“I love this city… and I see it going to hell.”
I don't get it.
It feels like they really want to make a Batman show, but they can't make a Batman show because the feature film division has dibs. So here we are with another prequel that I can't imagine is going to tell us anything we actually need to know about these characters except that… sigh… they are all connected.
I wasn't actively rolling my eyes until they got to the big finish and started showing Catwoman, The Riddler, Batman, Poison Ivy, and Penguin, and at that point, I just found it irritating. When I was hanging out with a number of genre-loving friends lately, they were talking about how it feels like the geeks have won pop culture and right now we're all taking our victory lap. Looking at “Gotham” or “The Amazing Spider-Man 2,” I'm not sure I feel like a winner. I feel like an aggressively targeted demographic, certainly, but I don't want two hour movies that are simply there to sell me more two hour trailers a few years from now, and I don't want a prequel to every single story I like.
Here's the trailer. Judge for yourself.
I already see people on Twitter saying they can't wait to watch this, and I feel the exact opposite. I feel like I could go the rest of my life and never tune into this and never miss a thing. What really bugs me, more than anything else, is that they had a chance to make this show over a decade ago. “Bruce Wayne” was the idea before “Smallville” happened, and they had a rock solid pilot script. And if they had made “Bruce Wayne,” we wouldn't have a show where they're going to have to tap dance around ever showing these characters actually get to the destination that we already know is in store for them.
Just typing that makes me hate this show. I repeat. I don't get it.
If you do, “Gotham” makes its premiere on Fox this fall.