Review: Gotham Series Premiere

Last night, the FOX network began showing its quasi Batman origin series, Gotham.

I've been seeing the previews for this one for a while now, running on the same general theme of "see how Gotham and Batman's rogues gallery came to be.". Naturally, when you're dealing with a prequel story like this, it's hard to escape the big question that hangs overhead like a storm cloud. When you know what the end result will be, how do you find the drama on the path to get there? After all, unless there is a massive deviation from the accepted Batman story, Bruce Wayne will become the caped crusader, Oswald Cobblepot will become The Penguin and so on and so forth.

Ultimately, the answer to that question will always come down to the individual. For some, the predetermined nature of a work like this (real or imagined), will always invest the story with a certain amount of hollowness or inherent pointlessness; while, for others, seeing exactly how we got from point A to point B (complete with all the little plot diversions and cul-de-sacs) is just as enjoying as the stories that happen after the end result.

For myself, I lean more towards the later, so I was at the very least interested in seeing where FOX is going to take this story before it inevitably gets cancelled by the executive team that replaces the one that greenlit it.

Thusly, we enter in on this version of Gotham City with a young Selena Kyle (Camren Bicondova) engaging in some pick pocketing before almost being caught and forced to run. Escaping down a back alley, she finds herself watching one of the DCU's most iconic and timeline shaping moments. The murders of Thomas and Martha Wayne. The case is caught by Detective Harvey Bullock (Donal Logue) and relative newcomer to the force, Detective James Gordon (Ben McKenzie). From there the two get dragged into trying to uncover who was responsible for the Wayne's murder, and end up crossing paths with the crime figure Fish Mooney (Jada Pinkett Smith), an under boss in Carmine Falcone's (John Doman) crime syndicate.

Along the way we are also treated to a bevy of other future Gotham villains making their first appearances, including Oswald Cobblepot (Robin Lord Taylor) working as one of Mooney's henchmen; Edward Nygma (Cory Michael Smith) as one of the GCPD's forensic investigators; and a renamed Ivy Pepper (Clare Foley), as the young and obviously abused girl who will someday become one of the DCU's greatest eco-terrorists.

I'll be the first to say, that I didn't exactly have high hopes for this one before I decided to watch it. The idea reminded me of Smallville, which....I was never able to get into. I enjoy superheroes because of the fantastical, and Smallville's whole mantra of "no tights, no flights" in regards to Superman always kind of made me mentally check out. I've also been less than impressed with a lot of what DC has been doing as of late, especially on the comic book front (They know exactly what they did!).

But...it kind of works better with the Gotham setup. For, while there is still a fantastical element with what happens in that city (guy who carries around a ventriloquist dummy as a player in organized crime, nuff said), there is that more grounded aspect too. Mob bosses and drug smugglers and all of those things that would also work in a police procedural.

Which is really where this portrayal works, in my opinion. The actors sell their portrayals really well across the board, with special marks to Cory Michael Smith annoying his fellow officers with riddles, and Jada Pinkett Smith proving that she can swing from charming and flattering to violently angry at the drop of a hat. But all of that is hung on the bones of a solid police story with the question of "Who killed the Waynes?".

So, yeah, the first episode was really entertaining. I'm going to be interested in seeing where exactly this roller-coaster goes. Buy the ticket, ride the ride.