Quote Originally Posted by MLai View Post
I'm saying it's a dumb decision.

Throughout all the past Batman shows/ cartoons/ movies/ more movies, we've only ever seen the Waynes through the lens of their deaths, and that effect on young Bruce Wayne. Now we had the opportunity of a PREQUEL. What does it do? Rehash the plot angle of seeing the Waynes through the lens of their deaths, and that effect on young Bruce Wayne. Oh joy, I've never seen that before.

They had prime dramatic character candidates in front of their faces: Courageous philanthropic prominent citizens with the capability of helping Gordon move the plot. They had the opportunity to finally make us empathize with said characters, so we don't see them as just corpse fodder like in all the cartoons and movies. The writers dropped the ball. Nothing they accomplish with their current well-worn plot angle will ever make up for the potential they already squandered.
Agreed. I was hoping we would get a season or more to establish and build the Waynes up as characters and make their eventual death mean something in a context outside of its affect on Bruce. It would also have been a perfect opportunity to flesh out the world building that is ostensibly the point of much of the show. Especially since they fit such a pointedly different social strata than Harvey. Right now this is all flavored through a street level view with the cops and crooks. While this makes Falcone's deus ex machina quite appropriate, getting some divergent POVs would be a better long term solution.

Quote Originally Posted by tomandtish View Post
Spoiler: Very Minor episode spoiler with another spoiler tag inside
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The loft is Barbara's, not Gordon's. In fact, there's a line about him moving in there at some point in the future. Seems he may just spend most nights there.

In fairness, I'm not sure how much we are supposed to like her.

Spoiler: Barbara/Gordon Spoilers
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In the comics Gordon and Barbara get married, but they have a lot of problems and eventually get a divorce. in fact, in IMDB one of the characters involved in all of that is credited in the series, but we haven't met them yet.
Spoiler
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That's pretty soon to call, but the show pings more against the Renee and her partner in terms of sympathy. Harvey's our scrappy, somewhat dirty but still likable veteran and he hates them. Gordon is immediately set up at odds with them as well, albeit for different reasons. And then we see Renee's attempt overt manipulations to to break the two of them up. The whole thing is shot like Renee's some sort of predator and Barbara's been burned and trying to move on with her life. Which, if true, is a tad disappointing for the show's token lesbian, but things might be more nuanced than that, it's just the premier after all.


On a different note, while the visuals are certainly lush for a television show, I'm a bit surprise with how unrefined the camera work was. The show tilts between pedestrian shots to some rather questionable decisions. The most egregious being the undulating face shots of our hero running after the perp which were equally immersion breaking and confusing.

My biggest annoyance remains with the dialogue. Gordon and young Bruce had a perfectly serviceable scene until we got the cringe inducing light dark duality invocation. Because that's what people say to grieving 8 year olds. More troubling is the handling with the more colorful members. Riddler is here too? Fine. No, you don't need to have him repeat the riddle gimmick multiple times in a 2 minute exchange. It's obnoxious, and lessons his actual transition later. If there's going to be an arc at all, you don't already give us the character to be so recognizable as to be indistinguishable from his more iconic rendition.

Penguin has a similarly heavy handed treatment. Not the actor, Falcone, Bullock and he were definitely the standouts performance wise. But the repeated insistence of his nickname was less than nuanced, the trailer for next week means this is going to be an ongoing pattern. Something more naturalistic would be appreciated. Penquin has come back on the scene, and in some venerable moment someone calls him the Penquin at an appropriate cue, and the name sticks, as nicknames are wont to do. Or maybe when he attempts a hostile takeover Mooney's boys start calling him it as a smear and he decides to go with it. That's fine. Don't just have everyone come to the same magical conclusion, oh look. He's a bird man. Especially when, given the visual depiction we've seen so far, the name was kind of stretch to begin with.

As an episode, this wasn't inspiring, but few pilots are. Once we've gotten past all the fan service (I'm really hoping that comedian in Moony's bar was not a hamfisted bit of foreshadowing later) there's certainly potential, but I'm not wholly optimistic.