One reason why so many fans held out hope that Gotham would turn out decent, maybe even amazing, was because of the man that Fox had appointed as its head showrunner: Bruno Heller. Creator of Rome and The Mentalist, Gotham appeared as if it might be the perfect amalgamation of styles for Heller, one part epic and bombastic drama, the other part calculating and subtle procedural. In theory, it should have worked splendidly; in reality, however, the results were decidedly unexceptional. Regardless of the why behind the shows failure to cohere the way that it should too many writers? Excessive studio input? Heller simply not getting the appeal of a comic book-based program as this? the end product remains as is: a weird, haphazardly fused amalgamation of three or four wildly different shows that, when viewed as a single work, is simultaneously both despondently fascinating and maddeningly inconsistent. Moment to moment, you never really know what youre going to get with Gotham: is it going to be a gritty crime drama in the vein of Nolans Batman movies, or is it going to hew closer to the dark whimsy of Tim Burtons films? Is it going to aim for some of that Batman: The Animated Series-esque bombast, or is it instead going to go for something tamer and more colorful, ala the 1960s Batman series starring Adam West and Burt Ward? It doesnt really matter which one Gotham decides to be; just that it picks one and then sticks with it.
