Gotham: First Episode

Gotham seems a great idea poorly executed.

James Gordon, the television show’s protagonist, serves as a rookie police detective in the crime-ridden city of Gotham. He must, for his first, big case, arrest the mugger who murdered young Bruce Wayne’s parents.

Bruce, as any DC comic book fan knows, will eventually grow into the role of Batman.

Gordon lives an honest life. He optimistically struggles to better the world.

Gordon’s partner, Harvey, doesn’t share Gordon’s outlooks. Harvey’s cynical nature leads him to accept corruption and to play nicely with the local mob.

First, the good news.

The actors and actresses give great performances.

The writers allow the city itself to serve as Gordon’s unconquerable antagonist. Almost everyone in Gordon’s world runs dirty. His frustration feels genuine. His desire to protect his (very attractive) girlfriend speaks at the audience’s primal level.

I have, on the subject of Gordon’s girlfriend, a nagging concern that she’ll never fill a role greater than a damsel for Gordon to rescue. This concern arose not from anything I witnessed in the first episode of Gotham, but rather the past practices of comparable programs.

The directing proves decent, aside for a strange series of scenes where Gordon chases a bad guy through (what else?) the kitchen of a restaurant, where the camera suddenly hovers just in front of and beneath Gordon.

This sort of shot works beautifully and often. However, since the director, Danny Cannon, shot only this single sequence in the entire episode this way, it feels inappropriate, as if Cannon had shot a single scene in black-and-white for no apparent reason.

And “no apparent reason” brings us to the bad news.

I could, if I summarized the first episode of Gotham, end about twenty-percent of all characters’ actions with “for no apparent reason.”

Characters often do things that make no sense beyond rushing the story, reducing those characters, for the time being, into plot devices.

Sometimes, they do things that make no sense at all. One crime boss, Carmine Falcone, guns down subordinate criminals so as to prevent them from killing Gordon, even though Gordon’s death would’ve benefited Falcone.

Heck, Falcone could’ve just told the other criminals to release Gordon. Falcone clearly had the right to give them orders.

There’s even a scene where the Penguin cuts a fisherman’s throat to steal his sandwich (you heard me). It seemed an effort to end the first episode with a bloody bang, but managed only to make my head hurt.

Pacing proves Gotham’s biggest problem.

Gordon, by the first episode’s end, stands at war with his partner, his police department, and the mobsters who run the city. This sort of situation belongs at the climax of a story, not the end of the introduction.

I’m uncertain that the show can continue to mount additional tension from here (I’ll feel gratefully impressed if Cannon proves me wrong). Gotham can’t reduce its tension, and it can’t hover at the same level.

Ordinarily, I appreciate a fast-paced story. My own writing reflects this (don't you love how I make it about me?). However, I write short fiction and novels that are (quite deliberately) barely long enough to count as novels. I can get away with it.

Television producers who wish to milk as many episodes out of this series as possible can’t grease their tracks as slippery as I can.

A second issue springs from Gotham’s fast pacing.

The writers have, perhaps to better build the world of Batman’s childhood, included younger versions of the characters that would, one day, serve as Batman’s opponents (such as the aforementioned Penguin).

Gotham’s audience faces an unnecessary tide wave of these characters, all during the first episode. It’s overkill.

I felt as if the show spoke to me at a million miles a minute, terrified that I might grow bored and wander away from it.

“We have the Riddler and the Penguin and Catwoman and maybe the Joker. It’s all your favorite characters. Don’t go! Keep watching! Please!”

The second episode has yet to air, so who knows? Perhaps this series faces only a rocky start before it really takes flight.

Or, perhaps, it will grow worse, its creators certain that Batman fans will never abandon anything related to their beloved superhero, despite the material’s poor craftsmanship (a cancelled series called Birds of Prey would beg to differ on that point).

Or maybe--just maybe--this rushed setup will prove exactly what the series requires. Perhaps the writers know exactly what they’re doing, and everything that currently fails to compute will pay off by the first season’s conclusion.

Here’s to hoping.

(You can catch my short fiction for free at martinwolt.blogspot.com. You can also catch my novels on Kindle or any device with a Kindle app.)