Where the scripts and character sometimes let Gotham down, the one thing that keeps people tuning in is the performances. Chief among them is veteran character actor Donal Logue as Harvey Bullock, a long-time character from the Batman comics who always seems to be dancing between sides of a moral line in every incarnation. Logue manages to sell lines like This is war, we're at war with scumbags like him. Sometimes in war you gotta do a bad thing to do good, right? So do you do this bad thing, or do you die and maybe your girl dies?, which hint at a complexity to Bullock which isn't really there. But it easily could be. This is a boon time for morally complex characters on television, which means there's plenty of room for Harvey Bullock to be amongst them, and no excuse for him not to be. Quit it with the slovenliness and corruption-as-standard, give some explanation for his change of detective style and perhaps a reason not to despise him as Gordon does.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
