Gotham Knights television series

[Allyn Gibson]

That trailer looks like something I'd have expected Glenn Hauman and Bob Greenberger to show at their trailer round-up at Shore Leave (a convention near Baltimore every July) back in 2003. It looks like an early aughts CW super-hero show. Slap Evancescence's "Going Under" in the soundtrack, and I'd believe it'd been sitting on the shelf for twenty years.

 

[Samurai8472]

This looks like a trailer for a series that didn't get picked up after the pilot.

 

[Gaith]

Finally watched the trailer, and, my contribution is: how the heck is a CW show about modern teens who can't attend school supposed to work? Obviously shows like Smallville and Riverdale never cared about actual academics, but the characters' lives are still shown as orbiting around their schools. Will they just be an underground Team Arrow whose members happen to be underage? That doesn't sound dramatically sustainable at all.

 

[thribs]

I wouldn’t worry. I don’t see this show lasting very long.

 

[Aragorn]

Doug Bradley (Hellraiser) has been cast as Joe Chill.

 

[JD]

So is anybody actually looking forward to this? I might check it out, but I wouldn't say I'm looking forward to it.

 

[Christopher]

So is anybody actually looking forward to this? I might check it out, but I wouldn't say I'm looking forward to it.

The trailers and descriptions don't interest me much, and I think we've had more than enough Batman-without-Batman shows already. But I'll give it a chance to win me over.

 

[DigificWriter]

I wanted to watch the show, but now that The CW has become a dumpster fire, my interest in it has waned.

 

[JoeZhang]

Most of the early reviews are brutal so.... my backlist of actual good TV is too long to add this to it.

 

[theenglish]

I can't believe this series is still going forward. If by some miracle, it gets a second season, or the first season ends without some cliffhanger--I might go back and watch, but until then, Superman and Lois is going to be the only show I'll be watching.

 

[Aragorn]

So is anybody actually looking forward to this? I might check it out, but I wouldn't say I'm looking forward to it.

I'm not going to watch. This looks and feels like a bottom-tier CW show, which is saying something. Plus with the network's new ownership, it's a dead show walking as it is.

 

[Aragorn]

IGN reviews the first six episodes. Says there are too many characters and most of them are generic and spouting generic dialog. The action sucks and there's not a lot of it. The actress playing Joker's daughter gives a good performance but the role is superfluous. Carrie Kelley seems like she's from a different show. Misha Collins as Harvey Dent is the best thing about the show.

 

[JD]

It's a shame Misha Collins got sucked into this, I haven't watched it yet, but from everything I've heard, he deserved a lot better after being so great on Supernatural.

 

[Aragorn]

A paycheck is a paycheck. It's not like Katee Sackhoff will be bringing up Another Life first when discussing her career.

 

[Greg Cox]

Watched the first ep. It wasn't bad.

And, yes, they hooked me with that final reveal.

 

[Christopher]

It was better than I expected. The dialogue was a bit purple at times, and I didn't care about the teenager/school stuff, but the characters are moderately interesting. I'd wondered why they created a new lead character to be Bruce's adopted son, but I guess it's because they needed one who wasn't a Robin, and who wasn't in on the secret.

The mix of characters is somewhat interesting. Duela is a particular highlight so far. I've only seen Harper and Cullen Row before in the animated Young Justice, but their backstory seems pretty consistent, although YJ didn't mention Cullen being trans.

The biggest credibility issue for me was that anyone would seriously consider the idea that three teenage petty crooks could've taken down the goldang Batman. I mean, even as Bruce, he would've taken them out in seconds. The fact that the cops were in on the conspiracy ameliorates that somewhat, but it's still weird that nobody brought up what a deeply implausible frame it was.

I could do without the Court of Owls angle. I'm so, so sick of stories about huge, ancient, all-powerful conspiracies.

EDIT: Also, why are Berlanti productions so obsessed with having Batman kill the Joker? It happened in the Arrowverse (twice, counting Kevin Conroy's dark alternate Batman), it happened in Titans, and it happened in this universe. At least in the other two continuities, Batman snapping and crossing that line marked the moment he gave up being Batman and left Gotham. But that's not the case here.

 

[The Realist]

I accidentally watched the encore presentation of this tonight (i.e., the TV was on and I didn't change the channel right away and then I kinda got into it). I'm not a Bat-guy, but I was pretty entertained. I've read enough Batman comics and know enough Bat lore to recognize some of the established characters, so my attention perked up at the names Carrie and Stephanie. And "From trig!" made me laugh.

Don't know if I'll keep watching, but it's easy enough to just keep sitting after S&L, so I may continue unless/until I get bored.

 

[Greg Cox]

I could do without the Court of Owls angle. I'm so, so sick of stories about huge, ancient, all-powerful conspiracies.

I admit I squeed over the Owls reveal. That I wrote an entire novel about them may have something to do with that. (I still have shelves of CoA comics and graphic novels piled up in my office.)

And to be fair, they're a relatively new addition to the Batman mythos, so they're arguably not as overexposed as other members of his rogues' gallery.

 

[Christopher]

And to be fair, they're a relatively new addition to the Batman mythos, so they're arguably not as overexposed as other members of his rogues' gallery.

Maybe, but vast, all-powerful conspiracies that control everything yet are somehow completely secret are one of the oldest, most overused tropes in fiction, and one of my least favorite. If a group has such complete control, why does it even need to be secret? If it pervades everything and can't be stopped, who the hell is it hiding from? Also, if practically everyone in authority is working for the conspiracy, how can it simultaneously be a deep dark secret that hardly anyone is aware of?

I mean, there certainly is credibility to the idea of a cabal of old, rich, powerful families conspiring to resist change and reform and undermine laws and institutions -- just look at the Koch brothers and the John Birch Society and all that. But having it be this deep mystery that almost nobody has even heard of is another matter. It would make more sense if it were something that had a public face that was known about, yet did things behind closed doors that remained unknown.

 

[BK613]

^^They have commemorative coins and watches and their own nursery rhyme. So they can't be that secret.