Veronica Rampant here,
I don't really have "guilty pleasures," but if I did, GOTHAM would be one of them. The show is an over-the-top camp fest with a lot of amazing actors chewing up the scenery (BD Wong as a mad scientist! The gay bromance of Penguin and Riddler!) and it's just super-fun to watch. But one of my favorite characters has got to be the character of Alfred, the Wayne family butler.
As you might expect in a series that is all about a young Bruce Wayne, Alfred has a major role as Bruce's surrogate parent, but the GOTHAM Alfred is a version we haven't really seen before. A special ops agent from the British Secret Service, Alfred is a London scrapper with a dark past, who teaches Bruce hand-to-hand combat and simultaneously tries to keep him safe while teaching him it's okay to torture enemy combatants for information. Basically, it's pretty easy to see how you could grow up to be Batman with this guy making you pancakes every morning.
Now, creator/producer Danny Cannon has announced at a TCA event (whatever that is) that Alfred is going to get his own series - and yes, it will be a prequel show about his time in the secret service. Apparently it's set in London in the swinging 60s...? Which means that Gotham is set in the 80s, I guess? So maybe we'll get the DARK KNIGHT RETURNS Frank Miller-esque 50 year old Batman post-quel eventually that I'm waiting for, too.
Cannon assures viewers that the show will be "R Rated" and "unhinged." I think we're talking about the Danny Boyle version of the Bat-verse. Which I am totally on board for.
The show, inexplicably, will be on EPIX, NOT the new DC channel, which I don't understand at all (maybe it's the R-rating), but I guess I'll have to get EPIX. They have a GET SHORTY series in development, as well, so that's promising.
What do you think, talkbackers? Anybody else willing to give this a shot?
-Roni over and out!
