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I agree with that.  I just think it's odd that I don't really feel like the show really treats Supergirl as the protagonist sometimes.  I just feel like the show feels like it wants to spend more time dealing with the other characters, and that sometimes Kara is just used as a mechanism to tell their kind of stories.  It's a little odd that Brainiac is in a relationship and Kara hasn't been one in three seasons?  I know "being in a relationship" doesn't automatically translate to "character growth" but it's funny that the show started with love interests in season one and two and then just stopped trying.  Maybe Mon-El is her soulmate or maybe they're going to try and make William a love interest?  I don't know.

I also find it weird that they decided to have Superman leave Earth, but they haven't really had Kara face that many Superman-related dangers.  Is Metropolis just fine by itself?  I know they've periodically showed Supergirl facing world-level threats (they had a worldwide montage either last season or this season) but they've been reluctant to have her fill Superman's shoes all that often.

This isn't related to the current DC universe, if one even still exists....

But I watched the teaser trailer for Superman Returns on repeat today.  One, I think that might be my favorite teaser trailer of all time.  It's so well done.  I don't like the movie very much.

Second, it's nuts to me that Brandon Routh, now cemented as a fixture in the Arrowverse, was the lead in a Superman franchise.  Not that he doesn't have the ability (I don't think he's the reason that movie doesn't work) but it's just crazy to think about.

That's kinda what I thought.  If the timeline is what it is, he's been Superman for a decade.  Maybe he's lost a step.

If we get a cute Clark and Lois scene.  Maybe a reference to Lex.  And the sky turns red, and they look up.  That's all I need.  If we get Tyler Hoechlin showing up (maybe with Routh) to talk about some sort of crisis, that's a bonus.

I would absolutely love it if Tom's Clark played an instrumental role.  If he got to be Thor in Infinity War, showing up and turning the tide.  But at the same time, this isn't his story.  This still needs to be about Barry and Oliver and Sara and Kara and Kate and the rest (primarily Barry and Oliver, I assume).  But legitimizing Smallville into the Arrowverse, in whatever form it takes, will be cool to me.

Oh, I forgot one of my other ideas.  I think it could've been cheesy so maybe I would've deleted it from an eventual final draft.  But I think it would've been interesting if Carl had reached out to other Terminators who were sent back and no longer had a purpose.  It might've been kinda fun to have a collection of terminators (not necessarily just ones played by Arnold) both working as spies and perhaps coming to help.

Maybe it wouldn't have worked because I think the finale worked fine the way it was.  But it might've been fun.

Has it?  I'm fairly certain it's still continuing.  I'm also not 100% sure about two things about the voiceover:

1. Kate is talking directly to Bruce.  Is this some sort of letter she's writing?  A set of recordings she's making?  Or are these just thoughts in her head?

2. I don't understand the timeline of this show.  Have we caught up to last year's Elseworlds spinoff, or is that still coming?  Will Crisis on Infinite Earths be a flash-forward in Batwoman's timeline?  Or will that never be addressed?  And as far as the voiceover goes, are these recordings/thoughts/letters to Bruce in real time, or is this some sort of "How I Met Your Mother" voiceover where she's actually talking to Bruce?  I don't know

I do like the show, though.  I think Alice is a fun villain, and it's pretty nice to have a season-long villain that I can feel can be truly redeemed.  My biggest fear of this show is still the shadow of Bruce Wayne and I guess the shadow of the whole concept of Batman.  This is a world where Batman existed, and most of his villains ended up in Arkham.  Last episode, they said there was a breakout at Arkham.  So we know that Batman's villains were in Arkham and now they're out.  Do they all just go underground because Batman is gone? 

If they're not going to ever get to do Batman, they should've had Batman die.  Him being "gone" is a cliffhanger like Quinn being merged.  There's no point in doing a plot point that you're literally never going to get to resolve.  And they're keeping things in Gotham - I'm continually wondering where Alfred is.  Where Gordon is.  Where Dick Grayson is.  Where Tim Drake is.  Where Jason Todd is.  It's distracting.  With Supergirl, they played with Clark Kent, but Supergirl was in a different city.  Keeping Kate in Gotham is working to the detriment of the show in my opinion.  Put her in Coast City or something, or she's never going to get out of Batman's shadow.

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I'm really really enjoying Arrow.  I think it's insane that the most grounded show is now about Oliver time traveling and world hopping on the behest of a cosmic being.  But the character stuff has been great.  I still don't love the whole flash-forward stuff (even though that's maybe over now that the kids are in the present?  I haven't seen the most recent episode), but it's a backdoor pilot so it's fine.  I don't mind the characters - I just wonder what the point is.

******

Flash is good.  I feel that Barry is both taking the Crisis too seriously and not seriously enough.  Yes, it's important to get his affairs in order, but I don't know if picking a new leader for Team Flash is the best use of his time.  Without the Flash, the team is going to be radically different.  No speedster changes a lot of things, even if they can just teleport the rest of the team anywhere they want.

This would actually be a great time to bring Wally back.  Or check on Jessie Quick.  Which brings me to another thing...I miss the casual connections these shows had.  Harry Wells is probably dead.  Jessie Quick is probably dead.  Earth 2 is destroyed.  And I don't think there's even been a mention.  Shouldn't this be something that the Council of Wells would be worrying about?  Or even just something Cisco could casually figure out (if that random scientist Black Siren found knew, Cisco should've).  Again, I haven't seen this week's so maybe that's why Breacher comes back, but Harry and Jessie were big characters.  And their deaths should at least get a casual mention on the Flash.

And while it's nice that Barry has accepted his fate....he's not going to do any investigation into the Crisis?  Just like "this is going to happen and I'm going to die."   Yeah, but Barry, maybe you still have to do something when you die?  Don't you feel like investigating what that might be?

I think Ramsey is a good villain.  I like that actor very much, and he should be in more genre stuff.

********

Supergirl is fine. I don't know if they know what they want to do with most of these characters, though.  Kara seemingly has no character arc, and she doesn't seem to learn anything or grow at all.  Is she attracted to Lena?  Is William supposed to be a romantic lead?  I honestly have no idea what her character really is.  I think the writers seem to have a lot more fun with J'onn and Nia and Brainy and Alex.  Kara's really just there to do the fight scenes and go back and forth to check on how the characters are doing.  Am I wrong here?

I think it would be interesting to take a page from Daniel Wilson's Robopocalypse series.  If you don't want to be spoiled for that, I'd stop reading here.

In the Robopocalypse books (which I *highly* recommend, despite the hokey title), "Skynet" takes over and attacks mankind.  But "Skynet" is actually doing it to prepare humanity for another, more evil, AI that is much, much worse.  It attacked humanity but in a way that would make humanity stronger and more capable of facing the bigger threat.  It would be interesting if Terminator tried to go in that direction (and there's some sense that maybe Genisys was thinking something like this) where it turns out that Skynet, in a way, sees itself as an ally of humanity.  That the death of Sarah (or John) Connor is worth the safety of mankind as a whole.

The problem with this is...what would that even look like.  It'd obviously be terminators fighting alongside humans....but against better terminators?  So Terminators 2-6.  So maybe not   Anyway, go read Robopocalypse

******

I think the series actually went the most logical way a while back - as a TV show.  I think once you've seen Terminators 1 and 2, anything else would be repetitive.  They tried different terminators, they tried different characters, they tried different timelines, and they tried going into the future.  The Sarah Connor Chronicles took a different approach and did something that movies just don't have time to do - establish character.  Who are these people.  What is a terminator that isn't programmed to kill, and how can it evolve?  And if Skynet sent back enough terminators, would some of them form a third faction that isn't loyal to Skynet or humans?

Yeah, I think this version of Malcolm is just a businessman.

So are we sure that the CW doesn't have more Batman rights than we thought?  Tommy Elliot (Hush) appeared on the show, and they name-dropped the Riddler.  They've also said that Kate was worried that some of Batman's old villains would show up if they thought Batman was back - that might not happen because of the Batwoman reveal, but between what we've seen and what was teased in Elseworlds, I'm interested to see if they'll actually use Batman villains in this show.

I'm also curious how the world of Batwoman works in the comics.  Does she fight Batman's rogues gallery as well as her own?  Does Batman fight her rogues gallery?  Because, like with all the Marvel heroes in New York, it's crazy to me to have separate worlds in the same city.  They'd be crossing each other all the time.

But has that been consistent?  Sure, there's a handful of Earth 2 stuff that's backwards (Laurel, Adrian Chase, Malcolm Merlyn sorta, etc), but Barry's Earth 2 double wasn't a bad guy.  And while it could've any Hal, Bruce, and Diana, Barry did have those names on his phone.  And they were presumably who we think they were.

So Batman is potentially an anti-hero or villain, but Barry has him on speed-dial?

(I get that it's a throwaway cowl and a many-years-ago easter egg, but still )

Oh and I really enjoyed the Arrow and Flash episodes this week....but they're both sorta doing the exact same thing.  I think we're all sorta expecting Oliver to die and we're all expecting Barry to live...so I'm not sure why we need two stories of people coming to the realization that they're going to die with their friends begging them to try and change the future.

I did think the Arrow episode was fun...although I don't really see any reason why they're continuing with the future stuff.  Backdoor pilot all you want...bring the future characters into the crossover...but I spent most of the episode wanting to get back to Earth 2.

Also....did Oliver kill Earth-2 Batman?  And where was Earth-2 Robert Queen?

Man, if that's true, it's *ballsy* to keep Bruce so front and center in all the plot points.  It's kinda like Season 5 of Sliders focusing so much on saving Quinn (at first) even though they were fairly certain at that point that Jerry wasn't coming back.

If rights weren't an issue, I'd absolutely expect Bruce to show up sometime in the season 1 finale.  Even if they use Bruce like they used Clark in Season 1 of Supergirl, they'd eventually have to have Bruce show up (like, eventually, Clark had to show up).

But we'll see.  It's going to feel pretty lame if Kate's still waiting for Batman to finally come back in Season 5.

I saw Joker.

I really don't know what to say about it.  It's a disturbing movie just because it's so dingy and dirty and gross, and the movie can manipulate you in certain ways so that you're expecting things to turn around for Arthur.  And I had to keep telling myself that this is a bad guy, and he's not getting a "happy ending" (although, for him, it's a happy ending).

It reminds me of BoJack Horseman.  That's a show that's so dark that it has to be a cartoon with anthropomorphic animals.  If it was about Will Arnett as a failed child actor, it'd be too depressing to watch. 

I feel like Joker only works because it's a comic book character.  If it was just about a downtrodden white man getting revenge on people, I think it'd be destroyed because it's absolutely the wrong movie for this time.  But since it's technically a comic book movie, it gets a pass.

Although it is barely a comic book movie.  Arthur shows almost none of the trademark characteristics of the Joker.  He's neither all that smart or all that cunning, and his success is more built on luck than anything else.  I think Arthur is someone that Batman would take out in a matter of seconds.  And the other comic book characters (Thomas Wayne, in particular) isn't a version of that character that I recognize - although he's designed to be built as a sort of villain.

At the end of the day, I think it's worth seeing, but I don't think it's a movie I really have any interest in revisiting.

Haha, what's the easiest way for me to purchase them?

I watched the premieres of Supergirl and Batwoman.  I'm confident that Informant would've continued to hate Supergirl, which continues to be the preachiest of the Arrowverse shows.  I thought the premiere was fine - I thought either show might reference Crisis in one way or another, but I guess Batwoman is technically a prequel?  I wonder how it will catch up to the present day.  I also wonder if the show will ever have Bruce show up.  Or whether or not there's a Dick Grayson or a Jason Todd or a Bat-Family of any kind.  Or Commissioner Gordon.  Or Alfred.

And Brandon Routh has been sharing pictures of his transformation back into Clark Kent.  Today, he posted a picture of him dressed up as Clark Kent in front of a sign that showed that Clark, in his universe, is Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Planet.

So, for Routh at least, his scenes as Superman won't be a cameo.  His was probably the least likely to be a cameo, but it's at least a positive sign that there might be more than just minor cameos for the other Supermen.

Yeah I'm still that way 99% of the time.  But if I'm having exactly no fun watching a show, I've found an ability to bail.

I've only quit a show once.  House of Cards.  I got tired of following a terrible human being with no redeemable characters.  Following a bad guy is fine.  I watched the Sopranos and Breaking Bad.  But both of those shows had good guys that you could follow.  Frank always beat the good guys, and more often than not, their lives were ruined or ended.  For season 2, they tried to trick me and have him fight someone worse, and it bothered me too much so I hit the ejection button.  There was no enjoyment in watching.

So I hate-watch a lot of shows.  But I never really hate-watched Preacher - I just was like "oh there's an episode of Preacher that recorded" and I'd watch it when it was time to watch it.  But usually I'd enjoy it and then I'd be like "I'd watch another one of those"

It's kinda like Legends of Tomorrow.  I think it's my least favorite of the Arrowverse shows, but I enjoy it every time I watch it.

I have the first TBP.  I've been meaning to read it for a long time.  I think I even started reading it.  Now's probably a good time to get back to it.

I agree to a point.  Obviously the MCU Spider-Man idolizes Iron Man and the Avengers, and to have him no longer be able to reference them at all would be damaging.

But consider this.  Let's say a deal didn't get done and Spider-Man is on his own.  Well, based on the end of Far From Home, that's exactly the position Spider-Man is in.  On his own.  If Mysterio's plan worked, Spider-Man would be a fugitive.  So maybe he calls someone (off-screen and without referencing their name) and finds out that no one is able to help him.  It's too hot.  So he's on his own.  Fury can't help (maybe say "The Director").  The Avengers can't help (maybe say "The Team").  So he's on his own.

I guess the hardest part would be whether or not they could reference the events of Far From Home and Mysterio himself.  If so, they'd be good. If not, it'd be way more complicated.

But either way, I'm glad it worked out.

Well this all goes back to my crazy rant where, in a "realistic" portrayal of Sliders (ha ha ha), no doubles would ever look alike.  It's absurd to me that it can be a version of Earth where there were vampires or the Americans lost the Revolutionary War or dinosaurs still existed and everyone in the history of both Quinn's parents' families met at the same time, had sex at the same time, and the same sperm fertilized the same egg in each of those realities.  The odds are that a lot of those relatives wouldn't have met (or existed) and if they did, they wouldn't have had sex, and if they did, the sex would've resulted in some other sperm and egg getting together and if there were doubles, they'd be fraternal.  And so the idea that the Jerry O'Connell Quinn sperm fertilized the Jerry O'Connell Quinn egg is preposterous at best

So my guess is that if you had 100 Supermans from 100 different realities, they'd all look different.

I've talked about rationalizing this in certain ways - maybe there are "neighborhoods" where the Sliders always existed in their current forms and that's where the Sliders tended to go.  Maybe the multiverse keeps things familiar for them.  Or maybe it's just fate at work - people are meant to be born and so no matter how different earths are, the same sperm always fertilizes the same egg.  I don't know - that's above my pay grade.

As for how Ray Palmer can look like Clark Kent and how Lois can look like Alura?  My guess is that there's a definite number of humanoid faces that can exist so if you have an infinite number of humanoid lifeforms, two are bound to look identical

Oh I agree.  I think there's no reason to get some of these people unless you're going to have fun with it, and I'd prefer to get an "update" on the Smallville universe instead of just a cameo.  Heck, I'd prefer to see Tom Welling's Superman fighting alongside Stephen Amell's Oliver, but I'm happy to get whatever they want to give us.

I'm just speculating because I imagine "non-speaking cameo" fits right into whatever it sounds like the CW offered Michael Rosenbaum.  But he could be wrong or the agent could've told him wrong or whatever.

Disney already does a Spider-Man cartoon (and has consistently done one, I believe).  Outside of What If?, which is animated for logistical reasons, I imagine...I don't know if there's a market for an in-canon Spider-Man MCU show, even if Tom Holland does it.

If I were Kevin Feige, I wouldn't go nuclear with Spider-Man.  I'd let them do their own thing, focus on the X-Men and the Fantastic Four as new playthings, and wait for Sony to implode again.

Yeah I'm not sure his motivations.  Whether he's doing it because the CW found enough money to make it work.  Or if he was worn down by Guggenheim and Stephen Amell and anyone else who kept bothering him about it.  Or if he knew that he'd never hear the end of it if he didn't.

I'm hoping he just realized that he'd make millions of people, like myself, happy by giving it one more go.  And if that was his reason, I'm willing to write around however he wants.  Because I'll appreciate it for the gift it is

I'm reminded of how I felt when it was confirmed that Michael Rosenbaum was coming back for the finale of Smallville.  It didn't matter that he refused to shave his head again.  It was just nice to have one more Clark/Lex scene.

Interesting.  I'm not the biggest fan of Abrams as a director, but I think he'd give fans what they're looking for.  I would probably rather bring Cavill back and do a Batman-less movie and make it a sequel and not a reboot.  Add in Shazam and maybe Green Lanterns.

But if they can recast Superman and Pattinson works, I'm sure Abrams can make a fun Justice League movie.

From the brief amount I read on the subject, it just sounds like they don't really have much for Ray to do.  So instead of writing him and Nora in circles, they're just going to give them a happy ending.  If he enjoyed the experience, I"m sure he'd come back, and I think they'd find a cool way to involve him in a finale or something.

It's remarkable that Legends is successful at all.  For a show with such a thin connection to the rest of the Arrowverse, a seemingly-limited premise, and a revolving door of a cast, it's a miracle that the show is as fun, as creative, and as engaging as it is.

It's also pretty incredible that the Crisis on Infinite Earths will end with an episode of Legends, after they were left out of the crossover entirely last year.

I feel like the solution to the Spider-Man issue is rather simple (but I usually do).  I'd give Disney the option to use Spidey for Avengers movies and Sony can make solo outings.  Sony can prove they can make good solo movies, and Marvel can use him for their big team-up movies.  I'd allow Sony to make references to the Avengers and the snap and his past adventures, but they could let Peter stand on his own and tell his own stories.  Sony would get 100% from these movies and then they'd get some percentage of the Avengers movies.  Even if they got something like the 5% that they gave Disney for Avengers movies, that'd still be a hundred million dollars potentially.

So it's a version of the deal they have for the Hulk if Universal wanted to make Hulk solo movies.

People are going to get their way, eventually.  I don't know if it'll necessarily mean buying all of Sony to get Spider-Man back, but I think Disney will eventually see the value of buying Spider-Man back, even if it means paying some ungodly amount of money for him.  Sony has to have a price, and Disney will eventually have the money.

Again, I think this ended up being something that sorta works out for all parties.  As TF said, Disney/Marvel can lose one character because they're picking up a handful of them.  Phase Four was announced without a Spider-Man movie, and that wasn't the top story.  So while people love this version of Spider-Man, I don't think the MCU will suffer for it.

Sony keeps one of their biggest characters, and they can try again to build up a Spider-Man cinematic universe starting with Venom.  Whether they keep Holland or recast is anyone's guess, but I'd have to think a Maximum Carnage movie will do fairly well for Sony.  And I don't know if their Morbius movie is on track or not, but they can now put Spider-Man in any of their spin-off movies.  They can do a Sinister Six movie again.

They'll have to lower their expectations because the MCU Spider-Man movies had other draws (like Iron Man) to make them successful, but I would still think a solo Tom Holland film, MCU or not, would make a lot of money.

And, again, I don't think it's a hamper to the narrative on either end.

I agree that he was brought in with a desire and a "need" to be in the Avengers, but I think the end result of his arc (ending with Far From Home) was to show that he'd grown passed that.  That he's become his own hero who can handle things on his own.  I think he was humbled a bit by the events of Infinity War and Endgame, especially to the point where he was physically overwhelmed by Thanos' army, even with the "instant kill" mode on.

Enough has changed that, by Far From Home, he doesn't even want to respond when Nick Fury wants him.  I don't think he's done being Spider-Man because he's still patrolling the neighborhood up until his trip to Europe, but he's not interested in fighting another Avengers-level threat.  His confidence is back up by the end of the movie, and I think he's grown beyond a need to be in the Avengers.  I kinda see him like any of the other main Avengers - ready to accept the call if they need him but happy to be his own hero in the mean time.

So on the Spider-Man side, I think the solution is easy.  Peter's never going to get another call from the Avengers, and he's never going to be in a position where he thinks he needs help (like with the rest of the MCU heroes on their solo adventures).  The biggest hole to fill in his life is the fact that he's good friends with Happy Hogan and funded almost entirely by Stark.  I think there's a couple ways to fix this without outright saying it - I think they could simply write into the narrative something like:

NED - What do you mean you can't afford your rent?  Aren't you best friends with a billionaire?
PETER - I can't call him for everything.  I just want to make it on my own.

It's also possible to just swap out the money that Peter gets from being friends with Tony to money he gets from being friends with Harry or Norman Osborn.  Maybe Norman fills the mentor role of Tony, and they could walk around it without saying it (which is easily enough to do - just hire the Netflix Marvel series.  They were experts in dancing around continuity).

On the MCU side, I think it's even easier.  No one was really "friends" with Peter except for Tony.  There's absolutely no reason for Dr. Strange to need Peter's help, and I don't even know if Dr. Strange would consider asking for it.  There's a huge age gap between Peter and the rest of the Avengers, and I don't think any of them would reach out to him for help.  I don't think anyone dislikes Peter and they're happy to fight alongside him, but he's a kid.  Tony had no problem including Peter, but even that had a limit for him.  The rest wouldn't consider putting Peter in extra harm.

If they really want to stick it to Sony, they could say something like:

WAR MACHINE - We need all hands on deck.
SAM/CAP - What about the kid?
WAR MACHINE - Let him be a kid.  We need the rest of the hands on deck, though.

Spider-Man allegedly out of the MCU.  Sony and Disney couldn't come to a deal.

First off, it's a bummer for the fans.  Tom Holland is great as Spider-Man, and I think his appearances have been amazing.  Two pretty great solo films and three other appearances.

Second, I understand that it's a business.  Sony wanted to keep the original deal (Disney gets 5%), and Disney wanted more.  Disney did all the work and wanted more of the profit.  Sony wanted to maintain the money role in their biggest property and didn't want to hand over about half their lunch money to the biggest kid on the block.  I understand.

Third, narratively, it's kinda in a clean place to make a break.  Far From Home essentially ends the Tony/Peter storyline that had been built since Peter first showed up in Civil War.  He's too young to be "friends" with any of the other Avengers, and without Tony, there's not as much of a reason for him to tag along.  The villain most connected to Stark is Mysterio and he's dead.  Even if he's not, his main problem is with Peter now, not Tony.  You could bring back Vulture without any connections to Stark or the Chitauri.

Of course, assuming Holland's contract isn't somehow connected to Marvel Studios (I don't think it is), it simply means that they'll move Holland over to the Venom universe.  They'll probably keep the "Peter is enemy #1" storyline from his movies and intersect him with the Carnage storyline from Venom.  They'll have a team-up movie and then do solo movies at Sony, I imagine.

It sucks, but I think it's probably the best for both studios.

I don't know what their plan is for Kingdom Come Superman, but if they had him be an older Superman, they could probably have him be an older Superman who's appropriately aged and "widened"

Maybe as he ages, his Kryptonian metabolism slows down.  Maybe Clark's more of a cerebral hero and less of a "fly/run off to save everyone" kind of person.  You could even have him gain weight as the result of some sort of mental manipulation.  They had a heavy Thor in "Endgame" and a fatter/clumsier older Spider-Man in "Into the Spiderverse"  Maybe they could find a way to make that work.

If I were writing it, I'd make it work for Welling like Welling made it work for Rosenbaum in the series finale.  If Tom doesn't want to work out or look 25, that's fine.  We'll write around it.  Even if that means making his role a cameo or filming him in darkness or whatever.  But if they're going to do Crisis on Infinite Earths, I think Welling needs to be involved.  And while it'd be great to have him involved as (insert character), I think he needs to be Clark Kent.

My memory of this is a struggle, but I don't remember a single scene set in Wayne Manor that isn't in that same room.  I think sometimes they'd film in the other direction so *everything* wouldn't be in front of the fireplace, but that might've been their best shot at that.  I also remember a Court of Owls boardroom (?) set and a Cobblepot mansion, and they might've just redressed the Wayne set.

I think the Ivy character is the most bizarre one of the series, and it had the oddest sense of course-correction when the rest of the show just went crazy in a more natural way.  I haven't read any behind the scenes things, but my guess is that someone on the show (or, more likely, someone at FOX) wanted a "sexy" character and that required Ivy to be aged up.  Maybe they didn't go far enough the first time and decided to course-correct?

The craziest thing is that I remember the pre-pilot advertising making a big deal about Ivy.  She's in the Pilot in a major capacity.  But for much of the first season, Ivy is nowhere to be seen.  Even when she's aged up, she's never a regular.  Even when they finally got a sexy, adult Ivy, they never really used her outside of an episode here or there.

Why they used the name Ivy?  My thought is that the plan was probably to do a slower burn with her character, and since they probably planned on multiple seasons before she actually turned into Poison Ivy, they wanted "non-comics" fans to know who she was going to become.  Everyone knows Bruce and Gordon.  Edward always told riddles at the beginning so it was obvious who he was.  Oswald is called Penguin from the beginning.  My guess is it was a shorthand since there wasn't much of a way to tell the audience who she'd be.

It was weird because she was the only one recast.  Every other character was played by the same actor.  The time-jump wasn't huge, and there's ways to make a 19-year-old actress look 24.  I thought the new actress was fine, but it was a bit silly to me to take away the role from Camren Bicondova.  Especially since she had gained quite the fanbase.

The way they used him was kinda bizarre too.  He's filmed mostly in shadow, and the only good look you get at him is sorta awkward CGI.  I thought there'd be more of him, but he's essentially used as a cameo. It was cool to see him in costume, but it's very Smallville in the way they finally use him.

I haven't considered it, really.  I thought Sean Pertwee was great as Alfred, and I think I'd watch a show where he was the lead.  Like with Krypton, I don't think watching a show about a superhero's father or grandfather to be all that interesting.  Building up to a few easter eggs doesn't really excite me.

If they did a Gotham spin-off with the Gotham actors (and bring back Camren Bicondova), I'd watch that for sure.

Probably.  I was thinking maybe I'd read Gotham comics, but I probably would've said the same thing about the Smallville season 11 comics and I didn't read those.  Are they available on TPB?

I don't think I remember a single mythology-legacy cameo.  I don't think they had a single "prominent" actor show up in any sort of cameo.  The show made its own legacy, which is something I respected about it.  It was balls-to-the-walls crazy most weeks, but it owned it.  I don't think it ever betrayed itself, even when it decided to fully embrace fully wacky concepts.  Despite struggling with ratings, it never went for stunt casting.  I respect that now that I think about it.

I talked about this a bit with Ivy.  I think they wanted someone to be a bit of a sexpot, and that's why they aged Ivy.  Both times they did it, they made little jokes about how Ivy was now older than Bruce and Selina.  Ivy relished going to nightclubs and being an adult, and she definitely starts to manipulate men with her sexuality almost immediately.

But I guess the "sexy" characters were also filled with Gordon's various love interests.  Barbara Keane and Dr. Lee Thompkins went through various "sexy" stages, and there were characters like Sofia Falcone that also filled that role. 

Catwoman had a thing with Bruce, and she'd occasionally hang out in Barbara's nightclub.  And as she got older, she'd wear sexier outfits and dresses to the various Gotham fancy parties.  But I feel like they generally let her be a kid and even an older teenager without exploiting her as a sex symbol of any kind.

I don't like that they kept teasing it.  If they were going to do it, they needed to do it.  They kept saying that he wasn't the Joker, but Jerome Valeska kept being more and more the Joker.  To be fair to them, it was his twin brother Jeremiah that ended up *actually* becoming the Joker.

I thought Cameron Monaghan was wonderful in the role, and I think he did the best he could.  I think my biggest issue was that I thought the Joker should've been off-limits.  I didn't want a teenage Joker fighting a teenage Batman.  I wanted Batman and Joker to rise from the insanity of Gotham...not be born at the same time as everything else.

There was actually a really great scene where Jerome Valeska died for the first time, and he'd done this big wild display on Gotham-wide television.  And when he died, they showed a variety of random Gothamites acting like Jerome.  And I think the idea was that Jerome had sewn a seed into the soul of Gotham that would eventually lead to the Joker.  That the Joker was out there somewhere and we'd never know where he was.  I thought that was a great idea, and it made the whole Jerome story (at that time) feel like a great idea.

But like Sylar before him, Jerome and then Jeremiah kept coming back.  They'd die and be resurrected.  Or die and it's a fake out.  I kinda got tired of that.

They embraced him in the finale, and I thought it was pretty good.

100%.  They did a bunch of Batman storylines  (the Court of Owls, No Man's Land, etc) and I think Bruce came in contact with just about every Batman villain that's ever been.  By season 3, it's essentially a Batman show without Batman.  By the end, it was a Batman show with Batman but he's just not in the suit.  By the finale, it was a Batman show with Batman in the suit but he's in the shadows.

I think the difference between Smallville and Gotham is that Gotham crammed Smallville's first 7 seasons into the first season and then played around with Smallville seasons 8-10 the rest of the series.  In other words, they realized they were a comic book show way earlier than Smallvilled did and fully embraced that for most of the run.

There were times when the show meandered, and I struggled at times with how fast or slow the show was moving.  But at the end of the day, Gotham was a lot of fun.  It was inconsistent, and I think I always wanted more from it than I was ever going to realistically get from a show with the budget it received....but I thought it was a fun little look into a world before Batman.

I very-much agree with this.  Essentially the *only* comic books I buy are TBPs.  There was a brief period about 5-10 years ago where I subscribed to Batman comics, but I didn't love it as much as I thought I would.

TBPs show a full story so I know I have (most) of the full story.  I can read it at my leisure and it's usually easier to put up on a bookshelf than a dozen floppy 20-page issues.