Author: Neil Vagg

‘The Blind Fortune Teller’ continues a run of incredibly strong episodes with another huge DC Comics connection and a brilliant case of the week which may (or most likely not) give us our first experience of Gotham’s very own Joker. Fans have been aware for some time that this episode would feature a guest appearance by the future Grayson family prior to the birth of their son Richard ‘Dick’ (Robin, Nightwing etc…) Grayson. What we weren’t aware of was another character who might be waiting in the wings at Haly’s Circus. Let’s start out with the setting : Haly’s Circus is…

Last weeks opening gambit in the Scarecrow saga ‘The Fearsome Dr. Crane’ (reviewed here) paved the way for one of the more creepy and twisted episodes of ‘Gotham’. It’s like a mini-serialised story within a show which is predominantly all serialised stories. Gerald Crane continues to conduct experiments on victims from his support group whilst Bullock and Gordon investigate his background. Discovering he lost his wife in a fire years ago they deduce that his own fear is what caused him to be unable to save his wife. Believing he can ultimately abolish fear Crane is experimenting on adrenal glands…

Romance is in the air in ‘Gotham’ with the first of a two-part episode exploring the backstory to the famous Batman villain The Scarecrow. ‘The Fearsome Dr. Crane’ is a wonderfully misleading title as all of us were kept guessing about just how the show would introduce Jonathan Crane aka the Scarecrow. I didn’t see the twist coming that he would be nothing but a teenager. Instead the episode focusses on his father Gerald Crane (Julian Sands) who poses as a victim attending a support group to identify the subjects for his fear experiments. The introduction of a pre-Scarecrow history…

It’s the return of Bruce and Alfred this week in ‘Welcome Back, Jim Gordon’ an episode that seeks to bring about a change in power in ‘Gotham’. Another heavily serialised episode of the freshman show which picks up very quickly after the events of previous episode ‘What the Little Bird Told Him’ (check out our thoughts on that episode here) with Fish Mooney being held captive by Don Falcone and Penguin riding high on his most recent successes. Happiest of the bunch his Jim Gordon who has made a triumphant return to the GCPD after helping capture Jack Buchinsky. The most…

‘What the Little Bird Told Him’ continues a run of strong episodes for Fox’s ‘Gotham’ pushing the serialised elements of the show further to the forefront. I remain a little baffled that ‘Gotham’ is allowed to proceed with such a heavily serialised storyline when ‘Sleepy Hollow’ is continually criticised by Fox execs and so publicly being pushed in the other direction. Picking up where ‘Rogues’ Gallery’ (reviewed here) left off Jack Gruber and Aaron Danzing are rampaging through the city after escaping the confines of Arkham and with the help of Edward Nygma; Bullock and Gordon quickly work out that Don…

This week our new favourite show ‘Gotham’ returned to screens in the US with it’s first new episode since November ‘Rogues’ Gallery’. When last we left our hero James Gordon he had been dismissed from the GCPD after the death of Dick Lovecraft – see our review of ‘Harvey Dent’ & ‘Love Craft’ for more – and shipped off to the newly opened Arkham Asylum to live out his days on guard duty. Picking up after the break we find Gordon watching the inmates of Arkham putting on a show which unsurprisingly ends in attempted murder. During this sequence we…

This week ‘Gotham’ bows out with its mid-season finale ‘Lovecraft’ a direct follow-on from last weeks ‘Harvey Dent’ (reviewed here). Where ‘Harvey Dent’ focussed on a little less of the action and more of the characters by manipulating them to where they need to be for this episode, ‘Lovecraft’ by comparison ramps up the action. Sadly it fails to leave us with an edge-of-your-seat cliffhanger but it does make some changes which will provide an interesting backdrop for the second half of the season. The episode opens with an assault on Wayne manor lead by familiar character Copperhead – you…

With previous episode ‘The Mask’ (reviewed here) ‘Gotham’ dipped in to some of the deeper Batman lore by introducing Tommy Elliot and Richard Sionis as supporting characters in it’s story of the week. This week ‘Gotham’ goes one step further by introducing a hugely popular character from the comics and even naming the episode after him. ‘Harvey Dent’ marks the first appearance of Nicholas D’Agosto as the titular Harvey who, at this stage, is already an Assistant District Attorney. For his first appearance the eager ADA works alongside Gordon under the belief that Gotham tycoon Dick Lovecraft is behind the…

Coming off the back of a slow burning episode with ‘Penguin’s Umbrella’ (reviewed here) fans of ‘Gotham’ need a little injection of action to bring back the excitement and thankfully we got that with ‘The Mask’. Straying off the fully serialised episode we get more of a monster-of-the-week setup although that overarching mob story is still bubbling away nicely in the background. Firstly: the setup. The episode opens with a slightly mysterious sequence in a dimly lit office where we get to see two guys menace each other to death before one of the bodies turns up just in time…

The intensity of Fox’s ‘Gotham’ is beginning to step up rapidly week-by-week as the serialised nature of the show really begins to pull all the various threads together. Where Fox is actively pushing shows like ‘Sleepy Hollow’ to move away from the serialised structure to allow audiences to dip in and out ‘Gotham’ is continuing to forge ahead with the mob war storyline that pulls all of the major players in to the action. For a show originally billed as an origin of the city which would feature the future Commissioner Gordon in the lead role the show has spent…