Gotham (series)
 | This Work page is a stub. You can help All The Tropes by expanding it. If you have checked or updated this page and found the content to be suitable, please remove this notice. |
 | The content of this page is outdated If you have checked or updated this page and found the content to be suitable, please remove this notice. |
Gotham is an American crime television series developed by Bruno Heller, based on characters appearing in and published by DC Comics in their Batman franchise, primarily those of Detective James Gordon and Bruce Wayne. The series stars Ben McKenzie as the young Gordon. Heller is the executive producer along with Danny Cannon, who also directed the pilot. Gotham received a series order from Fox on May 5, 2014, and premiered on September 22, 2014. The series ran for five seasons, concluding on April 25, 2019.
As originally conceived, the series would have served as a straightforward story of Gordon's early days on the Gotham City police force. The idea evolved not only to include the Bruce Wayne character, but will also tell the origin stories of several Batman villains, including Penguin, Riddler, Catwoman, Joker, Poison Ivy, Scarecrow, Hugo Strange, Harvey Dent, Mr. Freeze and Victor Zsasz. The first season order consists of sixteen episodes.
A new recruit in Captain Sarah Essen's Gotham City Police Department, Detective James Gordon is paired with Harvey Bullock to solve one of Gotham's highest-profile cases: the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne. During his investigation, Gordon meets the Waynes' son Bruce, now in the care of his butler Alfred Pennyworth, which further compels Gordon to catch the mysterious killer. Along the way, Gordon must confront mobstress Fish Mooney, mafia led by Carmine Falcone, as well as many of Gotham's future villains such as Selina Kyle, Edward Nygma, and Oswald Cobblepot. Eventually, Gordon is forced to form an unlikely friendship with Wayne, one that will help shape the boy's future in his destiny of becoming a crusader
- Acceptable Feminine Goals: Season 1 reeks of this; Leslie Thomkins is the only female character who comes out on top (relatively speaking), because she's the only one who seeks a happy, stable relationship with a man.
- Affably Evil: Carmine Falcone. Oh, he'll murder you for your betrayal at a dinner meeting as an example to the rest of the underbosses, or strangle you to death for emotionally manipulating him to get at his secrets, or lock you up and torture you for being a incorruptible judge, but at least he's gentlemanly about it, so that makes it okay. Also, he likes animals, and raises chickens at home.
- Came Back Wrong: First Victor Fries, when he tries to off himself with his own freezing formula. Which turns him into the Mr Freeze we know and love. Then Theo Galavan when Hugo Strange uses the Fries' reanimation formula to bring him back. Turning him into a crazy schizophrenic religious fanatic named Azrael.
- Designated Girl Fight: In the Season 1 finale, between the ax-crazy Barbara Kean and Leslie Thomkins.
- Dirty Coward: Oswald Cobblepot.
- Faux Affably Evil: Sal Maroni is a raging douchebag who only acts cordial when it suits him. He and Falcone are just about equally as brutal.
- Film Noir: The show has elements of this, especially given how part of the focus is on Gordon's early days in the Gotham City Police Department.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Harvey Bullock references this trope by name in S01E03, when he attempts to dispose of the villain by tying him to his own weather balloon.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Boy, it's a good thing for Jim in the Season 1 finale that none of Maroni's henchmen can shoot down a perfectly straight hallway.
- Karma Houdini: Both Carmine Falcone and Oswald Cobblepot. A season of criminal sociopathy goes entirely unpunished, as one retires to his summer home, and the other stays to become the new King of Gotham.
- Manipulative Bastard: Oswald Cobblepot.
- Retro Universe: Similarly to Batman: The Animated Series, everything in the show is a melange of various decades in the 20th Century. In this case, elements from the 1950s-70s tends to be predominant. Word of God states that it's meant to give Gotham a timeless feel.
- Too Dumb to Live: In the Season 1 finale, Don Sal Maroni proves to be this, gleefully denying Fish Mooney equal partnership in control of Gotham and then needlessly egging them on.