Nearly five years ago, Danny Cannon released the pilot of the highly successful Fox show, ‘Gotham’. Since then, it has received remarkable acclaim from DC fans because of the different light it brings to a story we’ve seemingly heard over and over again. Despite its massive praise, the show came to a close on Thursday, April 25.

I thought as a way to commemorate the shows successful five year run, I’d go through the highs and lows, reviewing the actor’s performances and then the show’s entirety.

The tv show focused on Bruce Wayne’s evolution into becoming the bat himself, as well as many characters that surround him, like Selina Kyle, Penguin and arguably Batman’s most notorious enemy, the Joker. With such timeless characters to be played, Cannon made sure to build a stellar cast that delivered something new to each of their characters.

When looking at each individual actors’ performance, it would almost be sacrilegious as a fan of the show to not mention the marvelous job Cory Michael Smith did as Ed Nygma, as well as Robin Taylor’s Oswald Cobblepot and Cameron Monaghan’s Jerome and Jeremiah Valeska.

These three arguably had the most notable performances on the show, indicated by these characters’ popularity; they were without a doubt the show stealers. Even with Cameron not being in the majority of episodes, his acting chops made his characters stand out, even when he wasn’t on screen.

Smith’s portrayal of Nygma provided a new angle to the character, showing the emotional distress he was constantly going through that would lead to his eventual snap. Taylor’s performance as Cobblepot was oozing with charisma, and just the right amount of creepiness to keep you slightly freaked out, seemingly never being able to turn away from the oddly lovable character.

Some other notable portrayals were Camren Bicondova as Selina Kyle, David Mazouz as Bruce Wayne and Anthony Carrigan as Victor Zsasz.

When looking at each individual season, I would have to say my favorite by far was season four. Not only did it include my favorite character Victor Zsasz in multiple episodes, but it seemed to have a major plot twist that kept viewers hooked almost every episode.

Since this is a later season, the characters have nearly fully developed into the people they’re supposed to be in the future. Because of that, we get to see these stellar characters in action, and that’s enough to make any Batman fan jump for joy.

My least favorite season, due to it’s slow pace, was season one. When I watched it, I never truly noticed how tedious the premier season of the show was. When I watched it back after seeing the other seasons, I was extremely surprised. In no way was it bad, but it came off as uneventful compared to the later seasons.

Due to the amount of character development this season has to go through, nothing major really happened until season two, once the characters were more defined.

Despite how much I would love to continue to hype up one of my favorite programs, it is in no way perfect. When looking at the few flaws the show has, the one that seems to come up in my mind the most is some of the scenes or episodes in this show almost gave off the impression of being rushed or having a low budget, which may have been the cause in a few cases.

The issue was either the setting looked cheaply made, or the dialogue of certain people seemed very out of character. Despite how annoying it can be when that happens, it rarely occurred, to the point that I was able to ignore it when it did.

Gotham was one of the few superhero shows I have been able to watch in the past few years. When I attempted to watch similar shows, I was met with the same conclusion of them either being way too different compared to the comics, or being an overdone version of the same origin story I’ve heard time and time again.

Gotham was one of the few programs that I was eminently impressed by, due to the new element it provided to arguably the most famous superhero of all time. It’s a show I will definitely be going back to watch again, and something I highly recommend.

Rating: 9/10

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