User Reviews

After blazing through the first season of The Flash, I decided to go back and pick up where I left off with Gotham. Looking back at my IMDb reviews for those first two episodes, my feelings seemed to be that the pilot got things off to a reasonably strong start, but that things faltered just a tad in the second episode with what I classified as a scattershot focus and treading narrative water.

Right out of the gate, the gimmick of Gotham's first vigilante is somewhat silly, even for a show based on a comic book. He ties them to weather balloons and lets them be pulled up, up and away (sorry, wrong character). Anyway, setting that aside, the hook is that Gordon fears that if citizens can't trust their police department to protect them, it could inspire some to become vigilantes, and that people will embrace them. You can see where this is going. For most of the episode the Bruce Wayne/Alfred stuff felt forced or tacked on, but the final scene with young Bruce watching a news report about the apprehended would be vigilante puts a nice little bow on things as the seeds continue to be planted for the future Caped Crusader. We also see the return of Oswald Cobblepot (the future Penguin), and I have to say Robin Taylor's take on the character is growing on me. I also quite like Jada Pinkett-Smith as Fish Mooney. I seem to recall her performance getting some blowback from fans when the show debuted, but I think she brings an icy cool charm to the role. But the strength of the show thus far for me is the contentious relationship between Ben McKenzie's Jim Gordon and Donal Logue's Harvey Bullock. The former makes for a solid true north, and the latter is a perfect foil as his rumpled, sorta good but not exactly squeaky clean counterpart.

Less successful here is the soap operaish domestic situation with Jim Gordon and Barbra, the latter having a romantic past with another (female in this case) member of the GCPD. I'm willing to believe this could all go somewhere interesting, but right now it feels a bit out of place.

Like any show starting out it's still a work in progress, but there's certainly more that works here than doesn't, and I'm looking forward to my time in 'Gotham'.

After two very good episodes to kick off the first season of Gotham we get a hit and miss episode with the hits being again about Cobblepot and the misses being about the villain for this week and Fish Mooney.

A vigilante who ties up corrupt Gotham citizens to weather balloons is on the loose and its once again up to Gordon(main star Ben McKenzie)and Bullock(Donal Logue)to halt him at his work. At the same time Oswald(a marvellous Robin Lord Taylor)returns to Gotham and gets a job at the restaurant owned by Don Sal Maroni(David Zayas)who is the rival to Don Carmine Falcone(John Doman)and after being befriended by him starts plans to use this to his advantage of getting revenge on Fish Mooney(over the top Jada Pinkett Smith). With Gordon and Bullock hunting down the balloonman and Bruce Wayne's(astonishing David Mazouz)continued hunt for his parents killers as well as Oswald tracking down Gordon who spared his life before its just another crime filled day in Gotham City.

As I said before this is a hit and miss episode with the superb Taylor a joy as Oswald or Penguin and he is without doubt the star of the series and seems to get in everyone's good books even if he is playing them all off against each other,he has made the Penguin character a truly excellent one as I wasn't a big Penguin fan beforehand. The miss parts are first the very over the top character of Fish Mooney and though Smith is a good actress the script must of made her over the top as she doesn't seem to fit in the stories most the time but I have to admit she has got better lately with some great acting and better stories. The other miss is the balloonman villain,even though the scenes with bad guys floating off in balloons are good to watch he is a pretty weak bad guy and hope the second season gives us the heavyweight bad guys of Batman comic books,also the bad guys a lot in this get caught quite easily and would like some gripping shoot outs or chases to catch them.

Its not bad and we have some brilliant characters like Oswald,the two Dons,Edward Nigma(another epic actor Cory Michael Smith)and Selina Kyle(young superstar Carmen Bicondova)all lighting up the episode and stopping it from falling apart and main characters Gordon,Bullock,Bruce and Alfred(superb Brit actor Sean Pertwee)are all fabulous as ever and I just love the scenes between Bruce and Alfred and find Sean very funny and sarcastic but adores young Bruce like a son not a employer.

Worst episode so far with the Fish Mooney scenes letting it down along with the villain of the episode but its saved by some supreme acting and a incredible character in the form of Oswald Cobblepot.

I'm glad the next few episodes picked up the form after this.

I'm still watching after the first two episodes and, I'm pleased to say, there are some improvements this week, but there are also still some things putting me off. First, the improvements. The 'villain' this week is closer to the comic book roots of the Batman story, killing corrupt public officials and sleazy lawyers with a very novel method; a succession of these would-be crimefighters could work as a formative influence on the young Bruce, as well as leading Gordon to question his so-far strictly orthodox, by-the-book attitude to ridding the city of crime. I particularly liked the way young master Wayne resumes eating as he watches the report on TV. There are also signs that Bullock may be moving at least a little towards Gordon's outlook, as the two will need to find some middle ground if the series is to be anything more than the two of them squaring off every week. However, on the 'bad' side of the equation, Alfred's approach to raising Bruce seems to be getting steadily more desperate, the 'sword fight' sequence being basically stupid. The police work is still basically exposition, the manner in which Gordon discovering who the killer is being particularly infuriating, and on that subject, wouldn't the floating bodies have stayed where they were in the upper atmosphere while the city moved away from beneath them as the earth rotated? I'm still interested to see what Cobblepot has planned for Gordon, and I'm hoping Selina made up her story about seeing the Waynes killer's face, as I personally think that person should remain anonymous. I'll be back for episode 4.

This show has fully embraced the camp comic nature of it's source material. And I think I like it. I know that there are many critics of the show. I am partly one. I would just like the show to find it footing and stick with something. The last episode wanted to genre and theme jump. This latest episode, The Balloonman, dives headfirst in to the campy and embraces it. For me this was the most slow moving of all three episodes. It is also the one most focused on the least amount of characters. Jim Gordon spotlights with Fish Mooney and Bruce having two or three scenes each.

A vigilante of some sorts has made his way into the beloved city of Gotham. He targets known people of stature and limelight who have very heinous backgrounds. At first Bullock wants to nothing to do with it. Gordon, being the boy scout, tries to convince him that a murder is a murder no matter what. Selina Kyle gets one scene extended from the end of the previous episode. She proves to Gordon that she was there where the Waynes were murder. But to our dismay she escapes custody before identifying the murderer.

Oswald reaches Gotham to the delight of a low level thug who doesn't last long. Oswald, looking for a job, ends up on his own terms in the employment of a restaurant that is a home for many of Gotham's goons. His slow rise up is an interesting one. He's taking his time, leaving clues, planting seeds and making moves just so when the inevitable war breaks out he will be the one to stand tall. His character is most entertaining. Jada Pinkett Smith's Fish Mooney is still eating up every scene she's in. I love to watch her character on screen. She gets small vengeance on crime boss Falcone for things that transpired in episode two.

Montoya and Allen are still hot on the case of who killed Oswald, with Fish Mooney informing them that it was Gordon who pulled the trigger. There is a confrontation between the three of them (Allen, Gordon & Montoya) that leads to a not funny but blatant attempt at double sided humor from Allen. Montoya does get a poignant moment with Gordon's girlfriend her ex Barbara Kean. This scene is quite nice in that it build Montoya's character and her relationship with Kean. They were once an item but Montoya was deep into drugs. It seems she and Gordon have a few demons hidden.

Bullock and Gordon eventually catch The Balloonman only after the case made high profile by the deaths of a dirty cop and a child abusing cardinal of the church. Gordon and Bullock have a few good exchanges together trying to track down any information on this killer. A raid on an apartment is especially hilarious as Bullock gets beaten up trying to take down a suspect. Bruce and Alfred are at a battle of wits as Bruce is looking for clues to his parents murder. Alfred is trying to teach the boy how to be strong. The lightest scene of the whole episode is Bruce and Alfred dueling with wooden swords. There is much foreshadowing for Bruce's character for any fan of the source material.

It seems that every episode will have a Jim Gordon "I just figured it all out" solving the case moments. Thankfully even though this episode ends with Gordon's somewhat inspirational speech, this time he's not talking to Bruce. Kean and him have a genuine moment that shows that they do care and know each other quite well. This moment is spoiled but the appearance of Oswald to Gordon's shock.

This was the lull episode that I hope are few and far between.. I know that it is comic book TV with no superheroes. But playing on the comic noir, this show can't get caught up in the normal of procedural television. It's entertaining me when I'm focused on characters and actions not the story line. Gordon is an interest character and being we all needs a hero, there has to be good to the bad. With so much bad needing to happen in order for the show to get to it's eventual conclusion, there needs to more focus on the darker side of the city of Gotham. Even Gordon is questioned multiple times of what is good and bad and why he does what he does? Those are the moments that the show should run with.