Do ‘Gotham’ And ‘Flash’ Continue DC’s TV Domination?
This new fall TV season has seen the premiere of two shows based on DC comics franchises. How good are they? Let’s take a look.
First on the air was Gotham, which is arguably the most ambitious of the two. OK, sure, The Flash, which just had its premiere this week, has the ambitious goal of portraying a man who can run faster that the speed of sound. And, as we’ll get into later, many, many more super powered characters. But the basic story and background is — with detail changes — not much different from the comic book.
Gotham, in contrast, aims to take the Batman universe back to its very first step – the immediate aftermath of the murder of Bruce Wayne’s parents.
That means the show doesn’t focus directly on the 12 year old Bruce, who won’t become the Dark Knight for at least another two dozen years. The hero of Gotham is a young Jim Gordon, a detective and years away from becoming the Commissioner.
The series focuses on the development of the villains in Gotham who will eventually be Batman’s enemies. And that is where Gotham shines. This first season is about Oswald Cobblepot’s transition from a young clumsy wannabe thug to the deadly crime lord he becomes.
When it works best, Gotham becomes a story about a terribly corrupt city and the criminals who take great advantage of that. To pull this off, the show creators did an excellent job casting – both the heroes and villains, and particularly those bad guys. From veterans like Jada Pinkett-Smith as the new character Fish Mooney to relative newcomer Robin Lord Taylor, who excels as Cobblepot, they all bring smarts and menace to their roles.
On the side of the good guys we have Ben McKenzie as Gordon, and Donal Logue as his corrupt partner Harvey Bullock. And David Mazouz as young Bruce Wayne makes you believe early on he could become the obsessive vigilante called Batman.
Unfortunately, the writers aren’t consistently giving such excellent actors the best dialogue to work with. This isn’t an Aaron Sorkin show, that’s for sure.
As cheesy as the dialogue in Gotham can be, The Flash can be much worse. But it is less of a problem in a show that has a much lighter tone than Gotham, or even from the CW hit it spun out from, Arrow.
In fact, Gotham shares much more in common with Arrow than its partner in newness, The Flash. Even Arrow has some super powered characters (Deathstroke) but it mostly stays in the realm of almost believable bad guys. Gotham so far is even more dedicated to keeping things squarely in the Nolan-like realm of it could happen. That is also a strength of Gotham.
The Flash, on the other hand, teased more super powered characters in the first episode than have shown up in both seasons of Arrow so far. Barry Allen will have plenty of compatriots and opponents.
And that is the potential strength of The Flash. Having a pile of super powered heroes and villains show up early on may solve the problem that many say plagues Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. — the dearth of superheroes. It will be interesting to see if the audience wants the superheroes, or quickly find them common — something that seems unlikely with a character as uncommon as the telepathic genius gorilla, Gorilla Grodd.
Gotham is the strongest of the two so far, but to be fair, The Flash has only had one episode, whereas Gotham is three deep. But both look to be good follow-ons to the success of Arrow.
