Gotham Is Coming to TV With Commissioner Gordon

Yesterday it was revealed by Deadline that Fox has one a bidding war over Warner Brothers for the rights to a new series based on a young James Gordon. Better known later in life as Commissioner Gordon, friend and ally of Batman. Yep, that’s right the Batman Universe is finally coming back to television. The last time we got to see anything involving the Bat was back in 2002 with Birds of Prey, which didn’t actually featured the Dark Knight. Well this new show probably isn’t going to feature him either, but it will feature a character just as important to the universe and mythology.

The new series is to be called Gotham and focus on a young James Gordon while he’s still just a detective with the Gotham City Police Department. It’s being written by Bruno Heller, who’s best known as creator and writer for the CBS series The Mentalist. Not surprisingly Fox has opted to skip the Pilot process for the series and send it straight to series. That means this will most likely start airing in the 2014/2015 season. DC and Warner Brothers are really starting to expand their TV presence, they’ve already got the hit Arrow on the CW with a possible spin-off from that series in the works about the Flash. Flash will be appearing in season 2 of Arrow as a possible way to segue into a new series. With this newest announcement that could mean 3 DC Universe series going on at once, granted they’re on different networks, so a crossover may not be possible. Not to mention Gotham is most likely going to need to take place several years ago, I suppose an ‘older’ Gordon could show up in Arrow at some point. Outside of the unfortunately short lived (only 2 seasons) of Human Target, this is the first DC related show to not air on the WB or CW in over a decade.

Obviously since the announcement was just made not a lot is known about the series, outside what I’ve already discussed. We can expect Gordon to use his detective skills to take down some of the more prominent (but probably non-super) villains in Batman’s rogues gallery, as the criminal world makes it rise in Gotham.

I could go on with predictions for hours on this topic, but lets keep it short. Gotham has the chance to be great, the problem is cop drama’s are everywhere right now, and throwing a popular comic character doesn’t make that any less true. Fox and DC are really going to need to do something that sets this show out on it’s own and makes it worth watching. Personally I’d like to see early on the murder of the Wayne’s with occasional references or scenes involving a Young Bruce as he slowly comes to realize what he’ll need to do. It would help to tie Gotham to the actual world of Batman with something other than name, and at the same time wouldn’t take anything away from the shows focus on Gordon.

Well that or a teen dramedy where all the characters are in High School, like Saved By The Bell but with more thievery and murder.

Chris talks a bunch on PodQuest each week. He's also been known to write about stuff from time to time. You can Email Chris or follow Chris on Twitter @Just_Cobb or Facebook

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