Here's what we know so far about Fox's upcoming
Gotham TV series. The setting will be a pre-Batman Gotham City, back when costumed criminals were still just regularly clothed criminals, before things go so bad that they needed a vigilante in a cape to beat said criminals to a pulp without all that pesky due-process nonsense. The show's main character will be a young Detective James Gordon, way before he was Gotham's police commissioner. He'll be played by Ben McKenzie of the OC and Southland. The show will kick off with the murder of little boy Bruce Wayne's parents, a somewhat significant event in that character's life. The show recently added cast members to play Alfred Pennyworth, Harvey Bullock, Captain Sarah Essen, Gordon's fiancee Barbara and Oswald Cobblepot, better known as The Penguin. But we're not here to talk about casting. The show is being developed by Bruno Heller, who created HBO's
Rome and network TV's
The Mentalist. Now, these are two very different shows. While Rome was a dense, character driven series full of power struggles and double-crossing, The Mentalist is a show I've never seen that kind of sounds like
Psych, minus the pineapples and pop-culture references. The way Gotham is executed could go in so many different directions, and there's already a ton of pressure on Mr. Heller to do these characters and the mythology justice. There's so many mistakes that can be made, and the internet is ready to pounce. Fortunately for Mr. Heller, he can just turn on his TV and learn from what a lot of shows like this are doing right and what even more shows like this are doing wrong.