As soon as penguin surfaces, no that is not a pun, Jim is going to get Harvey's gun pressed up against the back of his head, and we are going to be witnesses to a very interesting conversation.
Gotham - Season 1
- Thread starter Agent Richard07
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Sure he doesn't want to kill Gordon, but he still has no problem ordering Gordon to execute someone else. Which doesn't seem a whole lot better in my book.
And sure he tells Gordon his girlfriend's life will be in danger if he doesn't cooperate... but if the cops and their families are really under that huge a threat all the time, you have to wonder why they even bother to stick around Gotham. Or why someone doesn't appeal to the FBI or Attorney General for help rooting out the corruption. Unless the Gotham PD is literally only made up of criminals, which seems unlikely.
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It's a comic book universe derived hybrid world. I'm sure corruption can be at high levels of the FBI in such a world.
As a Batman show, it misses the target.. though it does so deliberately. It's a prequel that doesn't even focus on it's target (Batman) but instead the host of characters. There's a lot of name dropping and ham-handed character development.
But.. almost counter-intuitively, as a police procedural, it works pretty well, mainly because police procedurals are often dull, pretentious, self-important but super-addicting as television.. and they are often disposable. We don't remember the specifics of a case from one week to the next. We have no reason to care. But having a police procedural set against the heightened backdrop of comic book reality with back-stories that play into a larger story that we have some familiarity with, it actually works much better than the standard procedural shows
But.. almost counter-intuitively, as a police procedural, it works pretty well, mainly because police procedurals are often dull, pretentious, self-important but super-addicting as television.. and they are often disposable. We don't remember the specifics of a case from one week to the next. We have no reason to care. But having a police procedural set against the heightened backdrop of comic book reality with back-stories that play into a larger story that we have some familiarity with, it actually works much better than the standard procedural shows
Well I suppose if they can come up with some good mysteries, it might be worthwhile. Right now though it seems like anything bad that happens can simply be attributed in one way or another to Falcone. Or some other mob boss in the city.
Which kinda removes a lot of the mystery I think.
But yeah, I know. It's only the first episode, and there's still room for it to develop and do a lot of different things. Hopefully.
Which kinda removes a lot of the mystery I think.
But yeah, I know. It's only the first episode, and there's still room for it to develop and do a lot of different things. Hopefully.
Not bad, I did like that Gotham City felt like something out of the comics even if that meant busting out heavy use of the sodium lights.
I'm not sure about the kids in this. Despite the show being about Gotham City I really have no interest in seeing Bruce Wayne again. I have no clue what they plan on doing with Ivy. Catgirl is the closest to being interesting so far.
The whole setup with Penguin and Fish (is there some connection with the names there?) and with the cops like Bullock and Montoya seems to be rich enough to mine for some stories. The old school organized crime about honor and debts and all that seems to have potential as well. Guess we'll see in a few weeks if they have something worth sustaining.
Yeah those really stuck out like a sore thumb.
So why isn't her name Pmaela Isley?
That'd be impossible in the real world!
I'm not sure about the kids in this. Despite the show being about Gotham City I really have no interest in seeing Bruce Wayne again. I have no clue what they plan on doing with Ivy. Catgirl is the closest to being interesting so far.
The whole setup with Penguin and Fish (is there some connection with the names there?) and with the cops like Bullock and Montoya seems to be rich enough to mine for some stories. The old school organized crime about honor and debts and all that seems to have potential as well. Guess we'll see in a few weeks if they have something worth sustaining.
Yeah those really stuck out like a sore thumb.
So why isn't her name Pmaela Isley?
That'd be impossible in the real world!
Because, as Bruno Heller said, the idea is that that name is LITERALLY an adopted name.
The city thinks that Ivy's father killed Thomas and Martha Wayne.
Her life from this point on is shit.
She will not come home from school without her face being stuffed in a toilet.
Actually, if that was already happening, that could explain her hair.
Problem is that Bruce knows that his choice to keep her father the villain is making her life shit, or at least an episode rises where he will become aware that, and he will feel compelled to save her...
Um?
Doesn't that position Ivy as a love interest?
(A love triangle with Selina.)
Unless she's too young, too young for for him to reciprocate, but almost anyone a 9 year old falls for is going to be older than 9, it's almost unavoidable, but the Peppers may be moved into the mansion?
The mother as a domestic?
Her life from this point on is shit.
She will not come home from school without her face being stuffed in a toilet.
Actually, if that was already happening, that could explain her hair.
Problem is that Bruce knows that his choice to keep her father the villain is making her life shit, or at least an episode rises where he will become aware that, and he will feel compelled to save her...
Um?
Doesn't that position Ivy as a love interest?
(A love triangle with Selina.)
Unless she's too young, too young for for him to reciprocate, but almost anyone a 9 year old falls for is going to be older than 9, it's almost unavoidable, but the Peppers may be moved into the mansion?
The mother as a domestic?
My biggest problem with Gotham is that villains seem way too far in their character evolutions for a prequel set ten or so years before Batman arrives. Selina Kyle is already a slick thief jumping off rooftops, the Penguin is already a murderous psychopath in deep with the mob...
I think it would have worked better if the Penguin started out as a disfigured kid that's just getting started out with Fish Mooney, working his way though the lower ranks and learning the ropes. The same with Selina. Sure, she can be a pickpocket, but not nearly at the skill-level she was shown in the teaser. I really don't know how they're going to sustain these characters' development for so long without Batman making an appearance when Bruce is like, 16/17...
I think it would have worked better if the Penguin started out as a disfigured kid that's just getting started out with Fish Mooney, working his way though the lower ranks and learning the ropes. The same with Selina. Sure, she can be a pickpocket, but not nearly at the skill-level she was shown in the teaser. I really don't know how they're going to sustain these characters' development for so long without Batman making an appearance when Bruce is like, 16/17...
Penguins eat fish.
She won't be around when Batman arrives on the scene. That's why we've never heard of her before.
He's already getting his start in the way that you suggested.
Hopefully the actor will age into someone we can believe as Batman. Eddie Furlong anyone?
Mister Fandango
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So do cats. I have a feeling it'll be more interesting than that.Penguins eat fish.
She won't be around when Batman arrives on the scene. That's why we've never heard of her before.
I liked it. I don't mind if the villains become more advanced than they did in the comics (and I suspect they will) because it works for this show; it wouldn't work if it was canon elsewhere, but that is not the case.
He was "Jake" in Touch, with Kiefer Sutherland. He was good in that, too, considering his character only spoke in voice-overs. Except once?
Ah, all those lovely curls shorn off.
Anyone notice the clockface motif in Jim and Barbara's apartment?
Barbara is not Batgirl.
(Yes, you know that, but some of these people are just here for the ponies.)
Jim's niece is Batgirl, who he adopts after his brother's death, who is also Barbara.
But the Clockface on their windows, whether it's exterior design or an actual working clock, is going to subconsciously influence young Barbara when she is creating the Oracle identity.
Barbara is not Batgirl.
(Yes, you know that, but some of these people are just here for the ponies.)
Jim's niece is Batgirl, who he adopts after his brother's death, who is also Barbara.
But the Clockface on their windows, whether it's exterior design or an actual working clock, is going to subconsciously influence young Barbara when she is creating the Oracle identity.
It's not that he has no problem with it -- it's that he's had to learn to accept that this is the way business is done in Gotham, because he knows that he himself will be killed, or see his family killed, if he doesn't go along with it. He's already been through the process that Gordon found himself put through, and he's learned to build up a protective shell in order to survive.
The thing is, this isn't a fantasy. There have been cities in real life where the police were just as deeply mired in corrupt systems, like Chicago in the days of Al Capone or New York City in the '70s. If the mob has control of the judges and the politicians, either by buying them or threatening them, there's not much that can be done to defy them. And the feds can only do so much to change things if nobody is willing to come forward and testify because they're afraid for the lives of their children.
Actually the target is supposed to be the people around Batman, following the precedent of Gotham Central and similar comics focusing on the GCPD. But I suppose they're under pressure to focus on the Batman-origin elements in the belief that that's what the public will be more interested in. So if anything, they're missing the target of being a solid GCPD show by trying too hard to be a proto-Batman show.
Ah, but Penguin is a murderous psychopathic lackey in the mob. His job was umbrella-carrier and foot-massager, the lowest of the low. Yet by the time Batman encounters him, he's a top-of-the-line gangster, a leading figure in the underworld. That doesn't happen overnight.
And lots of career thieves start out young. People who have good homes and educations are more likely to get legitimate jobs than to go into thievery at random. And I doubt most of us would prefer it if they used the original Catwoman backstory in which she became a thief only because she got amnesia and forgot her original life as a respectable shop owner.
Can we please move beyond the association of the Penguin with disfigurement? That is an element unique to Tim Burton's rather awful interpretation of the character in Batman Returns, and which Batman: The Animated Series was forced to adopt against its creators' preferences (note that they reverted the Penguin to a more classic design in The New Batman Adventures). In every other interpretation, the Penguin is simply a short, beak-nosed fellow -- weird-looking but not actually disfigured -- who likes to dress formally and fancies himself a member of high society.
How is this not exactly what we got? You don't get much lower than the guy whose job it is to rub the boss's feet. The symbolism couldn't have been more unsubtle there -- he's the lowest rung on the ladder, the one everyone else steps on.
I can totally believe that David Mazouz could grow up to be Batman. He has the intelligence and the intensity.
niece? in what continuity is Batgirl not Gordon's biological daughter?
In the comics continuity following Batman: Year One. This article explains:
I enjoyed it for the most part. It will be interesting to watch as the series hits it's stride.
Except Batman:TAS Bullock was honest and trustworthy, he was just a bit of a jerk. The comics may have given hmim a slightly darker backstory (although I don't recall him being that different), but in the cartoon Bullock was extremely loyal to Gordon and a good cop. He was nothing like the Gotham version at all. This wiki probably says it best
http://batman.wikia.com/wiki/Harvey_Bullock_(DC_Animated_Universe)
Actually I think I would have liked it a lot better if was just a straightforward GCPD show, following Gordon and Bullock as they deal with the regular criminals, murderers, and scum of Gotham. With central Batman villains like Penguin or Catwoman only introduced gradually, and much further down the line.
Putting those villains front and center at the start not only makes the show feel a lot more comic booky and over the top (at least they way they're written here), but it also draws too much attention away from Gordon and makes it more of an origin story about the villains. Which frankly... just doesn't interest me as much.
Because honestly, who really cares how Penguin or the Riddler rose through the ranks and became what they did? Is there anything really deep or profound we're really going to learn? As far as I'm concerned, the fun only comes when they're fully formed and facing off with Batman.
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