Gotham

[Tyrion Cheddar]

Imagine a series that's better, darker and cooler than nearly all modern movies and which--contrary to precedent and probability--remains consistently so, if not indeed continuing to get better. I just watched last night's episode and lay there riveted. Boy oh boy. And that kid who plays young Bruce Wayne should win an award.

[Lokasenna]

I'm not sure, you know. I've found Gotham consistently underwhelming and irritating. I was torn about whether to watch the second season at all, but decided to do so in the hopes that it would correct the mistakes of the first one - I really don't think it has. There are some great performances (Jada Pinkett-Smith's evil Eartha Kitt almost made the first season worth watching just for her, and Harvey Bullock is just great), but there are also a lot of poor ones (Jim Gordon himself, Selina, Barbara, Ed Nigma, pretty much every villain-of-the-week). The plot, in both seasons, has been all over the place - for example, Evil-Eartha-Kitt's season-long masterplan for taking control of Gotham turned out to be... getting a new hairdo and turning up with some guns.

The aesthetic is clearly tapping into the Tim Burton, but unfortunately they've gone for modern Burton rather than classic Burton, so everything is carried too far and the screen is constantly filled with grotesquery and caricature - it's a really, really ugly show.

And then there are the instances in which they have a good actor being made to play the role in a highly questionable way. Robin Lord Taylor is proving one of the best actors on the show, but the decision to portray the Penguin as the stereotype of the depraved and evil homosexual straight out of pre-liberation media is a bit worrying. Making him into an effete, mincing pervert obsessed with his mother and fixated on Jim Gordon does seem to hark back to the demonising portrayals of gay people from a long way back. This is particularly true given that the only other non-heterosexual cast member, Barbara, has also been transformed into a raging psychopath. Shows don't have to be progressive to be good, of course, but I sometimes feel that Gotham goes out of its way to be as nasty as possible.