Batman Re-Begins

Last night was the premiere of the new TV series Gotham, and I wasn't quite sure what to make of it. Cautious optimism, I suppose, as there was a fair amount of "good" and no real "bad." But there was also a lot of "hmmm."

On the plus side, though the episode did throw far too many balls in the air, it did seem to focus mainly around two plot threads, both of which were effective. One of them was the efforts of rookie detective James Gordon, realizing the extent of the corruption within his city's police force. The story in no way relied on comic book origins to generate interest, instead building up interesting characters. Ben McKenzie presented his noble character without making it seem over the top, and his partner Bullock was written decently -- corrupt, but not too much to imagine as unredeemable.

The second storyline forecasted the rise of Oswald Cobblepot. This story almost got by without relying on comic book origins either, save for the need to remind us every few minutes that "this guy's totally gonna become the Penguin, you guys!" But either way, he was a compelling villain among villains, an opportunistic weasel we want to see both succeed and be punished.

If the series going forward remains largely about these two major characters and their stories, then I think they may well have something. The part I'm not sure about is the gallery of other characters around them. Sure, you probably can't tell the beginning of a tale set in the world of Batman without showing Bruce Wayne and kicking off the Batman origin story. Yet now that that's done, is there any interesting way that they could actually use the character of a little boy going forward?

And what about all the future villains that popped up rather needlessly to say, "hey, I'm here too!" The Riddler, Catwoman, Poison Ivy, one assumes the Joker. If the show tries to track all of them with any kind of regularity, it seems like it will be an overreach. But then, why show them all if the writers don't plan on cooking something up for them? It's not like TV shows haven't successfully juggled that many characters before. Still, how this show will do it feels like an open question that could swing either way.

I'd probably give the first episode something in the neighborhood of a B, but that at least is interesting enough for me to try more episodes and see what happens.