Gotham (Pilot)

 

Gotham, the new show from the guy who stole the idea from his last show (The Mentalist) from a far superior one (Psyche), and who also created Rome, a decent two season show based on the far superior 1300 years of history. Rumor has it that Gotham is the backstory of the city featured in that famous Jude Law film Captain Sky and the World of Tomorrow. How would the nanobots view such a show, when we all know how suspicious they are of nostalgia? There's only one way to find out. BRING OUT THE ZEPPELINS!!

• Young woman sporting Daryn Cooke-style goggles does what street urchins in Gotham do: leap from rooftop to rooftop, steal groceries, pick pockets, and out-leap grown adults onto back alley fire-escapes. = +3pts
• Shooting a kid's parents in front of him and then peace-outting. = -2pts
• It's gonna take a tough cop like Jim Gordon to teach these yabbos at GCPD how to not let a deranged frittata easily steal your gun and hold everyone at the precinct hostage. No wonder crime is so prevalent. This town doesn't need a Batman, it needs a better HR department. = +4pts
• Harvey Bullock (better known as Hank Dolworth from Terriers) advises Gordon to shoot anyone who takes a cop's gun, which officially places GCPD one rung above the Ferguson police department where cops are advised to shoot anyone who's black and doesn't have one. = +5pts
• Wait, do any black people live in Gotham? I guess we now know how Gotham became comicdom's most corrupt city! = (-10pts for lack of diversity; +25pts for it all making sense now) +15pts
• Maurice Levy from The Wire is an even sketchier cop that he was a lawyer. = +3pts
• Jim Gordon hedges his bets and, around 2AM, promises a young Bruce Wayne that there will be light soon. With that kind of detective work, it's no wonder Bruce Wayne's parent's murder went unsolved. = -5pts (You Joe Chill apologists can take a flying leap for all we care.)
• Bullock's use of "homes" and "mopes" and the phrase "pill-head mooney bird" really captures the 80-year history of the Batman.= +8pts
• Gordon and Bullock run down all the muggers in Gotham, who apparently must spend a lot of time on Foursqare because it takes all of 30-seconds before exhausting all their leads. = +2pts
• The Riddler as annoying lab tech? Thank God counseling/psyche evaluations haven't hit Gotham PD in...Wait, what year does this take place? Do they even have years in Gotham? = -2pts
• It's good to know that a harscrabble Gotham Lt. can still earn enough money to by that penthouse with all the marble and the giant fireplace. = -5pts
• Wait, it's his girlfriend's place? = +10pts
• But she made her money as an art dealer? = -15pts
• Minority Alert: Jada Pinkett Smith as badass black mob heavy. = +5pts
• Calling her Fish Mooney. = -10pts (Just keep saying it over and over again.)
• Mario Pepper solidifies his badass reputation by fleeing the cops and terrorizing Asian sweatshops. = -1pt
• If there's one thing this show nails, it's the hidden lesbian relationship between Barbara Gordon and Detective Montoya, or what most die-hard Batfans call "What precipitated Year One." = +2pts
• Having your own gimp butcher. = +5pts
• Putting all of your adult bullshit onto a kid who's just seen his parents murdered in front of him. = -3pts
• We're not sure if this young woman stalking Bruce Wayne is a young Selina Kyle, or just some kid engaged in an epic game of hot lava. No seriously, it's just the ground. You can walk on it if you want to, we promise. = -1pt

Wow. Call us crazy, but the world of Captain Sky seems a lot like the world of Batman. We should really do our homework before doing these. This can't be good for science. One second...

Okay. So, apparently, Gotham is about the Gotham made famous by Tory filmmaker Christopher Nolan and a bunch of funny books. Knowing that, we'd have to say that Ben Mackenzie, who we will refer to here on out as "Young Russell Crowe, or Maximus Juniorus" for any future scorecards, is a solid presence, only made more solid by the ever awesome Donal Logue, as Harvey Bullock. Jada Pinkett Smith is pretty great as the only black person in Gotham with an unfortunately derogatory name. And seeing all those guys from The Wire pop up is always nice. We're a bit skeptical/exhausted at the pilot's need to cram almost every significant Batman villain into some kind of walk-on. It would have been nice to focus on a few villains now and let the rest of them be teased out over the length of the show, to show up in organic and surprising ways, but instead we're already jammed up on actors playing characters that they will likely have to find subplots for in order to validate their contracts. But whatevs, it's just a pilot, dude. It's not Lost or anything.

Total Score: +13pts

Score Technician: Sean McConnell