7 Most Hotly Anticipated Upcoming TV Series This Fall

3. Gotham (FOX, September)

Don't act as if you're not going to watch this. As daft as a Batman story without Batman in it seems, all of the promotional material and trailers have actually made the story of baby Bruce Wayne, Jim Gordon and chums look kind of worth watching, if only to see just how creepy the young Oswald Cobblepot and how awesome Sean Pertwee as an ex-marine Alfred Pennyworth are. The series was originally meant to be a straightforward police procedural about Gordon's early days on the force, but will now also focus on Bruce Wayne's development as well as the origin stories of many of his future foes. A police procedural set in Gotham, a la the Gotham Central comic series by Greg Rucka, Ed Brubaker and Michael Lark sounds like a dream already, so some extra superhero lore thrown in there can't really hurt, can it? From the looks of things, if it isn't completely misjudged by everyone from the network to the audience, it could run and run for years, in which all of the characters will age, including little Brucie. Does that mean that one day we could see Gotham evolve into a Young Batman show in the vein of Smallville? Let's hope so.