Gotham: Rise of the Villains (Spoilers) (Page 1 of 2)

Yeah.  I think the show is basically supposed to be one big tease (as a prequel tends to be) and so it's hard not to look forward and think about how this show is supposed to be built. 

As it is, it's still a good show.  I agree with your comments - Barbara is much better as a villain than as a nagging fiance.  Jerome is fun but almost has to be Joker, right?  Might be too much for it to be a curve ball to pull that rug out.

Yeah I was relieved to see that, but the end montage sorta spoiled it for me.  I read in a review that said that, no matter what, the Joker ends up being a Jerome copycat more than an original character.  Or, in a way, a coincidence.  I've always sorta liked the "Killing Joke" version of Joker who is driven to madness by "one bad day."  Any version of Joker who's already crazy, or worse, inspired by someone else - is just sorta weak to me.

But they were true to their word, and I have to give that to them.

By the way, whatever happened to the Ivy character?  She was on all the promotional materials, played a big part in the pilot, randomly showed up again in season one, and she hasn't been seen/mentioned since.

Yeah it just sorta feels false that there was another Joker-like villain before the Joker, who feels genuinely unique.  I think it was pretty cool for Jerome to be on the show, and I thought the actor was *spectacular*.  But wouldn't Gordon (and to a lesser extent, Bruce) get Jerome flashbacks when the Joker shows up?  Like "wow, another Jerome!" instead of "holy crap, what is that?"

If I remember correctly, Jim's wife had a number of backstories in the comics, depending on who was writing it and what the era was. If that's true, I'm not sure that there would be a point in trying to stick to comic book canon. She and Jim did have a villain son, so this is probably a take on that.

I am curious to see how Jim comes to have a daughter named Barbara though.

I had to look up what even happened.

I am excited to see what they do with Mr. Freeze, though.

Yeah, they could fade it.  Definitely right about them having to go to some dark places by the nature of the show.  For Gordon, that may - may- be about as dark as he can get.

Okay so the show continues to just be completely impatient.  I like how Bruce is hitting the streets and learning about crime.  It's way too early for it, but if Bruce is going to be a major character on this show....fine.  But now Edward is basically already the Riddler.  Penguin is Penguin.  Mr. Freeze is Mr. Freeze.  And Batman is still.....what....10 years away?  Gotham is basically saying that Batman is going to start fighting villains that have already been active for 10 years?

The show is fun.  I get it.  But if they wanted to go this route (and there's no evidence to say this wasn't the plan from the beginning), it needed to be set when Bruce is 18. 

At this rate, Bruce showing up as Batman is going to barely going to be news.  "Hey look, another costumed crazy.  This one is good, huh?  Well, we'll see.  Gotham has been doing this a long time."

And I don't see how Gordon gets passed any of this murder stuff.  I assume Galavan will show up "alive" so there's no way he can be guilty of murder.  But...still....Gordon seems as guilty as any cop in Gotham.  Dirtier than Harvey, it seems.  I get that they want Gordon to be a conflicted character, but he's been a bit darker than I think most of us expected.

I continue to be impressed with Gotham. They do a great job of making this feel like the Gotham City that I grew up with. The city that will need Batman. And Bruce is developing nicely.

I've come to realize that they could easily cross over with The Flash, since Earth-2 is very similar to the world of Gotham.

I still get annoyed that Bruce is on the show.  I don't think Bruce should be doing any of this stuff now.  He should be off trying to live a normal life.  He needs to decide all this stuff later. 

At this rate, he'll have zero education and will be Batman by the time he's 16.

Yeah but where does the show take him after he's solved his parents' murder?  Does he just go back to school?  My problem is what's going to happen between what happens now and what happens when he actually starts being Batman.  Because, from my understanding, these years are supposed to be boring for Bruce.  He's supposed to hang out with rich kids and go to rich schools and realize how much he hates that stuff.  How little all that matters. 

Right now, I don't know how he ever gets back to a normal life.  He's basically already on the road to being Batman, but he's too young to do anything about it.  And he will be for years. So it's just kinda awkward to have him already abandoning school, already living among criminals, already being Young Batman.

Gotham is such a bizarre show.  I mean, they had a character die via point-blank rocket launcher in the last episode.  It's definitely found it's tone - which is a bizarre mix of realism and comic book feel.  And I do love the costuming and feel of the show, where you aren't really sure which era it takes place in.  Do they have cell phones.

I do have another complaint - just like with the future Joker getting his inspiration from "Jerome" - is it bizarre that Bruce is inspired by Theo Galavan / Azrael?  It just seems a bit cheap if these two iconic characters are basically copying someone they saw when they were children.

Yeah I know he's inspired by Zorro and Grey Ghost type stuff.  Even Clark was inspired by Warrior Angel in Smallville.

But my issue with both the Jerome and the Azrael stuff is that it wasn't so much "inspiration" as it was "mostly copying."  If Bruce had heard "Azrael was fast and sleek and used the shadows to his advantage" and had to use his imagination, I think that could've worked.  But to have Azrael basically be Batman fighting against those cops and for Bruce to actually see it, I feel like Bruce would be thinking "man, I'm just like Azrael" instead of being his own thing.  Cops that see Batman for the first time that also faced Azrael would think Batman was an Azrael copycat.  Just like Joker would basically be a Jerome copycat to anyone who saw his televised performance.

But those are just minor problems. With Flash and Arrow sorta lagging, Gotham might be the best comic TV show on right now.

So with Hugo Strange bringing the dead back as super villains, I watched the previews after this week's episode (a rarity for me) and I see that with two episodes left, they are bringing Fish Mooney (Jada Pinkett Smith) back to life. I wonder how that's gonna turn out.

I did like the cliffhanger that the episode ended on with Firefly and Serena.

So what are you feelings about the direction of the show? It seems to have lapsed into the realm of Sci Fi with the "monsters" that Hugo Strange is creating.
With the technology that he has  it is starting to look  like Joker will be the original character that we saw die off. I mean any thing is possible now.
Will Jim end up with Barbara or the ME who is carrying his child? Will she return?

I know they wanted the advertising hook of it being a prequel, but they should have really just done Gotham Central.  They're using Batman villains anyway, and Central was designed to not use Batman directly.

Penguin should be older. Riddler can be a decade older without issue. Mr. Freeze should probably be older too. Joker isn't around really, but Jerome wasn't much older than Bruce. A lot of the villains aren't really the comic book versions anyway (Firefly).

I think Batman is more of a hangup than he should be with the audience. This isn't the story we know, it is an alternate reality for those characters. For what it is, it is really good.

I agree, I wish Gotham would have just had other gangsters and villains on the show instead of actually introducing us to our favorites. But then it would not have been "Gotham".....

that being said, I thought the season was interesting as a whole but I did not know what the hell was going on in that finale.
Are we going to see Barbara and Jim finally end up as a loving couple?
What of the ME who is carrying his child?

I get that point of view, but I think we've seen it and explored it enough by this point. There isn't much left to ponder when it comes to the question of whether Batman is responsible for the craziness of Gotham. But there is something interesting about exploring the idea of the city itself being a living creature that drives people into darkness.

I just don't see why we always need to be bogged down by the way things "should" be done, based on how they've been done before. Comic books get to play with these ideas all the time, creating new twists on the reality within that world. Why shouldn't TV shows and movies do the same thing? I like watching the show and getting a hint of what's to come, just based on the name of a character. But at the same time, I like that I don't really know how this is going to play out. Bruce will become Batman, but when and how? Penguin and Riddler have a long road ahead of them... Both of them go through their wacky criminal careers and come out the other side (more or less) in the comics, while other Batman villains are still starting out.

I was shocked by what they did with Mr. Freeze and his wife, and the fact that it didn't line up with the comics did cross my mind. But that doesn't make it a bad thing.

In the comics (to the best of my knowledge), Jim Gordon and Leslie Thompkins never got involved or had a kid together.  That doesn't make the TV show wrong or bad. It's just one of man, many interpretations of the material. Saying that the writers got impatient implies that there is a more proper way to tell this story, and that it can't just be what it is. I disagree with that.

How many of the comic books shows really follow the comic book storylines?

If at the end of the day the story that's told on the show is bad, that will be a perfectly fine opinion to have. It's fine to discuss how things could have been handled differently. But I don't think we can ding a show for not being something that it's not trying to be. The show is about Gotham. It's not a Batman origin story.

This is why it's dangerous to have a writer's brain.

There are shows that have a plan, or an arc and they follow it to the letter (Babylon 5) then we have shows where the writers and the suits seem to make it up as they go (Lost) 
This new season of Gotham falls in the latter category...

I have no idea what the hell is going on or the reason for the madness. Has the show "jumped" ? or Come off the Rails?  They just forgot all about Fish Mooney and Hugo Strange. All the monsters, and contaminated blood...WTF?

As for Penguin, I have no problem with his sexual orientation but I just don't get why they went thru all that trouble to introduce E Nigna's new love interest then just kill her off so quickly. I would have wanted to see more of the two and their relationship. Like I said, making it up as they go along....

Erin Richards is too talented an actress to be given such little screen time
Jessica Lucas is just too hot to have her scenes cut drastically

I saw a little bit of Gotham during S1, fell behind, and kind of gave up.  Then I decided to binge and catch up awhile back.  I wound up really enjoying S1, and didn't really get put off by the haters who had bashed it at the time.  S2 was really good, I thought the characters and the actors were terrific.  So far S3 I've also enjoyed, particularly the growing team of Bruce and Selina.  Chiklis and Jada Pinkett have been great guests/recurring. 

Now I'm a bit biased, because I've met these actors a few times, and they were nothing but awesome in person.....Robin Lord Taylor alone keeps me watching.  The guys is both hilarious and nutso!  Corey Michael Smith is devious, one of the best Riddlers I've ever seen post-Gorshin, and Drew Powell and Sean Pertwee are great too.  Drew in particular was great, I met him at a con in NJ, and he didn't have a big line, so we traded Indy 500 memories (he's from there) for awhile.

Then there's the women!  Jessica Lucas and Erin Richards, wow, wow, wow, those two alone would make for a great series!  Erin is just plain terrific as the maniac Barbara Kean. 

Because they shoot in New York, I feel this show can incorporate so many of the local character and stage actors, many with a substantial resume, like Peter Scolari, Richard Kind, John Doman, David Zayas, BD Wong, and more.  Then to spring in with Paul Reubens and Melinda Clarke, also great.

I don't know where the show goes from here, in terms of its production future.  The ratings are not exactly great.  I hope it keeps going.

I have no idea wth is up with Gotham. I mean first we had to endure that nonsense with Hugo Strange and his monsters now dead being brought back to life; cutting off faces, gratuitous violence to the extreme... WHERE THE HELL ARE STRANGE AND FISH?  .I mean has the show finally jumped or flown off the rails?

They've been jumping around pretty badly, yes.  There doesn't seem to be a great arc to follow either, just characters being angry with each other.  Strange.  Jessica Lucas/Erin Richards continue to have my attention though!

Twenty years later, we're all still trying to figure out why FOX does the things they do. The world may never know.

Maybe the show is difficult to produce and they need a break to catch up? I don't know. But I still think the show is going strong. I love the characters and the world they've built for the series. Great cast too.

Well, it's something that goes across the board.  Brooklyn Nine-Nine aired their 10th episode December 13th, then aired a one-hour episode on January 1, and is now off until April.  Last Man on Earth's last episode aired December 11 and they're off until March.  It even happened to the Simpsons:

Ep 28x10 - 12/11/16
Ep 28x11 - 1/8/17
2 part Ep 28x12/28x13 - 1/15/17
Ep 28x14 - 2/12/17

I know most people have DVR settings for new episodes so it doesn't really matter, but it's basically impossible to know when FOX shows are airing new episodes.

This week's episode was pretty great. I love the twisted humor of this show. I still can't believe that they beat Jerome until his face fell off and plopped into a puddle. Hilarious.

That's the interesting thing - or at least the sign of the times.  The ratings, while dropped from last year, aren't really dropping with all the craziness.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_G … .9317.29_2

The premiere had 3.9 million viewers (the apex of the season).  Episode 7 had 3.16 million, and that's the low.  Outside of a couple outliers, most of the 14 episodes were between 3.4 million and 3.6 million viewers.  Even the DVR numbers are remarkably consistent.  This show has a pretty strong following, it seems.

CBS also has a stronger affiliate network.  Frankly they could air 30 minutes of Info on the toilet reading a comic book, and it would get better ratings than a Fox show winning Emmy's.  It's a flawed system.

I am done with Gotham. I am going to miss the bright spots: Erin Richards and Jessica Lucas but I just can't take it anymore. They lost me with the bringing back the dead and the cutting off of faces.
The violence is borderline OTT, plotlines just down right STUPID.
Gotham has become a lot of half assed writing, poor construction, inconsistencies and all around a ton of stupidity.