User blog comment:Jamie/Episode 21 - Gotham/@comment-1895174-20141028054228

With each television season, I try to watch the first three episodes of as many new series that pique my interest as possible. I couldn't bear any more from this series after only two.

Let's just start with the basic premise of this series, which is almost laughable. You know how Agents of SHIELD (at least in it's early days) got a lot of crap for consistently referencing the exciting elements of the universe it took place in that they would never get to show, only making the overall blandness of the series all the more unbearable? Gotham has a similar problem, only it makes that problem the core of the series. It's here to set-up the exciting elements of the universe it takes place in that only becomes exciting in another 20 or so years. Bruce Wayne is not interesting when he's 12. Gotham may as well be known as The Prequel Problem: The Series.

But, before getting into more of the bad, let's at least give credit to what does work. Robin Lord Taylor's Penguin is getting the praise it deserves. He is riding a line between camp and grit that the rest of the cast is sorely lacking. Jada Pinkett Smith is also doing a nice job channeling Eartha Kitt for Fish Mooney, a character who will most likely be dead by the end of the season because an original character in a show like this is essentially a sacrificial lamb. That's about it, though.

The problem built-in to the series wouldn't be so bad if it was well told, which it isn't. This is the worst interpretation of the Batman mythos I've ever seen, and I've seen all 26 episodes of Beware the Batman. Gotham has no idea what kind of series it wants to be, leading to some really distracting tonal dissonance. Ben McKenzie's Gordon and each case-of-the-week's subject matter evoke the grit and pseudo-realism found in the Nolan films. It takes itself seriously and can get rather dark. Everything else feels like an homage to the 60's TV series with Adam West. It's all incredibly goofy and has no sense of subtlety whatsoever. But rather than giving some wink-and-nod recognition of how campy it all is and hamming it up like the Adam West series, the cast here instead plays it straight and comes off as annoying.

Annoying like Poison Ivy's real name being "Ivy Pepper." Annoying like a preteen Selina Kyle already calling herself "Cat" and stealing cartons of milk. Annoying like just everything about this show's version of the Riddler. Annoying like how all these characters who'll be fighting each other in 20 or so years all somehow connected to the Wayne murders. And it's these moments that are at the very heart of Gotham. Because that's what it's all about: setting up a story it will never tell.