By: Brandon Wolfe
In perhaps his most well known stand-up bit, Patton Oswalt sums up his reaction to the ‘Star Wars’ prequel trilogy, and prequels altogether, by railing to the heavens/George Lucas that he doesn’t care where the stuff he loves comes from, he just loves the stuff he loves.
That condemnation seems tailor-made for application to Fox’s new series ‘Gotham,’ a crime-drama that takes us back to the days when Gotham City wasn’t patrolled by a man in a batsuit, but by a stalwart young rookie cop named Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie), standing true against the villainy and corruption the city teems with, including within his own precinct. Bruce Wayne is here, but he’s a preteen boy, probably a good decade away from putting on a cowl and cape. So you get to see Batman as a little kid. Just as your heart always wanted.
Our first sight in ‘Gotham’ is of another youthful incarnation of a famous Gothamite, as a nascent Selina Kyle prowls the street, picking the pockets of passersby and snatching some milk for her feline friends in a nearby alley. She’s not a Catgirl, not yet a Catwoman, and the alley she finds herself in at this fateful moment is the site of the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne in front of their young son Bruce. Gordon arrives on the scene with his slovenly, irrepressibly cynical new partner, Harvey Bullock (Donal Logue) and reassures Bruce that all will be well, using all manner of trite, yet sincerely delivered, platitudes. Bullock wants to dump the case when he learns who the victims are. Then he wants to dump Gordon when his partner’s true-blue tenacity begins to cramp Bullock’s dirty, corner-cutting lifestyle. When he fails in both respects, he is perhaps comforted by the fact that he gets to call Gordon all sorts of dumb nicknames like “homes” and “soldier boy.”
Bullock takes Gordon to visit the unfortunately named Fish Mooney (a vampy Jada Pinkett-Smith), an associate of crime kingpin Carmine Falcone who shares a mutually beneficial relationship with Bullock. Fish points the duo in the direction of a convicted felon who is killed by Bullock when he attacks Gordon. When Martha Wayne’s stolen necklace is found in the man’s apartment, the case is considered closed, until an underling of Mooney’s, the sniveling future Penguin, Oswald Cobblepott (Robin Lord Taylor), attempts a coup and reveals that the incriminating evidence was planted at Mooney’s behest. This sends Gordon back out on the streets to continue his search and fulfill his promise to young Bruce. In the process, he learns that the corruption in Gotham runs deeper than he had ever imagined it could.
As far as prequels go, ‘Gotham’ has a stronger foundation than many. Gordon has always been a compelling character who has perpetually had to take a backseat to the Batman, but could easily function as a lead hero in his own right if given the opportunity. Giving us the iconic villains as young criminal upstarts is also an enticing proposition (we are also introduced to Edward Nygma, who works for the GCPD as an enthusiastic ballistics expert). Let’s face it, network television is going to crank out cop procedurals from now until the end of time anyway. Setting one of them in Gotham City at least offers us something new.
But therein lays the problem with ‘Gotham,’ or at least with its pilot. It’s just a standard-issue procedural across the board, down to its hopelessly flat dialogue and cardboard characters. Nothing stands out in this inaugural episode, not a single scene or performance. McKenzie, who suggests Jeremy Renner after a soul extraction, is a flavorless Gordon. Logue as Bullock has the juicier role to play, but is saddled with leaden one-liners. Change the character names to ones without such potent pop-cultural cachet and this could be some Dylan McDermott show destined to be canceled after eight episodes. Wedding the ‘Batman’ mythos to an otherwise uninspired cop drama will only get you so far.
But it will get you at least a little ways down the road. The promise of more villains to come buys ‘Gotham’ some time and leeway to see if it can iron itself out into something worth our time or if it will be DC’s humdrum, potential-squelching answer to ‘Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ Another issue here is the presence of the young Bruce Wayne. The murder of his parents may be the catalyst for the series, but this is pointedly not his story, and wedging him into it as a regular character feels like it will be problematic to keep it feeling organic. But if he weren’t here, well, we wouldn’t get to see Batman as a little kid. Gotta know where that little squirt came from.
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