3. Where Are The Bad Guys?
Every hero needs a villain so who's going to be Jim Gordon's nemesis? In the comics it's essentially Joker, the man who murdered his wife and crippled his daughter, which also makes him a closer friend to Batman, though he helps the Dark Knight out on nearly every costumed crazy. But there's no Joker in Gotham yet. There's no Poison Ivy, as she's just a kid, as is Catwoman (Catgirl?). Penguin is a two-bit thug. Riddler is a coroner. So if the colourful bad guys you know, the ones people are tuning in to see aren't there yet, who will Gordon face? Random street hustlers, drug dealers, cartoony mob guys? Yawn. Maybe he fights corruption within the force, which might be interesting might, because you can only do this storyline for so long before it gets dull but isn't especially Batman-y. And the villain does need to be Batman related because this is a Batman-esque show. That leaves the Falcones and Maronis; the mob families from books like The Long Halloween, Year One and the 2005 Nolan movie, Batman Begins. But cops vs. gangsters? What a cliché! And it's not appealing enough to bring in the Batman crowd or keep it for long anyway - and while a lot of villains appear here before they become villains, it's widely accepted that the costumed villains don't begin to appear until Batman comes onto the scene so, at least 10 years away then. There's no strong villain presence in this series a bit like the lack of a strong hero, which brings me to...