10 Reasons Why We Need a Batman TV Show

10. They Could Ditch The €œCardboard Prison€ Trope

The whole €œvillains get locked up then reappear with no explanation€ gimmick is really old now. A live-action show with some sense of continuity and realism would have to account for the whereabouts of all its characters, rather than having them reappear out of the shadows like fairy-tale monsters. I always felt that a villain escaping or re-emerging should be a genuine event, an exclamation mark rather than a comma. Having Arkham Asylum or Blackgate Prison be revolving doors that only inconvenience super-villains is deeply silly in live-action and so obviously artificial that it brings me crashing out of the story. One of the things that Arkham Asylum did well was evoking the fear and danger of Joker€™s mass breakout, the sense of the walls of order crashing down to unleash the forces of madness on the world. In order for a TV show to properly thrill, Batman€™s victories have to mean something, which means a sparing, and therefore more effective use of iconic villains, and a genuine sense of dread, of a great evil re-afflicting the mean streets of Gotham, when they eventually return two seasons later.
Contributor

Peter Shelton hasn't written a bio just yet, but if they had... it would appear here.