Gotham

This gritty, atmospheric “Batman” prequel ranks as the fall’s best new drama on broadcast television.

The Gotham opener probably makes the most compelling case of any newcomer this fall that at least one promise will be kept.

Gotham respectfully riffs on the DC canon, but it’s a whole lot better when it experiments with--and even subverts--the oft-trod territory of Batworld.

Gotham feels like a larger-than-life event. The challenge will be to build on that--or at the very least hold steady.

The pilot itself is among the best you'll see this fall. It looks great, the two leads have instant chemistry, and everything hums along nicely as a slightly larger-than-life crime saga.

An absorbing, intelligent new drama that gives the Batman mythology one more layer of depth.

Gotham reverses the normal superhero disguise: It is not a superhero dressed up in street clothes, it is a gritty noir dressed up like a superhero.

The mood and writing mix splashy comic book pulpiness with brooding film noir menace, sparked with bits of dark humor.

Gotham is not reinventing the dark cop show, or the dystopian drama, or the superhero genre. But it combines them in a way that’s invigorating–and, honestly, it’s probably better than a new series with this built-in fanbase needed to be.

Anyone who loves Batman, naturally, will be watching Gotham, and knowing the Batman world makes the show more fun. But it’s also surprisingly accessible to viewers who just like a good action-packed cop drama with a dry sense of humor. Up front, it looks like a bat-winner.

Not all of Gotham is as successful--a side plot involving Gordon's girlfriend Barbara Kean (Erin Richards) has yet to find its footing--but this dark (and cinematically shot) series will feel right at home as the lead-in to Fox's similarly toned Sleepy Hollow.

As hard as Gotham works to make Gordon a suitable hero, those who are not deeply immersed in the Batman universe may wonder whether the energy is well-spent.

Gotham does a great job of balancing the worlds of modern, mature comic books and the police procedural.

McKenzie is a winning mix of cockiness and righteousness. Even better is Donal Logue as his partner, Harvey Bullock—salty, slovenly, cynical. They're a dynamic dysfunctional duo. And while Jada Pinkett Smith's underworld boss Fish Mooney is tonally wonky, she's a bawdy blast nonetheless. The mystery of the Waynes' killing and the drama of the Penguin's ascendancy seem compelling fodder for season 1.

Gotham is dark and unpleasant, but it's also exciting and unpredictable.

The actors bring an appropriate amount of camp to their performances, spitting out slick comic-book-speak with just the right cadence.

Some of the characters aren’t able to achieve the same balance between fantasy and realism as the rest of the show.... Thankfully, Mooney isn’t as central a figure here as Bullock or Gordon, who together are fully capable of carrying the series, even without young Bruce. Logue gives an especially strong performance as Bullock, an exhausted, veteran crime-fighter who remains likable and charismatic even as his various failings seem inevitable.

McKenzie's best moments are all spent in his [new partner Harvey Bullock's (Donal Logue)] company. Bullock loosens him up even as Bullock puts him off, signaling that their uneasy partnership will become an easier one. He performs a similar service to the whole production, bringing it down to earth, keeping it from becoming too much of a comic-book gizmo with its wash of rain grays and rot rusts and spittoon bronzes and Frank Miller lighting effects.

Gordon and the graft permeating the GCPD can be compelling enough to sustain a Gotham story in which Batman doesn't yet exist. However, without the foil of Batman, the villains run the risk of appearing cartoonish.

As Gordon, Ben McKenzie is solid in a more theatrical version of the upright-cop role he played in “Southland.” Donal Logue is reliably blustery and sarcastic as Bullock. The biggest impressions are made by the villains, whose smaller roles are looser and more fun.... The real star of the Gotham pilot is its consistent style, a combination of production design, cinematography and writing that manages to evoke both the bang-pow 1940s spirit of the original “Batman” and post-”Blade Runner” neo-noir.

Gotham features some intriguing performances. But just because it's on at 8 and derived from a comic-book franchise doesn't mean it's kid stuff.

In its early going, Gotham is hamhanded and a little bombastic, but drop-dead gorgeous.

Gordon bristles with self-righteousness as he grimly takes the measure of Gotham's considerable underbelly. And that's where the lurid fun, such as it is, of Gotham can be found. And savored, as in Jada Pinkett Smith's sinewy nightclub gangster Fish Mooney.

Eventually, though, the series will need to get past some growing pains and mature into a drama that fully embraces the comic-book elements. You may have doubts about Heller reaching that destination, but, with this blazing a start, you'll want to be along for the thrill ride as he sets out to solve that riddle.

This is solid, confidently made television, the kind of programming that has me interested in where it’s going next thanks to high production values and an expertly assembled cast.

Agents of SHIELD always felt like a series that was missing a center (those superheroes), and it took a lot of episodes for the series to even find its own way and establish its own characters as at least semi-interesting substitutes to what you got at the movies. Gotham, on the other hand, arrives as its own entity, a wholly realized universe, in a separate time and place, with enough intriguing characters and a stylized visual presence that is immediately intriguing.

Darkly atmospheric origin series and movies have become a cliché.... But the strong cast could make this one fly.

More troubling is the show's undercurrent of utter confidence, which sits uncomfortably with the clunky drama and borrowed style onscreen. Its best moments are carried by the actors; its worst might give you the disquieting impression that the makers of Gotham think you'll watch pretty much anything if the characters have the same names as characters from the DC universe.

It’s unclear from the pilot how all these players fit together.... Gotham could rebound from its overly familiar opening episode. Maybe the villains will become more than the sum of their early cameos. And certainly the presence of actors of the caliber of McKenzie and Logue, capably playing odd-couple police partners, offers promise.

Though it abounds in diverting window-dressing, Gotham is literally all dressed up with nowhere to go: It's a derivative copy of a copy in search of a real governing identity.

It's too dour and it takes itself too seriously, but it has potential.

The Fox series is a handsome, gritty crime drama, with Ben McKenzie as the idealistic young cop and Donal Logue as his grizzled, ethically compromised partner. Yet if the show is supposed to work for its peripheral connection to the Dark Knight and his colorful menagerie of villains before they became such...well, that bat simply won’t fly.