Gotham started tonight!!!

[supes]

I hope everyone remembered to set their dvr's Gotham started tonight!!! Unfortunatly I can't watch it until tomorrow. But can't wait I think it is going to be a great ride!

[Bizarro Amy]

I just watched it. I liked some parts, hated others. There's already some aspects that bug the heck out of me. But I'll wait until others chime in that they've seen it.

[Earth 2 Chris]

It was okay. Not a super strong start, but decent. Everything is over-connected, but that was obvious from all the promo pieces. I'll watch it for a while and see how it goes.

Chris

[madmarva]

Overall, I liked it. Not perfect, by any means. It was a little choppy, but for a show that probably introduced 20 characters it was enjoyable. It looked great, really capturing the New York as displayed on the big screen in the 70s.
The Barbara-Montoya plot line is interesting. Different take on Alfred. The young Cat Woman stuff was really well done and the recreation of the Wayne murders was pretty good, too. Me, I always imagined Bruce crying, but holding the despair and anger in rather than doing a Chris Reeve Superman yell, but it was a valid choice.

It's going to be interesting how the show develops and a lot of Batman's villains are going to be old men by the time he grows into the cape and cowl, but I like the idea that they are being used in the show. It just depends on what is done with their stories.

So far, I like what's being done with the Penguin and he's given a good reason for his name.

To me Bullock should be a little more crusty, but it guess he was crusty enough for a Hollywood product.

[Dark Shadow]

Aside from the Arrow TV series, I haven't favored a DC TV/Film production since The Dark Knight. I really liked this episode and the tone it set. I find most of the characters interesting, but most especially Oswald, Bruce & James. I enjoyed this single episode far more than I did the entire 1st season of SHIELD.

I predict this show will have a broad appeal, although I see it quickly alienating some hardcore DC fans...especially those who would prefer something they can share with their young ones. Definitely not family entertainment.

Looking forward to next week's installment.

[Earth 2 Chris]

Some further thoughts (SPOILERS)

I thought the cast was pretty strong. I liked Gordon. The kid playing Bruce was good. He looked more like a young Bale than the kid in Begins. I thought the Wayne murder was very flat. The show had some over-blown, stylized moments, but played the most pivotal scene in the series rather dull. It wasn't intentionally subtle like Begins, but just seemed kind of by-the-numbers.

Louge as Bullock was pretty good. I'm not a huge fan of the actor, but he fits the role. He was a little hammy here and there, but very watchable.

I thought the whole Barbara/Montoya thing seemed a bit forced. I'm not a fan of taking established characters and changing their orientation for shock value. Heck, I wasn't much for it when Rucka did it with Montoya years ago. It seemed like they are hedging their bets a bit about this storyline. It may become what we all think it is, or they may back off of it if the reception isn't what they want.

Watching it, I couldn't help but think about the Alan Brennert situation with this show. He gave Jim Gordon's mostly unseen wife the maiden name "Barbara Kean" in "To Kill a Legend" in Detective #500. Frank Miller and others ran with the Barbara, and the Kean is used here. He contacted DC for compensation papers for him and Dick Giordano's estate, and DC gave him some run around about derivative characters, and said no dice. Clearly, the age of character participation at DC is nearing it's end.

Oswald slashing the guy's throat and eating his sandwich while the music blared was almost laughable; "I'VE STOLEN YOUR SANDWICH, BWAHAHAHAHA!!!" I'm not really sure what they were trying to establish there. Maybe that this Penguin is a bad-arse?

You can't help but compare this to Smallville, especially since this is the show Smallville was originally intended to be, more or less. Smallville started with a much stronger pilot, although the first season was weak, overall. Hopefully this one will do the opposite.

I do think overall they tried to shoehorn too many established bat-characters into the pilot. I will say they actually used them well, and gave each of them some opportunity to shine, which was impressive. But I just think they may be front-loading things a bit too much. Smallville didn't give Toyman, Brainiac, Terra-Man, the Puzzler and Bizarro spots in the opening episode.

Cindy pointed out that "the comedian" was Twist from the kids music show, "The Fresh Beat Band". So he's a potential Joker. Apparently, the show is going to drop different actors as potential Joker candidates throughout the series.

I'm interested in seeing where this goes. Again, not blown over, but not bad.

Chris

[palitoy]

Really hated the pretentious over use of gore, it reminded me of DC comics under Didio.

This show is on at 8 and both my kids wanted to watch it, did they need to see the Penguin slash a guy's throat for a sandwich?

[Earth 2 Chris]

^Yeah, it's too adult to be on at 8. But I think prime-time is a free-for-all anymore. The networks figure you have 24 hour kid channels to watch I suppose. It's wrong.

Chris

[palitoy]

I assumed the show woud follow Arrow and the Flash in terms of content. I'm not comfortable with my kiids watching a show about Batman, that's not ideal.

[dee T.]

I watched it. I liked most of the characters in it. Catwoman, being the best of all of them. The one character I wasn't familiar with was the black lady with the red colored hair though, not sure who she was - Harley Quinn?? It had more violence and gore in it than I was expecting to see - being a T.V. show that aired durning prime time, but overall I liked it, and will continue to record and watch this series.

[The Toyroom]

Fish Mooney (Jada Pinkett Smith) has no direct correlation in the comics.
She was created for TV

[ShadowAvenger]

The episode replays this Friday night for those like me that missed it last night.

[Bronxboykev]

The thing is How long can they make this work for, 1 season 2???
Basically it is going to come down to How many people really care about the Character of James Gordon.
Catwoman and Poison Ivy look to be around Bruce Waynes age providing he is in the I would say 12 - 14 year range at this point and Penguin probably in his young to mid 20's so they wont be ancient by the time Bruce dons the Cape and Cowl... I think that the Viewers are going to be like let's speed this up and get Batman involved at some point. I know I'll follow until I get to that point

[johnnystorm]

I thought it was pretty good, although they loaded in a lot of characters right away. Hopefully they will be spaced out more in upcoming episodes. My wife liked it too, and she's not a comics fan.

Smallville ran 10 years without Superman, so I think this can run awhile.

It's definitely NOT a show for kids, which is why I expect we won't see Batman show up. It's more violent than Arrow, but even though Arrow is more comic-book related, it's still pretty violent. Maybe not as bloody, but don't forget Oliver was executing people in season one.
I liked the Alfred take, and I know it must be in the comics somewhere, but is Alfred Bruce's legal guardian?
If I have any gripes about it, I guess it's the unnecessary Barbara & Renee relationship.
And Harvey could be a bit sloppier, his thing was he was a great detective who didn't act or look like it.

[Earth 2 Chris]

Alfred as Bruce's legal guardian was a Frank Miller addition. Before that, Alfred joined the cast after Dick Grayson became Robin, both in canon, and in actual publishing time.

Chris