After a bidding war between networks, Fox has landed Gotham, an origin story about Batman‘s Commissioner Gordon. The drama is from the creator of The Mentalist, Bruno Heller, and has already been given a series commitment. Here’s a little background from Deadline:
For Gotham, Warner Bros TV is mining one of DC Comics‘ most popular character universes, Batman. It explores the origin stories of Commissioner James Gordon and the villains who made Gotham City famous. In Gotham, Gordon is still a detective with the Gotham City Police Department and has yet to meet Batman, who will not be part of the series. The Gordon character was introduced in 1939 in the very first Batman comic.
“You know that thing you like? Well, we made a thing that’s kind of like that thing, but we took out the most interesting part. Enjoy.”
Look, I get that by using words like “COMMISSIONER GORDON” and “I DON’T KNOW THE RIDDLER OR SOMEONE” you also get to use words like “BASED ON BATMAN” and “BATMANBATMANBATMAN,” and doing that second thing will guarantee a bunch of eyeballs pointed at the television, but isn’t making a Batman-less drama about Gotham City a little like making a show about the children’s basketball team from Air Bud before the dog showed up at practice? Doesn’t mean it won’t be good, but the degree of difficulty is definitely a little higher. That’s all I’m saying.
Aaaaaaaaaaanyway…
[crosses “Compare Batman to Air Bud” off to-do list, moves on to next item, “Compare other things to Air Bud“]
