This week’s episode of Gotham is a transitional point for the season as the events of the last episode changed the status quo for many of the characters. It is typically difficult for an episode following a climactic event to continue the momentum and also set up the stage for what is to come, but this episode manages to find enough interesting beats to play with only a few instances of padding.
Last weekend during the Fox executive session at the Television Critics Association press tour, Fox chairman and CEO Dana Waldron talked at length about their plans for the spring, which included thoughts on the direction of Sleepy Hollow. Waldron held off on announcing a season three renewal (even after handing them out to Empire, Gotham, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine), but said they were “hopeful” and there were ongoing conversations with the creative team. Citing a “high level of difficulty” in balancing the show’s characterization and mythology, she said that the show was “a little overly serialized” and promised that there would be a shift to “something that feels a bit more episodic in nature… it’s all about calibrating the show, not making dramatic changes.”
In this week’s Gotham, Gordon returns to the Gotham City Police Department to regain his Detective rank but in order to do that he has to prove himself to Commission Loeb by bringing in the Arkham Asylum inmate that escaped in “Rogues’ Gallery” under his watch. This episode shows Gordon revitalized and more focused with the understanding that he needs to be at the GCPD and nowhere else; it’s where he wants to be and where he can do the most good. We have seen Gordon be all gun ho before as in “Penguins Umbrella” but this time he’s taking charge and asserting himself, where before he was acting reckless with unrealistic goals.
“I want to believe.” This has been the motto for many an X-Files fanatic. Although there were over 200 episodes in the 1990s, a spin-off, comic books, and two films released in theaters, the fans always want more. Well, the prayers to those up above (God or aliens) have been answered. According to Deadline, the …
Gotham returns from its break with a solid episode that continues the shifting status quo, with many darker turns and just a few flashes of hope. “Rogues’ Gallery” gives us our first real look into how Arkham Asylum is run and it’s just as criminally understaffed and underdeveloped as one would imagine. Gordon gets no sympathy from his managing director Gerry Lang, as he is constantly berated by Lang for having inmates break into fights under his watch. The only promising turn of events during Gordon’s time at Arkham Asylum is his alliance with Dr. Leslie Thompkins. She is a beacon of hope that will be an essential asset in Gordon’s war against the corruption of Gotham City.
Ryan Murphy’s horror-comedy anthology series on Fox, Scream Queens, has cast its first two major leads. The Hollywood Reporter confirms that Emma Roberts and Jamie Lee Curtis have been cast, but details on their characters are currently being kept under wraps. Roberts has had experience working in the genre on Murphy’s American Horror Story and …
Red Band Society’s first season has been suffering from tonal problems and narrative inconsistency throughout most of its run, but with this final episode of the year, the show was able to find a way to unify the story, as well as develop the characters in a way that felt genuine, with promise for interesting growth. After a string of episodes that have felt disjointed from one another, emotionally contrived, and at times completely ridiculous and unremarkable, the fall finale shines. The episode effectively gives the kids an emotional story, having them react to the departure of two fellow red band-ers from the hospital, with the adults handling their own plot about interoffice dating.
The musical comedy group Lonely Island, known most for their entertaining SNL digital shorts, will be developing three projects for FOX, according to Variety. Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone, the members of Lonely Island, have fittingly titled their production studio Party Over Hand. The three projects, all comedies, will be the start of a …
The new story arc of Gotham continues to build steam by breaking up one major couple, creating curious alliances between heroes and villains, and introducing new players to the game. So far the series has focused on the darker side of Gotham City, with its citizens bringing justice through criminal means, but with “Harvey Dent”, we are shown the other side, with an episode that is a little brighter and a little more fun but that doesn’t lose the edge of the gritty reality Gotham has already established.
The season enters a new arc on Gotham as the fallout of last week’s episode, “Penguin’s Umbrella”, begins to take effect. Gordon tried to take down Falcone and failed, but managed to set an example of what a good cop is capable of and also shed a light on how inactive the Gotham City Police Department is, as none of his colleagues came to aid Gordon against Victor Zsasz. This brings out some interesting development between Gordon and Captain Sarah Essen, who regrets not braving the storm with him. The example that he has set has also affected Bullock, who’s now on Team Gordon, which is a highlight of the episode, in particular when Bullock gives a rallying speech to the GCPD.
“Arkham” picks up right where we left off last week with Oswald Cobblepot at Jim Gordon’s front door, which had potential for an explosive outcome. Although not as incendiary as one might have thought, “Arkham” does pull all the subplots of the previous episodes together and sheds some light on the significance Arkham will have in this series. Gotham has done very well integrating its case of the week stories with the overarching plot in the past but now it’s brought the war between Carmine Falcone and Sal Maroni to the forefront and this gives viewers a look at the key players and their motives.
Last week Gotham explored the crime and corruption of the Gotham City government and on this week’s episode “The Balloonman” we are presented with the first signs of retaliation against that rising corruption in the form of vigilantism. The vigilante hero is a large element of the Batman mythos and it’s surprising that the show would address it so early on in the series, but they do add their own twist on it by making the vigilante hero the villain rather than Gotham City’s savior. This episode also continues in the dulling out of plot threads from last week’s episode but without really adding too much other than more tension, which continues to rise up until the end of the episode where finally things appear to be coming to a head with Oswald Cobblepot making his return to Gotham known to Gordon.
After a full throttle pilot, Gotham switches to a slower gear in order to explore the issues facing Gotham’s inner city children, and the failing of its government system on how they’re handled. The corruption of Gotham City reaches just as high as Gordon had suspected, and it’s not simply that the Mayor is in Falcone’s pocket. There’s a general flaw in the system of the City itself; everyone is trying to survive, and does so by looking out for themselves, and to hell with everyone else. Gotham City has been represented in comic books and other media adaptations as a city that breeds criminals, and by having a high poverty rate and children without homes or parents, the Gotham series may provide an answer for why that is. The inner city children are antagonized by the police and mistreated by the law system by being sent upstate into prison-like disciplinary facilities, and this is most likely the cause that riles up the citizens, making them push back.
Gotham is only one of the many additions to the booming rise of comic book television series and it’s looking as if there will be more to come following the news of latest acquisitions of comic book properties Lucifer by FOX, Titans by TNT and Supergirl by CBS. Amidst the many comic properties that are …
After years of rumors, 20th Century Fox has officially confirmed that they will be producing a film based on the popular Marvel character, Deadpool. The Hollywood Reporter and Fox’s Twitter account confirm the news and that Ryan Reynolds will be reprising his role as the “Merc With a Mouth”. Reynolds was one of the few …
Call it the calm before the storm. After a couple of weeks in which the action has been fairly frequent, the focus is narrowing as this season nears a close. This is a streamlined, effective episode that hits all the beats it needs to without much fluff. There are a few loose ends to tie up, and the wham-bam is a touch thin, but they’re necessary movements.
One of the reasons 24’s original run came to an end is that it was no longer original. It was running out of ideas and ways to tells stories without introducing moles, double-agents, and inorganic obstacles for Jack Bauer. What 24: Live Another Day has managed to do, so far, is to use familiar elements from the show but present them in a fresh way. While it doesn’t completely revitalize the franchise, it’s brought a solidly entertaining action-thriller back to the schedule.
Here’s the scorecard of recently announced TV cancellations and renewals, as we all bite our fingernails waiting for those final few verdicts to trickle in, particularly (I’m guessing), Nashville, Hannibal, and Community. UPDATE: Hannibal just renewed. ABC CANCELLED: Trophy Wife, Mixology, and Neighbors. (Comment: Trophy Wife was superbly cast and sweet and funny, if slight, …
The Following figured out the best thing going for the second season a couple weeks ago and has been playing it up ever since- Joe’s (James Purefoy) manipulation of Micah (Jake Weber) is perfection, easily distracting from some of the episodes’ issues. Joe has always been at his best as a character when he has a group to control and an audience to play to. His final moments in “Unmasked” highlight this point to a terrifying degree.
While the cast and technology on Almost Human has been fun to watch, the show’s unwillingness to follow up on story threads and weak characterisation have made its first season a letdown.
This Monday, Sept. 16th, FOX kicks off the 2013 Fall Network TV season with the return of fan-favorite procedural Bones and debut of the network’s first new drama offering, Sleepy Hollow. Tuesday, Sept. 17th will bring their two new comedies, Dads and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, as well as the return of New Girl and The Mindy …
Romance and harmless conflict run amuck in Irving Cummings’s That Night In Rio. The film follows American entertainer, Larry Martin (Don Ameche), as he impersonates his doppelganger, Baron Manuel Duarte. Once Manuel’s wife, Baroness Cecilia Duarte (Alice Faye) discovers the impersonation, she begins to want her husband to be as loving as the one portrayed by Larry. That Night In Rio also features several song and dance numbers from Carmen Miranda, at the time deemed “The Brazilian Bombshell.”
In almost everything, there is subtext, intentional or not. In the ‘not’ category is the significant black cloud coming with the silver lining of three massive developments in movieland this year. Firstly, after months of feverish speculation, J.J. Abrams was chosen as the man to helm the return of Star Wars to the big screen; he confirmed his worthiness for the role with the release of Star Trek Into Darkness, a mega-hit blockbuster action adventure putting the highly rated Star Trek 2009 into the shadows; almost in an attempt to draw attention away from Disney and Spielberg’s protégé, James Cameron announced that the most successful film of all time, his film Avatar, would indeed have the three sequels he had long discussed, thankfully with different screen writers covering the wordy bits. Cue much jubilation from fandom; the silver lining. The malignant black cloud, the subtext, was the continued throes of the science-fiction genre as it is starved to death.