Gotham - Season 1
- Thread starter Agent Richard07
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Umm...Smallville, Arrow, Flash, Agents of SHIELD...
Is the audience really going to be Law & Order/Chicago PD folks who just want an added element to their favorite genre, or Batman fans who want a new angle on the series?
To be honest though....i think they ought to do what Arrow does -- introduce characters from other comic titles (or more known in association with others), and incorporate them in.... so some Central City mob boss or whatever (can't think of any "realisitic" villains from other titles), as a guest arc
Depending on ratings, they might be forced to bring in more comic-booky stuff by the end of the year/next year
Aaaah, well I am not going to convince you to be more open-minded about this but I will be back at the first suggestion of supers--and then we can debate if that was a tear on Scarface's cheek or just a drop of rain...
Being open-minded doesn't mean indiscriminately embracing every possibility as equally likely. An open mind is open to arguments against an idea as well as arguments in favor of it, and is able to weigh the different arguments critically rather than just blindly believing the first thought that pops into it.
I've already freely acknowledged that it is possible that the show could veer in a more fanciful direction, just as Arrow did. That show started out being as grounded and Nolanesque as it could be and is now fully embracing the fantasy elements of the DCU. But just because something is theoretically possible, that does not mean it's likely. There's a difference between something that can't be ruled out and something that a reasonable observer would expect. All I'm saying is that at this point, there is nothing we know about Gotham specifically that would suggest its creators have any interest in the fantasy elements of the DC Universe. Of course if that changes, then I will freely acknowledge the change, because then there will be evidence of that change, and I follow the evidence. I do not deny evidence when it exists, but neither do I recklessly speculate ahead of the evidence.
It makes no sense to assume one show will be just like other shows in its approach. Different adaptations are made by different creators with different target audiences, and they approach them in different ways. Compare The Dark Knight to the Green Lantern movie -- did they both approach the DC Universe in identical ways? What's relevant to this show is the evidence we have about this show.
Well, let's look at the numbers. The top-selling comic in August, Batman #34, shipped about 112,000 copies to stores, not all of which sold. Say there are about 100,000 people reading Batman comics. The number of people who watched the Gotham premiere was 8 million. Even if we assume that every reader of the comics watched the show, that means that 98.75 percent of the show's audience consisted of people who do not read the comics. In reality it's probably closer to 99 percent.
So yes, clearly the show is targeted more at the Law & Order audience than the comic-book audience. No television series or movie is ever made exclusively for the comic fanbase, because the comic fanbase is too tiny to be statistically significant. The comics are just source material for things aimed at a mainstream audience. Yes, these days there are enough fans of comic-based movies and cartoons that they've become a demographic the studios don't want to alienate, but they're still just one portion of the total target audience. The entire reason for adapting a concept to a new medium is to expose it to a different audience than it already had.
That's the whole reason we don't just get straight-up Superman and Batman series, but instead get cape-free shows named for the cities where the heroes live. The whole point is to rework the premises of the comics to be more accessible to the mainstream, to fit into standard and accepted drama categories. Clark Kent's childhood as a teen soap, Batman's backstory as a gritty police drama. The revisionist nature of these shows makes it self-evident that they aren't being aimed at the pre-existing fanbase.
I said Batman fans -- which, although it includes comic buyers, are also those who enjoy OTHER media, from the 60's TV show, to the 80's movies, to the recent animated shows. And even if they didn't follow those, there's all the Batman merchandise, and general feeling in the cultural consciousness. My 9 year old daughter loves Wonder Woman & has the costume, but has only seen a few episodes of the show. She hasn't followed the comics. And my 3 year old cant read, but she loves Supergirl (which isn't on the air anywhere in any visual form, is it?)
There's definitely many who love both Batman AND Law & Order , and thus interested in the show... but is it good enough on the Law & order side to not want the Batman side?
The Walking Dead isn't a zombie show -- it's about the living. But if the Zombies all disappeared (as our scientific nitpickers have argued -- most should be "dead" by now), would people still watch TWD?
The point is that those aren't mutually exclusive goals. You want to make a show work for multiple audiences, not just fixate on one putative audience and ignore everyone else. The goal for a show like this is to work on two distinct levels: To be a self-contained gritty crime drama for the mainstream audience while also having enough Batman continuity nods to satisfy the comic/movie audience. And it should be noted that the primary point of reference for Batman movie fans these days is the Nolan trilogy, which grounded Batman in a naturalistic world. So the main target audiences are the general cop-show audience and the Nolan-trilogy audience. The DC-universe audience is a factor, but not the exclusive target.
Anyway, if they'd wanted a Batman show, they would've made a Batman show. Instead they made a show where Jim Gordon is the star and Bruce Wayne is an underage supporting player, which tells me they don't want to do a superhero-fantasy show but instead want to focus on the more naturalistic side of the concept. A show focused on Jim Gordon and Harvey Bullock is going to be a show about fighting mobsters and psychopaths and corrupt officials. That's the kind of enemy they're equipped to handle. Sure, Gotham Central is about cops coping with a world of fantastic threats, but that's also a world where they have superheroes to cope with those threats and the cops are left with the peripheral issues. This is a show where the superhero doesn't exist yet. So threats that require superheroes won't exist yet either, since nobody could cope with them and everyone would die and the series would end. The threats will be on a level that the cop heroes will struggle with but will at least be able to survive.
And, by the time Gotham season three begins, the mainstream audience's primary point of reference for Batman will be the character teaming up with an alien from outer space, the king of Atlantis, an immortal amazon, and a cyborg.
Great post, except the milk. Lots of adult cats can digest lactose. Mine does just fine.
This is false logic, though. It assumes that the 100,000 who read the August 2014 Batman were the same readers who read it 10 years ago, or even 10 months ago. Collectively, if a different 100,000 read Batman every month for 15 years, you would have 18,000,000 readers. I think the actual number of readers is somewhere in between.
I would estimate that out of 8 million, about 25-30% were spouse/roomates of a primary viewer who was saying, "Hey! A series about Gotham!! Let's check it out!" Out of those 5,600,000 primary fans, I would guess most of them had read at least a dozen issues of Batman at some point in their lives.
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The moviegoing audience, yes, but that's not going to have a 100% overlap with the audience that watches TV crime procedurals. Like I keep saying, there is not just a single audience with a single set of tastes and interests. There are multiple distinct audiences that all have to be taken into account. A work in one medium adapted from a work in a different medium is, by definition, courting multiple distinct audiences.
Ideally, to succeed, the show needs to be able to work for audience members who don't even realize that it's connected to Batman -- just as there were a number of Smallville fans, at least in the early seasons, who had no idea it was based on Superman. Those people watched Smallville because they liked supernatural teen dramas, not because they liked Superman. And there are going to be people watching Gotham because they like gritty crime dramas and couldn't care less about what nicknames Selina Kyle and Edward Nygma will adopt a decade from now. The showrunners are guaranteed to be catering to that audience as well as the existing Batman audience, because getting new audiences interested in the property is the whole point of doing an adaptation in a new medium or format.
Someone 15 years from now when Gotham, presumably, is still on the air. - "You know, I've stuck with this show for a long time and have been following it closely and devotedly, but tonight's episode just took the cake and jumped it over shark. So they have Bruce Wayne, who we last saw as an older teenager leaving Gotham to take in the world, STILL upset about his parents who died 15 years ago, return to Gotham and now he wants to put on a ridiculous costume and start beating up criminals? And, man, Gordon has done a pretty crummy job of cleaning the city up since becoming commissioner. His forensics guy, the leader of that organized crime gang, and even that little red-haired girl from the first episode are all big-time villains now? This show is, SO over. And would Bruce ans Selina just stop teasing us and DO IT already?!"
A dozen Batman comics is a collection?
High-larious!
High-larious!
Ooh, the Dollmaker. That means we can compare which grounded, gritty version is better - the one on Fox or the one on CW. Actually, I guess we can't because we didn't get to see him, just have him mentioned. I didn't think that was a great episode of Arrow so this one wins. His two henchmen had a very creepy vibe to them.
Felt this ep was better than the pilot, more balanced and no odd Gordon cam to deal with. Dollmaker mention and what looked like a giant green Q on a building hinting at the Queens being around. Liked the Mayor character, dopey looking but rotten underneath. The kid playing Bruce is a pretty good actor as well.
1x02: "Selina Kyle"
• Things are shaping up. This one felt more like good drama with a slight comic book flavor and less like the half-baked police procedural that the pilot was.
• Nice setup with a power struggle between two powerful families. Bruce Wayne won't feel so extraneous now.
• Nice ensemble. Lots going on. Still feels a bit disjointed but given what they're doing with Bruce and the Waynes, I trust that everything else will come together well enough.
• Interesting revelation that Arkam has been closed for 15 years. They'll have to reopen soon enough.
• Looks like we'll be getting a comic book-style villain of the week. This one felt like what we saw on Lois & Clark and Batman: The Animated Series.
• Who were those two women in Selina's locket?
• The Penguin's mother reminded me of one of DeVito Penguin's followers from Batman Returns.
• Things are shaping up. This one felt more like good drama with a slight comic book flavor and less like the half-baked police procedural that the pilot was.
• Nice setup with a power struggle between two powerful families. Bruce Wayne won't feel so extraneous now.
• Nice ensemble. Lots going on. Still feels a bit disjointed but given what they're doing with Bruce and the Waynes, I trust that everything else will come together well enough.
• Interesting revelation that Arkam has been closed for 15 years. They'll have to reopen soon enough.
• Looks like we'll be getting a comic book-style villain of the week. This one felt like what we saw on Lois & Clark and Batman: The Animated Series.
• Who were those two women in Selina's locket?
• The Penguin's mother reminded me of one of DeVito Penguin's followers from Batman Returns.
I wonder if Arkham is *truly* closed or maybe they're "publicly" closed but still doing their terrible Arkham-y things underground.
Good episode, I agree it felt more grounded and put together than the pilot, not as heavily front-loaded with setting up the characters and story. Probably a more interesting look at how the mythos will be used, the Criminals-of-the-Week, the relationship between Bruce and Gordon and how Gordon/Bullock are going to interact with the city, other cops, MCU and the criminal elements in the city.
Talk between Falcone and Fish was really good, the actor doing Falcone is doing a great job.
We got to see more of Catwoman(girl)/Selina this week. A lot more of her, actually, and she got lines! The young actress did a great job with her scenes. I had to chuckle when she pulled the pedo-card with the other officer in order to talk to Gordon.
Bullock was great in this episode too, and The Penguin continues to really steal the show in his sociopathic/psychotic behavior. (Though he obviously needs to learn how to hide a body.)
I enjoyed it, felt much better than the pilot and shows more promise. Also a look at maybe how the show is going to balance the real-world police-procedural elements and the comic-book elements it has to deal with when it comes to this property.
Continue to love the look of Gotham which must be located in England considering it looks like it's always overcast outside with a light drizzle.
On the front of the time the show supposedly takes place in. The cell-phone Oswald uses to talk to his captive's guardian looked to be a slightly more modern hand-set phone instead of the dreaded flip-phone. CRT monitors on the desks in the police headquarters and a crappy old CRT TV with dials on it in the pharmaceutical warehouse. The cordless phone used by Barbara to call the paper looked like a more modern version, actually very similar to the one my parents have that they bought last year. The school buses were also clearly older models (but the SUV the Penguin gets is a later model.) Again, obviously, the series doesn't want to put itself into any one specific year but it's still interesting to get an "idea" of when it might take place. Which until we see a smart-phone, a flat-screen TV or monitor it'd put the series more in the earliest part of the 21st century rather than closer to present-day. Maybe 10 years in the past. Again, ignoring the "perpetual now" concept, which if that were strictly the case we'd see more flat-screen TVs/computers, iPads and smart phones.
I'm not yet liking the characterization of Alfred. He seems to harsh and quick-tempered rather than a more fatherly Alfred, but maybe his relationship with Bruce will temper over time. It's interesting to see Young Bruce's early bouts of philanthropy.
I think they may also be slightly over doing it on Selina's role as "Catwoman", I'll give you the more dramatic poses and such she does but she scratches a man's eyes out and actually insists people call her Cat?! I think that might be going a *touch* far.
I still haven't much gotten into Barbara's character and the look of her place just juxtaposes with the more urban-decay/working-class look of the rest of the series.
In all, enjoying it and it shows more promise than it did last week, a better look at how a "typical" episode may go.
Good episode, I agree it felt more grounded and put together than the pilot, not as heavily front-loaded with setting up the characters and story. Probably a more interesting look at how the mythos will be used, the Criminals-of-the-Week, the relationship between Bruce and Gordon and how Gordon/Bullock are going to interact with the city, other cops, MCU and the criminal elements in the city.
Talk between Falcone and Fish was really good, the actor doing Falcone is doing a great job.
We got to see more of Catwoman(girl)/Selina this week. A lot more of her, actually, and she got lines! The young actress did a great job with her scenes. I had to chuckle when she pulled the pedo-card with the other officer in order to talk to Gordon.
Bullock was great in this episode too, and The Penguin continues to really steal the show in his sociopathic/psychotic behavior. (Though he obviously needs to learn how to hide a body.
)I enjoyed it, felt much better than the pilot and shows more promise. Also a look at maybe how the show is going to balance the real-world police-procedural elements and the comic-book elements it has to deal with when it comes to this property.
Continue to love the look of Gotham which must be located in England considering it looks like it's always overcast outside with a light drizzle.
On the front of the time the show supposedly takes place in. The cell-phone Oswald uses to talk to his captive's guardian looked to be a slightly more modern hand-set phone instead of the dreaded flip-phone. CRT monitors on the desks in the police headquarters and a crappy old CRT TV with dials on it in the pharmaceutical warehouse. The cordless phone used by Barbara to call the paper looked like a more modern version, actually very similar to the one my parents have that they bought last year. The school buses were also clearly older models (but the SUV the Penguin gets is a later model.) Again, obviously, the series doesn't want to put itself into any one specific year but it's still interesting to get an "idea" of when it might take place. Which until we see a smart-phone, a flat-screen TV or monitor it'd put the series more in the earliest part of the 21st century rather than closer to present-day. Maybe 10 years in the past. Again, ignoring the "perpetual now" concept, which if that were strictly the case we'd see more flat-screen TVs/computers, iPads and smart phones.
I'm not yet liking the characterization of Alfred. He seems to harsh and quick-tempered rather than a more fatherly Alfred, but maybe his relationship with Bruce will temper over time. It's interesting to see Young Bruce's early bouts of philanthropy.
I think they may also be slightly over doing it on Selina's role as "Catwoman", I'll give you the more dramatic poses and such she does but she scratches a man's eyes out and actually insists people call her Cat?! I think that might be going a *touch* far.
I still haven't much gotten into Barbara's character and the look of her place just juxtaposes with the more urban-decay/working-class look of the rest of the series.
In all, enjoying it and it shows more promise than it did last week, a better look at how a "typical" episode may go.
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Still... Watching...
Victor Laszlo is from Casablanca, but Mr Pyg is also a Laszlo and...
In the comics, Jim Gordon has an affair with Sarah Essen, cuckolding Barbara and...
A crooked cop with ten years on Jim and his boss?
Still not impossible for them to hook up?
(Maybe she's internal affairs?)
Victor Laszlo is from Casablanca, but Mr Pyg is also a Laszlo and...
In the comics, Jim Gordon has an affair with Sarah Essen, cuckolding Barbara and...
A crooked cop with ten years on Jim and his boss?
Still not impossible for them to hook up?
(Maybe she's internal affairs?)
This week's episode was just good enough to make me want to tune in next week. Not a very high recommendation obviously, but still a win, I guess.
The only character I care about is Selina/Cat. I was utterly bored by the presence of the Riddler-to-be: that scene was so boring, so predictable.
The only character I care about is Selina/Cat. I was utterly bored by the presence of the Riddler-to-be: that scene was so boring, so predictable.
Yeah, they need to use him better if he's to be their forensics/evidence guy.
Which I really, really enjoy. We need to really do this to over-compensate for that bullshit version given to us by Burton.
It's 10 times better than the pilot.
Only thing I didn't like was the Bat showing weakness.
Unless the Adults were misunderstanding his actions?
Only thing I didn't like was the Bat showing weakness.
Unless the Adults were misunderstanding his actions?
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