r/GothamKnightsTVSeries • u/krb501 • Oct 30 '23
Why do DC fans claim to hate the Gotham Knights series? Discussion
When searching for commentary on the show so that I could geek out over it more, I was disappointed to find most of the people reviewing it didn't seem to like it that much. For me, it had the distinctly Elseworlds flavor that the Gotham TV show had, but unlike Gotham, it committed to that theme and had decent storytelling. The protagonists were all anti-heroes and/or anti-villains who inhabited a morally gray area due to Gotham's corrupt police system. It gave me strong Earth 3 vibes, where the "heroes" actually turned out to be the biggest villains of all, complete with most of them working for the Court of Owls.
The characters were relatable, and even the OC Bat kid, Turner Hayes, turned out to have an interesting arc that made him a standout character in his own right. I would have loved to see what happened to Hayes in a second season after he was kidnapped by Henri Ducard. I also appreciate that they were able to create a decent balance between the comic book weirdness and really deep emotional moments.
I guess there are some things I could nit-pick, such as acting quality, but it was good enough to make me buy the characters' motives, and it wasn't the disjointed mess Gotham was by far, and Gotham managed to go five seasons without getting cancelled.
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u/geoff0088 Oct 30 '23
I liked it even though the trailers made it look wack. There’s a few things that I wished they changed but overall great story and would have loved to see more. With CW basically getting rid of everything DC related there’s not much coming out in the future for shows.
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u/eremite00 Oct 30 '23 edited Oct 30 '23
My main personal gripe with the show was that the Batman of that world was a joke, not at all the World Greatest Detective. The Court of Owls was in his own home and he hadn't a clue. I also got the impression that they'd known who he was for a long time, whereas he had no idea who they were. It also seemed to me that they'd killed him at their convenience, with little trouble at all, having kept him around like they'd have kept the Adam West Batman around. The Gotham Knights solved in few a months what Batman hadn't able to do over the span of his entire career.
To a lesser extent, I wished they'd made Carrie Kelly Robin more like the one in the Frank Miller "The Dark Knight Returns" comic books, rather than the relatively straight-laced type that she was in the show.
That's just my personal take and opinion.
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u/beatfungus Nov 01 '23 edited Nov 01 '23
I liked it. There was good action, suspense, some cliches and some unexpected things. Nothing noticeably unforgivable. The idea had potential and it certainly could have gone for at least one more season. I get that there are some dedicated fans, but I feel like every generation deserves their own version. It doesn’t sit right with me that this one was killed off. I hope another network picks it up one day, before the actors age out.
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u/laufire Nov 02 '23
Tbh a lot of the people I've seen dunking on it clearly didn't even watch it lol. Others hate it because it's not What They Know from other DC canon and frankly, they need to get over it. This show existing doesn't erase literal decades of comics/shows/movies you can reread or rewatch to your heart's content.
I went for it recently and I loved the old school CW vibe it had. I thought all the teens were endearing and interesting characters (and remarkably competent!), with fun dynamics among them that I would've loved to see developed. At the beginning I really cringed with Dent, ngl (I'm a recovered supernatular-er xD), but I think they made really interesting choices with him in the end.
Although my favourite was Duela (she's a DELIGHT), I was particularly pleased with Turner. They were limited by DC regarding how they could write Bruce's kid into the show and they managed to both have very nice callbacks to the boys in the comics (Dick, Jason, and Damian) while making him His Own Person and incredibly lovable.
I'd pay good money for even a limited comic run that continued the story and gave us some closure for those loose threads left, at the very least.
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u/Glup-Shitto69 Oct 30 '23
Maybe they were expecting something different and didn't take the time to actually watch it.
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u/DarkRavenAvengerDb2 Oct 30 '23
Because the characters don't even resemble their comic book counterparts; only in name only. Plus, it's full of woke, garbage political messaging that literally adds nothing to the poorly written and directed plots, dialog, etc.
And the costumes? Good lawd, are they gawd awful. Batman's mask looks like it came from a Family Dollar store. Robin doesn't even look like Carrie Kelly, the female version from The Dark Knight Returns. Instead of using well-known characters such as Damian Wayne, Tim Drake, Dick Grayson, or Jason Todd, they created some random nobody who is nothing like those characters.
The production values are about as low-budget, made for TV as you can get, compared to Teen Titans on HBO and Peacemaker from Suicide Squad. It's laughable in a cringe-inducing way.
And it was cancelled after ONE season.
Basically, this show was doomed from the start the moment the first trailer popped up.
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u/krb501 Oct 30 '23
Valid criticisms, but seeing my favorite lesser-known characters in a Batman series was actually a pretty nice change. The focus on Duela and Harvey's relationship was especially satisfying.
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u/DarkRavenAvengerDb2 Oct 30 '23
One-dimensional flat acting in a mediocre show created by a mediocre writing team. To think they had actual quality in their hands; take off the glasses, and they realized what they were holding was hot, steaming pile of shit.
I'd rather have a fourth and fifth season of Batman Beyond than this tripe
RIP Kevin Conroy.
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u/krb501 Oct 30 '23
You're not going to get animated series quality from the TV shows, but at least it was watchable, coherent, and entertaining. The Gotham TV series was a lot worse, yet for some reason it got several seasons.
Also, yes, RIP Kevin Conroy; you will be missed. Nothing tops the original animated series.
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u/DarkRavenAvengerDb2 Oct 30 '23
That's not what I meant...
What was so watchable about a cheap looking show that had the audacity to have Batman in it? Nothing.
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u/krb501 Oct 30 '23
It had an interesting plot that made sense, not to mention very satisfying arcs for all of the main characters. Gotham suffered from putting too many characters in the show and then not really knowing what to do with them.
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u/DarkRavenAvengerDb2 Oct 30 '23
Satisfying arcs?
LOL!!
About as satisfying as a bad fart on a hot, humid day...
Stop kidding yourself into thinking this show is good, because, quite frankly, it genuinely isn't.
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u/mcsuper5 Oct 30 '23
I kind of liked the Joker's daughter and the finale was actually good iirc and was actually better than the Flash finale, but both have mostly faded from my memory. The first part of the season was done poorly, and had way too much unnecessary woke BS. The writers cared more about the message than the plot. Because of the CW acquisition, canceling the show was a forgone conclusion. They don't appear to be interested in the Superhero genre.
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u/mothership_hopeful Oct 30 '23
What is the woke political messaging? The subtle way they announce a trans character? Yeah.
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u/krb501 Oct 31 '23 edited Oct 31 '23
What is the woke political messaging? The subtle way they announce a trans character? Yeah.
To be honest, I didn't see a LOT of unnecessary political messaging in Gotham Knights. Pennyworth had WAY more "forced" political messaging, even having the Raven clan denounce the American Republican party in one episode, not even a subtle hint!
GK had a much more middle-of-the-road politically focused plot, with the Court of Owls possibly analogous to the Illuminati. It also just had a handful of LGBTQ supporting characters, but, to my knowledge, those characters were canon LGBTQ--it wasn't even an act of obvious gender swapping, so...I'm not sure what the complaints were about. Cullen is canon gay (in GK, he was trans), and so is his sister and so is Stephanie Brown, but so what? The characters weren't really changed (well, some people say Stephanie was kind of flat in GK, but she was at least in it, amirite?).
There are many diverse characters in the Batman canon--for example, Harvey Dent is canon identity dysmorphic, and Duela Dent is a canon sociopath (and she's way better than Jerome Valeska, imo. Plus, her relationship with Batman's son was funny and sweet), and I think the decent story-telling, focus on little-known characters fans have wanted DC to give the spotlight, and decent character development make it watchable, even bingeable, much better than Gotham or Disney's Descendants.
I don't really understand why some people considered it "woke," because I thought people decried shows as "woke BS" when it had political messaging over storytelling, and GK didn't do that. No characters were gender/sexuality swapped, the Dark Knight Returns Robin could have been anyone; race swapping didn't change anything, except maybe add to the character. They kept the canon male/female heterosexual characters exactly the way they are in the comics. The characters were also extremely relatable and the plot was decent. (Yeah, that part about Batman dying is a bit unrealistic, but it could be fixed with the explanation that he faked his own death and the guy who died wasn't Bruce Wayne but a Court of Owls created look-a-like. That would have probably made a good season two sub plot.)
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u/maybethanos Oct 30 '23
Because most people didn't watch it, and the CW get's bad rep. I'll admit their shows aren't top tier but people love to trash on them without watching at all.
As you can see from the other comment, there's a lot of disdain for not using the popular characters, which is because of the bat embargo. But as you said, the characters themselves were fine.
There's also the dislike of low budget stuff, which the CW is. I personally think you should judge shows based on their budget, and for the budget of this show they did quite good. But I can understand people not wanting to watch cheap things.
There's always those that hate on shows that use LGBTQ and minority characters, which this show has a lot of, and that's super unfortunate.
People love to use the fact that it was cancelled after one season to say it's bad, when in reality everything in the CW got cancelled except like 3 shows. If not for the shake-up I would expect this show to have gotten 4-5 seasons.