Gotham Central

[seriousfic]

Actually, you know what'd make that show? Harvey Dent. First half of the season, he's a dedicated public servant who keeps getting more and more obsessed with bringing down Insert Crime Boss. During sweeps week, he gets doused with acid. He's out for a few episodes, then in the second half of the season he launches a roaring rampage of revenge, burning all the undercover cops and classified information the GCPD has, just blowing shit up and taking names. Season finale is him, Gordon, and Batman all having it out. Basically, it could be Breaking Bad in one season.

Comments

[rebelbyrdie.livejournal.com]

I have thought about a telivision adaptation of Gotham Central allot and I must disagree. I feel that to establish the show as a ratings competitor and as a serious drama it would be better to present it as a police procedral drama in Gotham City and not specifically a Batman show. Season 1 would be set post NML with the city still recovering from the disaster. It opens with newly promoted Cpt Maggie Sawyer arriving in Gotham from Metropolis via the train (much like Batman Year One Gordon did) and is met by Driver and Fields. It's January and snowing and Fields comments that he's freezing to death...an obvious hint to fans of the series. After that its a quick trip to Gotham Central where Maggie meets her Detectives: Bullock and Montoya...and so on and so forth. The first season could cover Gordon's shooting, Bullock's fall from grace, and Field's murder with some villan stories thrown in. It would include flashbacks to Dent's fall, especially when Montoya reacts to Bullock's fall from grace, and some tension between the cops who stayed in Gotham during NML and those who either left or are new to the GCPD. Gordons still there, in an unofficial capacity, mostly on the rooftop the various caped crusaders drop in from time to time...though not always in costume. I would also out Montoya, to the audience, at about midseason as that last moment of the episode when Harvey quits the GCPD...just a few seconds worth of her and D. Season 2 opens with Freeze's trial and continues with the introduction of Allen, the budget crisis and Renee Montoya's public outing and so on and so forth.

You can have all the dirty cops, explosions, drugs and sex you want, and yes Batman kicking ass, but the ensemble feeling of the book needs to translate or it's gonna be a mess of Michael Bay proportions.

This show is all in adapting the story to film and casting. My dream casting:

Sawyer: Stephanie March (with a new haircut and no glasses)
Bullock: James Gandolfini
Montoya: Rosario Dawson
Allen: Omar Epps

The biggest problem, outside of licencing, is that both Rucka and Brubaker, the masterminds of the project, have cut ties with DC.

....And that is my ridiculously long comment....

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

Harvey Dent could work just as well in a police show as a Batman one. Better, even, since it'd be hard to have Batman really get to know Harvey (can you imagine them standing around, chatting it up?) and if you have Bruce and Harvey as friends, it'd be hard to avoid a Clex/Smallville situation. Whereas with a cast of cops, you can have them meeting his wife, working with him on cases, arguing over prosecutions, et al. And the Harvey Dent story really hasn't been told from the point of view of cops, especially the angle of him using classified information on his crime spree. For instance, as a DA, Harvey knows something from an undercover cop that the police can't use, but now that he's Two-Face, he's willing to use it, so the cops have to protect their guy on the inside.

I'd go with the conventional wisdom of barely featuring Batman, or even setting this in the Year One days when the cops are hunting him as well.