The origin story of one man, a city and several others that didn't need to be told.
Like so many pieces of Batman media before it, the story of “Gotham” is set into motion by the murder of the prestigious Wayne family. The shooting carried out by a masked man is witnessed firsthand by their son, Bruce, as well as a young mysterious streetwise girl wearing all black with the catlike agility that observes the incident from a distance.
As young Bruce Wayne melodramatically screams to the heavens as the girl looks on, wearing all black and a pair of goggles on her head suspiciously positioned over the hood of her jacket to look like a pair of ears, the title screen flashes to begin the story proper, after the commercial break. It is in these 9 opening minutes, that Gotham puts on display everything wrong with its execution of an admittedly wonderful concept.
The idea of following the degeneration of Gotham City into a criminal cesspool that requires Batman’s dramatic and extreme presence is a stupendous idea that shines through on multiple occasions within its pilot episode.
The juxtaposition of the rookie detective and future police commissioner James Gordon’s naïve yet desperately needed optimism with that of his veteran partner Harvey Bullock’s well-meaning nature but dangerously nihilistic outlook is a trope of fiction that is far from fresh. Yet, actors Ben McKenzie and Donal Logue manage to perform with such conviction as to convince the viewer that their setting is more alive than the production crew manages to sell, while still sharing a solid chemistry with each other.
Their adventure through the hardboiled streets of a cruel and dark city on the edge of self-destruction on behalf of its criminal element may not be composed of particularly compelling material but it is further bolstered by a terrific cast in other regards.
Jada Pinkett Smith’s presence is a very welcome one as the episode’s antagonist, Fish Mooney. Her performance carries a perfect balance of charisma and theatricality that several cast members try desperately to tread and serves as a solid anchor for the more overly dramatic elements of the show as well as playing well off of other members of the ensemble which, along with generally solid pacing, ultimately offers a glimpse at what the show could become if it achieves true greatness.
All of the potential brought forth by the cast’s performances make it all the more unfortunate that so many elements of “Gotham” feel far too hokey to ignore.
While the script doesn’t quite impress on its own, the concept nonetheless carries with it several great ideas that speak for themselves and will hopefully come to light in future episodes. For now however, we’re left with a ringer of noir clichés that barely fit the element that they’re even presented in.
Outside of individual scenes featuring low key character interactions, Gotham itself feels overproduced and lifeless. Most of what the audience sees of the city is limited to cluttered city streets, with very few open spaces and little variety outside of apartment complexes and back alleys with fire escapes. Perhaps this could have worked had though been put into creating atmosphere through audio but overly manipulative music plays in almost every scene of the episode whether it is warranted or not, including a distractingly poor usage of hard rock music that feels as out of place as the musical score does hollow.
Problematic areas of production in “Gotham” can mostly be attributed to the small budget of a network television program. Its embarrassing usage of the Batman mythos beyond the Gotham PD however is something that it has to own up to. A part of me has dreaded the debut of this series ever since its announcement primarily because as much as many people, myself included, would love to see a good origin story for a problematic Gotham before the arrival of its caped and cowl bearing savior, a story about a superhero setting that doesn’t actually feature a superhero is not exactly a story that is easy to sell to the mainstream.
“Gotham” seems to be very aware of the fact that their story may not be able to hold the attention of a typical network television viewing audience because the show revels in the usage of several icons of the Batman mythology that have nothing to do with anything happening on screen and in some instances outright stretch the bounds of plot contrivance to irritating capacities in an ill-conceived attempt at cleverness that not only fails to make the narrative more compelling but backfires by making the world seem pitifully smaller.
I probably wouldn’t even mind if these appearances had any sort of justification at all but at the end of the day, they’re pointless name dropping.
Edward Nigma works as a forensic scientist in the GCPD that speaks in riddles whose only purpose is to serve as a metatextual reminder of his status as a future criminal with a quirk. Selena Kyle is worked into the episode as a witness of the Wayne’s murder, who has no real dialogue, is never mentioned or interacted with and wears a blatant reference to her iconic costume that feels out of place with a world that is supposed to be set in some sort of identifiable reality. Poison Ivy is crowbarred in as the daughter of a police suspect. She has three lines adding up to less than 20 words total with a changed name from her comic book counterpart while standing next to a plant in the corner of a living room. What was the point behind any of this?
Regardless of whether or not they become more utilized in subsequent episodes, the fact of the matter remains that in their appearances here, they’re throw away and subsequent appearances will only serve to make setting feel smaller than it should be in order to be believed in as a living and evolving setting.
Additionally, the show can’t seem to decide on whether or not too embrace its noir nature or dabble into the territory of comic illustration. The aforementioned aesthetic elements of the show often give off the feeling of a non-comic book reader trying to replicate what they believe a comic book of the modern day is, with several shots existing solely for the sake of posing their subjects in front of the Gotham backdrop. Maybe this comic bookish approach wouldn’t have harmed the show had it come out 10 years ago but having read many of the more grounded crime based stories of the DC Universe of the last decade, even they do not feel as exaggerated as the sillier moments of this episode.
It saddens me that I have gotten virtually exactly what I expected the show to be and yet have still ended up disappointed. “Gotham” has the feel of “Smallville” written all over it; a show with an excellent premise and noble intentions that degenerates quickly after its inception with no intention of taking the high road, preferring to pander to an audience that knows less rather than bring them something new. Despite the mountains of problems with the show however, when it works, it works excellently.
The Pilot was ultimately better than I anticipated it too be and has warranted my curiosity to see if it can develop into the program that it has the potential to be or at the very least, something comparable.
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