Your Version of Gotham

[BatmAngelus]

Like the other "Your Version of..." threads. This one might be trickier since we haven't seen all of Season 1 play out yet, but I think we've seen enough to judge.

I'll start...

- Make it more of an ensemble drama show along the lines of Game of Thrones/Walking Dead or, to use older examples, Lost and Heroes. Less police procedural, more of different characters pursuing different storylines. The current show is mainly Gordon and the GCPD as A story, with the mob story as B story and Bruce's story as C story. I would flip it and have Bruce's story take more screentime as A story, give the mob stuff about the same as B story, and have the GCPD/politics as the ongoing runner/C story.

- Get Bruce out of the damn living room for most of the episodes and actually do the "Shadow of the Bat" concept that Kevin Smith and Paul Dini came up with in that Fatman on Batman episode. (Will relisten to that and edit this post to give a rundown on what that was, but it's essentially young Bruce investigating something sinister going on at a boarding school).
Skip to 37:50: http://smodcast.com/episodes/paul-dini-shadow-of-the-bat/
- Bruce chooses the school because he's investigating a secret society, The Court of Owls, that's developing in it and believes that the society is tied into how his parents were killed. He knows that the son of one of the society members goes to that school (i.e. possibly Falcone's son), so he goes there to investigate.
- He also goes to the school for their athletic training program and convinces Ted Grant (Wildcat) to train him. Would have to
- Silver St. Cloud, Zatanna, Harvey Dent ,and Tommy Elliot as classmates. I know the show is bringing in the latter two characters, but I'd prefer Harvey as Bruce's roommate rather than a young ADA who's much older. Smith and Dini proposed that Dent was a poor kid who got in on a scholarship and Bruce defends him in an incident and they become roommates.
- The origins of the Joker Venom.

- GCPD: I've always liked the idea of Gordon being the cop who tried to find the Waynes' killer, so I'd keep that.

- While Bullock is older than I'd prefer, Gordon does need someone to interact with and this would work a lot better with a morally gray cop with potential character development like that than, say, Flass who was straight up corrupt. So I'd keep Bullock, too, but maybe have him around the same age as Gordon (I'm not comfy with the idea of Bullock being older than the commissioner by the time Batman comes into the picture). The rest of the GCPD, though, I'd shake it up.

- Replace Captain Essen with Commissioner Loeb (and hell, have John Doman play him instead simply 'cause he looks more like that character). Make Loeb an actual intimidating, corrupt presence. At the moment, the show doesn't really have a GCPD antagonist who intimidates Gordon into "sticking with the program." Bullock currently veers too much between trying to play this role and being his partner who pulls him out of trouble. The show's Essen isn't defined enough to do this either. So give us Loeb, which will also make us understand why Gordon will fail to clean up the city since his hands are too tied. Possibly bring in Flass as the muscle and, to contrast from Bullock, make it the Year One Flass who's the intimidating ex-Green Beret.

- Cut Crispus Allen. He's not adding anything of any substance at the moment.

- I'd rather not have Edward as the forensics guy, but I can't honestly think of a replacement at the moment.

- Have Gordon in a shooting with The Wrath's parents, as well as Wesley Mathis, the father of the Dollmaker.

- Replace Montoya with the comic version of Sarah Essen and make the love triangle between Gordon, Barbara, and Essen, like in Year One.  I don't care for the version of Montoya in the show. It's not just the fact that she's now a contemporary of Gordon. She just comes across as the jealous, borderline creepy ex who is out to get Jim at all costs for petty reasons. Instead, I'd have it as Essen as Gordon's ex before he left Gotham and now he has to work with her. Barbara may know their history and it adds an actual layer of subtext now whenever Barbara gets worried about why Gordon is spending so much time on the job.

- Give Gordon and Barbara a way more modest apartment. It's weird for me to see Gordon live in luxury like in the show. Give him a more down to earth place.

- I know Leslie Thompkins is coming to the show. Think it would've been more organic/true to the comics if she had been introduced in the pilot and had to work with Alfred in how to take care of Bruce and aided Alfred's arc as well in learning to become a father figure. Could also play up and develop the Alfred-Leslie romance.

- Make Carmine Falcone younger and give him the Long Halloween backstory in which Thomas Wayne saved his life. Will add an interesting dynamic between Falcone and Alfred/Bruce.

- Would've replaced the "Balloon Man" with Judson Caspian/The Reaper

- Superficial thing: Have Gordon wear glasses (like in Gordon of Gotham), so he can at least feel like a young Jim Gordon.