“Petulance and naiveté are a bad combination.” That’s Police Commissioner Loeb (Peter Scolari) telling Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie) that he’s going about fighting corruption in the department the wrong way. But it might as well have been the audience rolling their eyes at yet another Gordon plan to stop corruption by yelling at people. Perhaps…
When I complained that Barbara Kean (Erin Richards) needed more to do on Gotham, her sexing up Selina (Camren Bicondova) isn’t what I had in mind. In an episode of Gotham filled with odd (and sometimes violent) twists, Barbara’s insistence that Selina would look great in an adult evening dress stands out. That’s going to…
My eldest son (19) wandered in during this week’s episode during the scene where the snake finds its handler’s body. I tried to explain. His response: “This show is so dumb.” Yes, it is. That was made even clearer when I watched Sleepy Hollow immediately after Gotham. After floundering for some time, Hollow has found…
Gotham has been a roller coaster ride most of this season, its overly-fast pacing covering over its many flaws. But now that we’re at Episode 15, it’s time to decide whether this show is worth watching next season or not. I’m on the fence and it’s for a reason I never imagined when the…
Despite people trying to kill them at least once a week, Jonathan and Jennifer Hart kept their marriage steamy. A close examination of Hart to Hart (1979-1984) reveals how they did it, and how other couples can use their methods to add more romance to a relationship. (Yes, even without luxury cars, access to a…
Gotham offers such wonderful bits and pieces of stories. This episode was no different but, still, I always wonder what the show would be like if it tightened its focus. For instance, Oswald and Maroni’s confrontation, doled out in frustrating fragments. They played a game of ‘tell the truth,” at an isolated cabin in a…
Welcome back, indeed. This was the most coherent and compelling episode of Gotham to date. Not only did we get the usual surface fun—Oswald and Mama Kapelput, Fish being gleefully defiant—but the story reached far deeper in simultaneously giving Jim and victory and a defeat. Gotham's unpredictability has always been a strength, and that’s in…
“You think you’ve been careful so far?” Lest we forget, Harvey Bullock repeats the phrase three times, each more incredulous than the last in the latest Gotham. It’s a perfect line, well-delivered by Donal Logue, and points out the single biggest issue with Gotham: Jim Gordon should be dead by now. But for plot reasons,…
Somehow, I expected Gotham’s biggest flaws to have vanished in its return. But the quick cuts between stories, the failure to give Gordon any plan for accomplishing his objectives, and the introduction of Batman villains for no particular reason are all flaws in stark evidence in “Rogues’ Gallery.” It’s a measure of how off Gotham’s…
I expected a great deal from Gotham. I expected it would be mostly a police procedural. I expected to strongly feature Jim Gordon, one of my favorite comic characters, and I expected it to be a street-level story. I also expected it to be good. It is good. But not in any way I’d anticipated.…
