I watched the pilot a second time before writing this.

Spoiler: 'Gotham' Review -- SPOILER INSIDE
Show

For a network show, it's good. I mean, it's crap compared to 'Game of Thrones' or 'The Wire', but that's somewhat to be expected.

They should have left out all the villains that didn't fit or weren't necessary. I don't think Edward Nygma as a CSI tech is worthwhile: it makes him older than Batman, and it's really just riffing off of 'Dexter'. Clumsy, didn't like it.

There was also no reason to have Poison Ivy in there. Distracting and it was just too much.

Catwoman sort of fits, but they have to do something interesting with her.

Really the only 'Batman Villains' who have a real proper place here are Penguin and Falcone. Falcone's playing his part from Year One, but the real contribution here is The Penguin: The Penguin IS sort of older than Batman, so it makes sense he would have been involved in the previous regime.

I like the idea that Cobblebot got into trouble with the powers that be -- that he found himself exiled long before Batman came into the picture. Accidental or not, that strikes me as a REAL IDEA. That he just didn't fit in with the underworld because he was just too odd, and too ambitious -- and when the real 'Freaks' come along (Joker, Scarecrow, Nygma), he won't 'fit in' with them because he won't be odd or ambitious enough.

This could be a good show and it has great potential, but I'm skeptical that it will have the storytelling discipline to pull this off. That they would even show Nygma or Ivy suggests it doesn't, nor does this idea of making Barbra Gordon bisexual (or post-bisexual).

If this is a pre-Batman show, having a young Catwoman in it is bending the rules enough. You can have Penguin, you can have Falcone and Maroni, you can even have Hugo Strange. But that's mostly it.

I'm most annoyed by the fact that there's rumors they're already looking to cast Harvey Dent, and that he'll be older than Batman. That's another wrong move IMO: Dent should be a young man right now at the very oldest, they shouldn't introduce him until the 2nd or 3rd season, and frankly when he shows up, he's going to be one of the good guys through and through for basically the entire rest of the show, if Batman never shows up.

So, I dunno: it seems to me that this show has only about 2 seasons worth of possible material before they say all there would be to say. Then they should probably start taking jumps forward in time.