rights, for a little while maybe? Or is it Bruno Heller, which is how he made Pennyworth?
I don't think anyone here is saying that the show should never use pre-existing Batman villains -- just that it should establish a rogues' gallery of its own instead of being primarily dependent on Batman villains from the get-go. As you say, a balanced approach is best. Although the Arrowverse shows have drawn their villains from a variety of places. Focusing solely on the "Big Bads," the main villains of the season, only The Flash has drawn all of them from its source comic (which makes sense, since the Flash probably has the richest DC rogues' gallery after Batman). But there have arguably been more Arrow Big Bads from Teen Titans (Deathstroke, Brother Blood, Damien Darhk, and Konstantin Kovar) than from Green Arrow (Merlyn, Diaz, and the Ninth Circle, though Merlyn's earlier incarnation debuted in Justice League and Diaz is loosely based on DC hero Richard Dragon), plus they also had Ra's al Ghul from Batman and Prometheus from Justice League. Supergirl has had only one Big Bad from Supergirl comics, Reign, as well as using Superman characters/entities like Non, Cadmus, Morgan Edge, Agent Liberty, and Lex Luthor and his associates, but has also invented original Big Bads like Astra and Queen Rhea.
You forgot about Supergirl using Selena from the "Donnerverse", so that's two Big Bads original to the Kara Zor-El character. You also didn't mention Legends, which has used two Justice League villains (Vandal Savage and Neron), reused characters from The Flash and Arrow (Merlyn, Thawne, and Damian Darhk) and made up their own villain (Mallus).
Okay, after a rewatch, I know why I thought that Kate & Sophie's breakup was too recent to be during the Don't Ask, Don't Tell era. In Kate's scene with Jacob after getting away from Alice, it was established that Jacob had sent Kate away to train after her expulsion with the nominal intent of preparing her to join the Crows. But I get the impression that the Crows were only established after Batman disappeared three years before. Meanwhile, I wonder if that dead tree stump in the middle of the Batcave under Wayne Enterprises is an homage to the Wayne Foundation building in the '70s comics that was open in the middle and had a huge tree growing in the gap.
I was looking through the pre-New 52 and post-New 52 entries for Batwoman and I only saw 4 different non-Batman villains specifically mentioned, Alice, Falchion, who would probably not fit the show since her story line involves a whole bunch of stuff from Greek mythology, a ghost called the Weeping Woman whose story arc tied into Falchion's, Shard, and The Many Arms of Death and their assassin Knife. Shard and Knife could work for the show, but a show like this is probably going to want to have a lot more than three recurring villains. Shard and Knife are both parts of bigger groups so it would be to hard to do a season with them, but if they introduce a new villain every season, that would only give them 3 seasons before they've run out of Batwoman specific villains, and that doesn't give them any bad guys for individual episodes.
...or, if the writers actually create compelling arcs for the villains, any one character's run can last more than one season.
With Alice as the main villain, it'd be cool to see the Mad Hatter as a recurring associate of hers, or maybe a rival.
I see Alice really hating Hatter, actually, and I have no doubt he'd try to brainwash her fairly quickly, leading to her taking him out. A storyline where Batwoman has to save the Mad Hatter from her sister could be interesting and fit, though (maybe having the story happen because Alice tried to team up with him and it didn't work out). One of those "the hero has to save a villain from another villain" stories. They could even bring in Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. Ok, now I really, really want to see all of the Alice in Wonderland themed Bat villains together on this show. Maybe have the Bookworm involved, too.
Was going to say if each villain is able to come back time after time to fight Batwoman what does that say about the cops, courts and prisons. Then I remember it's Gotham City we're talking about
There was also the Church of Crime, an evil cult, who were her primary antagonists back during the first "52" miniseries and immediately thereafter. Members of the Church included Kyle Abbott, Whisper A'Daire, Mother Superior, etc. Honestly, you could get a whole season out of the Church of Crime and its Crime Bible, shape-shifting monsters, secret temples, blood sacrifices, etc. https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Religion_of_Crime
Yeah, the one character I mentioned Sharp, was part of the Religion of Crime, I thought I had mentioned them in my post, but I guess not. Sounds like they're a pretty big group, so if they wanted they could probably even get multiple seasons out of them, with different members coming and going over the seasons.
This sounds okay to me if the crew can do it right. Anyone BUT him. There's no place for him now. I prefer this costume instead: Here's a full-body version: The whole Religion Of Crime thing is featured in the multiplayer videogame DC Universe Online, which involves your player-character fighting Intergang to save Batwoman.
I want to see an episode where Alicia Silverstone shows up as Batgirl and says "Hey BatBitch, you trying to steal my gig?" Then 42 minutes of Cat Batfighting.