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Basic
Frank was the worst part of this show.
Not worth watching, or your time. I would give it zero stars if I could.
Awkward for the sake of awkward is not funny. Continuously highlighting your disability so people will feel sorry for you and laugh isn't funny either.
Gotham (2014)
Gotham; who is this show meant for?
I started watching this pilot with extreme skepticism, expecting the worst, and I finished watching it without pure hatred spewing from every orifice. So, my opinion of Gotham wavers between shear boredom and hopeful optimism. This show is far from great, but its devotion to shoehorn in as many Batman characters makes you wonder what they have in store for these future Dark Knight foes.
The show starts by introducing us to an approximately 10-year-old Catwoman (Catgirl?) stealing milk for alley cats and witnessing the assassination of Bruce Wayne's parents. I have to admit it wasn't badly done for what it was and that's the problem. I really digged the directing, the actors, and the set designs, they set the tone well. But unfortunately it's so formula and clichéd, that it comes across dry, humorless, and boring.
I felt like I was watching a script written to please studio executives. It was formula in a lot of ways, but a well directed, styled formula that makes you wonder what it could be if they took off the proverbial gloves and gave us the gritty batman stories we want. So much potential, but still better in many ways from the 90210 jet-set teenaged, ridiculously good-looking, super-hero wannabes on The CW.
It's a bit unsettling having a middle-school aged Batman, Catwoman, and Poison Ivy set in an adult-toned world of CSI style investigations, interrogations, and murder. How are they planning on writing stories that will involve these children in Detective Gordon's investigations in a corrupt police force without making us suspend belief any more than we already have? Maybe they will all go to school together? Gotham Middle School: The Early Years?
So why involve school aged characters at all? Is it to bring in younger viewers? If so, do you want kids to watch the scum of Gotham City get tortured, signs of domestic abuse, murder, and the overall sense of despair? I doubt these scenes would even be interesting to a child if they could be patent enough to sit though the dull, drab plot. Most of the show is Detective Gordon running around town introducing us to a whole cast of villains that would be better served slowly, driveled out and introduced as the plot unraveled. Instead, because we saw so many characters so soon, it eliminates sense of mystery. Removing the need to think, to wonder, to invoke the imagination as to where the story might go. Subtlety is not this shows strong suite. The almost pathological need to force plot-driven dialog that blatantly shove characters with familiar names and similar characteristics down our throats becomes slightly insulting after a while. Every time they introduced a Batman villain they had to repeat the name or follow-up with a forced remark that reinforced that they were blatantly shoving a person of interest in our face. At times it seemed as if time slowed down during the introduction of each of these characters and I kept expecting them to break the fourth wall, stare into the camera and make sure that we were still paying attention to the boring script.
By introducing us to so many future members of Batman's rouges gallery within one single narrative, it leads us to believe that all of these future super villains operate within the same circle of people; making it seem very incestual. If all of these horrible people emerge from the same neighborhood and all of them play a part in each other's origins, then it robs them of their individual and unique backgrounds and motivations. Now it comes across that, in this Gotham City, superpowers don't seem to exist. No magic. Nothing that even hints to the existence of anything remotely fun and removes the possibilities of seeing any of the Justice League or any of Batman's famous super-powered friends. What you see it what you get. Now that may change in the future. They may pull an Arrow and introduce super-powers in the second season. But this show seems ridged, unimaginative, and boring. How I wish this was planned out by the likes of J. Michael Straczynski, Joss Whedon, or J.K. Rowling, then we would get the extremely well-planned, multi-year story arcs that we crave. Another missed opportunity to do the Batman story justice.
Overall, I would give the pilot a "C." Meaning I don't hate it and I will give it a few more episodes to see how they start to flesh out the stories. I wouldn't recommend this to any friends that expect a Batman show. Instead this should only be watched by people that endured the show Smallville and don't mind sitting on a pair of blue balls for seasons at a time until you get the smallest dose of fan service spoon-fed into your brain.
It's not a terrible show but it's so far removed from what a real Batman TV show should be, that I find myself wondering why I make excuses for shows that fail to deliver. It pretty much comes down to how much horse poop you're willing to stick your hands in and feel around until you get some Batman gems that will tide you over until we see Ben Affleck don the cape on the big screen in 2016.
Me, I want to like Affleck as Bruce Wayne/Batman. I feel that he's matured since Daredevil and has the potential to put out a decent superhero film.
Of course, he was da bomb in Phantoms yo! : )