100 Episodes of Gotham

Gotham Cast - Barbara Kean, Penguin, Tabitha, Riddler, Poison Ivy (?), Bruce Wayne, Jim Gordon, Selina Kyle (Cat Woman), Alfred Pennyworth, Lucius Fox, Harvey Bullock, Lee Tompkins, 

We finished watching all five seasons of Gotham (4 x 22 = 88, + 12 = 100) It isn't a great show, but it was very entertaining. The sets and the costuming are great. The characters are all insane, to various degrees, from mildly neurotic to way out there orbiting Saturn. Likewise the criminal schemes that the villains come up with (or should I say screenwriters?) are wildly inventive. 

Penguin & The Riddler

The whole thing is ridiculous, but the characters are great, especially Penguin and The Riddler. In spite of being murderous thugs, they are only slightly crazy and do believe in civilization, unlike most of the other deranged villains.

Although much of the 'science' behind the criminal schemes is not real, enough of it is close enough to real science that you can see a madman could plausibly wreak the destruction they are planning, and in some cases actually do, like blowing up all the bridges that connect the island of Manhattan, er, Gotham, to the mainland. And then we get to see what happens to a city when law & order collapses. Similar, I imagine, to what has happened to numerous cities in the Mid-east and North Africa in recent years.

The sex angle was kind of curious. In the first season we see Jim Gordon getting into and out of bed with various beautiful women. All that stops in the 2nd and 3rd seasons, though there is period when Bruce Wayne is out partying with his peers and I seem to recall a couple of scenes with him in bed with various young women. Then in season 4, necklines on all the leading ladies plunge to the navel, but that is all there is, I don't think there is so much as a kiss. Season 5 goes full soap opera with the evil Barbara Kean getting knocked up by Jim, who then turns around and marries Lee Tompkins.

Just so you know this is comic-book land, nobody ever really dies. Oh, extras like henchmen and civilians get knocked off left, right and center, but the main characters never really die, even though they suffer grievous wounds. Sometimes it is a miracle of modern surgery combined with an iron constitution. Sometimes it's mysterious fluids acting in magical ways.

The most annoying villain might be Jervis Tetch and his hypnotic spells to which everyone seems to be susceptible. Some of cases are implausible, at best, but his mass hypnotism seems an awful lot like real-life cults, like the Democrats.

The worst part was the ritual promises and advice exchanged by the heroes, like not killing anybody, but then killing any number of non-essential characters, but failing to kill villains when they have the opportunity and the villain obviously needs killing.