PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, psychological. sociological*
The first season of GOTHAM could easily be seen as a Batman-centered version of SMALLVILLE, tracing the history of a hero in his formative years. Of course Clark Kent begins to manifest his full range of powers in his late teen years, while GOTHAM's Bruce Wayne is twelve years old when his parents are murdered. Like Teen Clark, Preteen Bruce begins to form a coterie around himself that includes many characters whom the comic-book hero met under very different circumstances. I should note that Christopher Nolan's successful BATMAN movie-trilogy had just ended in 2012, which may have encouraged Warner Brothers to seek a new venue for their Bat-mythos.
GOTHAM shows influence from both the Nolan films and from the dark, violent comics that became dominant from the 1980s and into the present. However, in its five year run the series duplicated a tendency in TV's previous 1966 Bat-series: to wit, both shows were generally at their best when they borrowed strongly from the comic book adventures of Batman, and did less well coming up with their own mythology.
As in many post-Frank Miller Bat-comics, Gotham City is a sewer of a city, where underworld bosses do what they want while most of the cops are paid off to look the other way. Then two significant events transpire within hours of each other. The parents of millionaire heir Bruce Wayne (David Mazouz) are murdered by an unknown gunman, and Gotham recruit James Gordon (Ben McKenzie) is assigned to the case, along with his newly assigned partner Harvey Bullock (Donal Logue). Gordon promises to Bruce that he will find the killer of the boy's parents, and he extends the same intensity to investigating all crimes that come under his scrutiny. This does not endear Gordon to his partner Bullock, to other cops, or the regular mobsters of Gotham.
Though most of the gangsters are ordinary criminals-- even new creation Fish Mooney (Jade Pinkett Smith), a schemer of operatic proportions-- the first season devotes considerable space to showing how many of the famous Bat-villains rise to prominence in Gotham's world of usually violent crime. Selina Kyle, the future Catwoman, is a 14-year-old street-thief who witnesses the killing of Bruce's parents and become involved with the young heir, his faithful butler Alfred (Sean Pertwee), and with the implacable Gordon. Penguin, rather than being a flamboyant gimmick-villain, combines the nature of a gangland snitch with an oily Uriah Heep personality, showing himself willing to commit any crime to ascend to crime-boss status. Edward Nygma, the future Riddler, is a pathologist working for Gotham's police force, and Poison Ivy is about the same age as Catwoman, also existing on the margins of civilized society.
As different as all of these characters are from their prototypes, they're generally powerful presences who interact in stimulating ways. Penguin (Robin Lord Taylor) betrays his boss Fish Mooney but is saved from death by Gordon, bonding the two of them in ways that are not much to Gordon's liking. Selina (Camren Bicondova) and Bruce forge something of a friends-crushing-on-each-other relationship as Bruce begins his own private investigation of his parents' deaths. Nygma progresses from slightly offbeat pathologist with a penchant for riddles to a pathological killer. At the same time, all of their eccentric villainies play out against the backdrop of gangland struggles for power, constantly menacing the city's residents with new outbreaks of chaos.
The show's writers may have also followed SMALLVILLE in constructing various long-range plot-lines, many not resolved in Season One. At the same time, to allow for at least the illusion of closure, Gordon and Bullock are allowed to solve a handful of crimes, though the violence is so prevalent that these victories often seem hollow. There is a certain amount of humor, sometimes of the gallows variety, but romantic attachments, particularly in the life of Gordon, prove fragile. He's first seeing a young woman, Barbara Kean, who ends up becoming a menace, and at the end of the first season he's dating one Leslie Thompson (who in the comics becomes the go-to doctor for The Batman). Like most soap operas, the writers constantly keep emotions and events jacked up to Warp Eleven, so there are almost no quiet, naturalistic moments to speak of.
Most of the original characters are of questionable value. Fish Mooney seems to have been intended to be a kick-ass criminal, but Smith's acting is so over the top that she's never believable. Barbara Kean, who may have borrowed both of her names from separate Bat-characters, goes much too quickly from a normal woman to an insane-o. Short-term villains like The Goat and the Balloon Man, while never as awful as the worst of the foes from '66 BATMAN, are generally forgettable.
In short, the first season is at its strongest in dramatic scenes between principals Bruce, Gordon, Selina, and Alfred. Penguin is an interesting variation on the original, in that the very first Penguin comics-story talks about his alienation due to his physical appearance, though almost every other appearance of the "Birdman Bandit" has been more comic in nature. The first season is also fairly restrained in terms of marvelous phenomena, which are mostly confined to bizarre chemical concoctions like the Scarecrow's fear gas.
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