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Gotham - Season 1
- Thread starter Agent Richard07
- Start date
Best EP of the season. Loved Alfred & Bullock.
Ok.. a lot of people liked "Penguin's umbrella" probably because a lot happened in it, a lot of payoff of previous episodes building up to it (A'la DS9's "Changing Face of Evil," and how that was a sort of payoff from the previous few episodes) but I found it a little forced, a little too much, too fast, too bleh.
However, "Lovecraft" was fantastic. That's how you make a payoff episode. Everything flowed. I haven't been so gripped by a television episode in a long time.
Adding:
What I love about this show is how the comic book sensibility can mix with the more gritty aspects. They also make it easier for me to give a pass on things that wouldn't really happen in really. Security guards are a private institution,. so there's no way a mayor would have the authority to get Gordon transferred to that task, but that hardly mattered because everything about this.. (and the entire episode) ... was awesome. If the episode had been bad, and if this moment was done badly, I wouldn't have been willing to give things a pass. So whether something work becuase it's more "comic book-y" or whether it works because it's edgy and gritty is really up to the story-telling as a whole.
However, "Lovecraft" was fantastic. That's how you make a payoff episode. Everything flowed. I haven't been so gripped by a television episode in a long time.
Adding:
What I love about this show is how the comic book sensibility can mix with the more gritty aspects. They also make it easier for me to give a pass on things that wouldn't really happen in really. Security guards are a private institution,. so there's no way a mayor would have the authority to get Gordon transferred to that task, but that hardly mattered because everything about this.. (and the entire episode) ... was awesome. If the episode had been bad, and if this moment was done badly, I wouldn't have been willing to give things a pass. So whether something work becuase it's more "comic book-y" or whether it works because it's edgy and gritty is really up to the story-telling as a whole.
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I think it's less security guard and more prison guard, since Arkham is housing the criminally insane who were previously in a prison/jail.
Since Gotham's mayor ordered the transfers to Arkham, the jail, and by extension Arkham, must fall under municipal jurisdiction, and they are using current and/or former police officers as staff.
I've heard of active police officers being assigned to security details for one thing or another, e.g. to guard politicians or VIPs. So I don't think Jim's literally been fired and made into a security guard -- rather, he's been reassigned to the GCPD's security detail overseeing Arkham.
That's how I understood it as well.
I think Gotham is the best new show of the year. We are riveted to it every week.
Alfred...the scene where he walks in to the food fight between Bruce and Selina, then backs away slowly. Perfect! And then this week we get Ass-Kicker Alfred, followed by a hug.
Brilliant! Can't wait until the second half.
^I think Gotham started out poorly, but it's found its voice in the past few weeks.
Add me to the list of folks who loved this episode. I feel like this show has really found its tone. I felt some parts of the earlier episodes were a bit too goofy, killing folks with balloons, and the oddly cheerful child kidnaper are examples; now I can't wait to see whats next.
Penguin is wonderful in all his scenes, and I've grown fond of Fish's portrayal. This weeks Alfred was a treat to see, I do hope he doesn't become a regular action hero on the show but I expect his action moments will only relate to protecting Bruce.
I did find Ivy lacking in menace, though I think the added story of her mom killing herself and her dialogue did line up with the idea that she's developing mental issues from the trauma she has faced, I just didn't feel like the actress came across as scary. I found Selina's comments about how she was afraid of Ivy a bit odd, it really felt like they were telling us Ivy is scary , not showing us. I think Bruce's response to Ivy was supposed to seem naive but it came across as a natural reaction to the Ivy we just met.
lastly, I really like Bollock, he has shown some reasonable growth as a character already this season, I look forward to seeing him progress. I think he is a case of the writers and actor really understanding the character.
Can't wait for the return
Kytee
Penguin is wonderful in all his scenes, and I've grown fond of Fish's portrayal. This weeks Alfred was a treat to see, I do hope he doesn't become a regular action hero on the show but I expect his action moments will only relate to protecting Bruce.
I did find Ivy lacking in menace, though I think the added story of her mom killing herself and her dialogue did line up with the idea that she's developing mental issues from the trauma she has faced, I just didn't feel like the actress came across as scary. I found Selina's comments about how she was afraid of Ivy a bit odd, it really felt like they were telling us Ivy is scary , not showing us. I think Bruce's response to Ivy was supposed to seem naive but it came across as a natural reaction to the Ivy we just met.
lastly, I really like Bollock, he has shown some reasonable growth as a character already this season, I look forward to seeing him progress. I think he is a case of the writers and actor really understanding the character.
Can't wait for the return
Kytee
I agree the show found its voice, but I think that the earlier episodes would now come across better, both because we are more used to the quirky setting and OTT performances, and we would spot the clues to the payoff events. Looking at the early portrayals of Bullock and Alfred, I would see them as characters that going grow and open up episode by episode.
Yep. Another analogy would be places where the local police are assigned to courthouse or municipal building security.
This was a great episode. I loved the kick-ass Alfred, and the stuff with him and Bullock was fun. I really liked the stuff with Selina and Bruce, that has turned into a fun relationship the last couple episodes. I doubt this is the last we'll see of them together.
We also got some interesting stuff with Fish and Falcone. I'm very curious to see where that storyline is going.
We also got some interesting stuff with Fish and Falcone. I'm very curious to see where that storyline is going.
Ami remember correctly that you didn't like Gotham for a while because it seemed like it couldn't make up its mind what is was?
Not asking as a criticism, but what's changed for you?
(Like for me, the Flash Gordon TV series. 1st few were cheap, too earth bound and silly stuff like Hawkmen being guys in capes who squawked. 2nd half had real Mongo stuff like Friggia, and Tarek seemed like a modern take on Prince Barin. A huge difference in style & feel)
Flash Gordon was a long time ago.
It's weird seeing Flash be such a racist jerk on The Knick.
(The character the actor is playing, not the actor.)
It's weird seeing Flash be such a racist jerk on The Knick.
(The character the actor is playing, not the actor.)
Mainly the writing is finally competent. It was really hamfisted in the early weeks, but since Ben Edlund's hand has begun to be felt, the scripting and dialogue have gotten a lot better. In the early weeks we had painfully stilted and self-evident dialogue, like revealing the corruption of the city by having a character literally say "I can't believe how much corruption there is in this city." Now we have nuance and cleverness like Falcone shooting a guy dead and saying "Let me give you some context." I like good writing, and that is not something the show had until recent weeks.
Also the characters are better-written, less one-note. Alfred in the first two episodes seemed like a horribly unsympathetic, borderline-abusive guardian for Bruce. Now he's a more nuanced, fleshed-out character. Bullock was originally a one-note corrupt and abusive cop, but ever since "Spirit of the Goat" he's acquired another side that makes him a dimensional character. And so on.
And they seem to have found a comfortable middle ground in tone. It no longer feels like it's swerving back and forth between Nolanesque grit and RoboCop: The Series-style campy villainy. There's a larger-than-life quality to it still, but it's more measured, better balanced with the dark'n'gritty, more of a happy medium like the comics themselves.
I agree entirely (as I said on my blog). The first half-dozen episodes were a mess, but after that it found its voice, shifted emphasis increasingly toward Mongo, and just got stronger and stronger. The first Hawkmen episode was horrible, probably the one that drove off most of the remaining viewers, but that's a shame, because it was immediately after that low point that it started to become a good show. Basically, if you can get through the first disc on the DVD set, it's smooth sailing from there.
(And I think Terek actually was a replacement for Barin; when they couldn't get Steve Bacic back to finish out the season, they rewrote the final arc to put Terek in the role that had been meant for Barin. Which turned out to add some very interesting new angles to the storyline.)
I found Ivy sufficiently creepy for her part. She doesn't have to be totally crazy at this point. She started out sane before the traumas in her life. She needs to spiral out of control. It's a growing process.
Was this intentional on the part of the writers though? I keep thinking about my wife. She watches Gotham with me. She's never been a science fiction fan and hadn't had much of any exposure to the genre until we met. She doesn't know much of anything about Batman. Perhaps the writers intentionally used broad strokes and obvious dialog in order to quickly educate new viewers like my wife. We have to remember that most of us here grew up with Batman. We'd seen several incarnations of the comic and movies. We aren't new viewers.
It must be hard to balance explaining things for new viewers and not insulting your core audience. Sports broadcasting does the same thing. Sometimes sports analysts and feature pieces talk down to the core fan because they are thinking about the first-time viewer.
Was this intentional on the part of the writers though? I keep thinking about my wife. She watches Gotham with me. She's never been a science fiction fan and hadn't had much of any exposure to the genre until we met. She doesn't know much of anything about Batman. Perhaps the writers intentionally used broad strokes and obvious dialog in order to quickly educate new viewers like my wife. We have to remember that most of us here grew up with Batman. We'd seen several incarnations of the comic and movies. We aren't new viewers.
It must be hard to balance explaining things for new viewers and not insulting your core audience. Sports broadcasting does the same thing. Sometimes sports analysts and feature pieces talk down to the core fan because they are thinking about the first-time viewer.
That's not the problem for me. The problem isn't that she's still fairly normal; the problem is that the actress isn't very good. As scripted, she was creepy and erratic, but the actress was just reciting the lines in a bland monotone, occasionally making a half-hearted attempt at a nervous tic. I could see what the performance was intended to convey, but she was just too weak an actress to convey it. Some teenage actors are good, others not so good. The show lucked out with the gifted David Mazouz, and Camren Bicondova's been doing fairly well. But Clare Foley just isn't on their level.
My response is very similar. There's a difference between well-written broadness and simple lack of skill. From my perspective as a writer, the craftsmanship of the early scripts was on a much lower level than that of the more recent scripts. They weren't the work of a skilled writer who was deliberately making it entry-level; they were the work of a hack who didn't know how to wield the English language as anything but a blunt instrument.
I figure this is probably because Ben Edlund joined the writing staff a month or two into production. So he wouldn't have had an impact on the scripts for the pilot or the next couple of episodes beyond that. Edlund has proven himself a very skilled writer, and I don't think it's a coincidence that the quality of the writing measurably improved around the time that he would've begun contributing to the writing process.
I thought she was just fine, her tick got worse as she talked about her parents. The tick alone reminded me of Dreyfus' tick in The Pink Panther movies. Like Bruce though she's not over the deaths of her parents, she just shows her insanity is a different way than Bruce does.
I agree with Christopher. This "Ivy" is kind of a dud. I think they should just leave her out until everyone forgets about her and then bring in Pam sometime down the road.
Dr. Funkenstein
Lieutenant Commander
I much prefer the sexy, seductive, and cunning take on Poison Ivy. And while she's just a little girl at the moment, a twitchy little psychopath doesn't really stand much of a chance of growing up to be a sexy, seductive, and cunning villain.
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