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Post by Jasoomian on Aug 11, 2014 12:33:59 GMT -5
The Staten Island location looks rather more gothic. The Queens hospital looks more brutalist. And from those pics of the interior... that would be a lot of work to shoot anything inside there that looks like a functioning institution. I've never lived in an old asylum, but several years ago, I attended an art installation show in an abandoned asylum in DC. Too bad it's a Bruno Heller show, which means I won't be watching it, thanks to his Red John screw up. Who is bruno Heller? What is Red John? |
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Post by fanboystranger on Aug 11, 2014 13:35:30 GMT -5
I admire the restraint it must have taken not to write "I Go Postal at Arkham Asylum".
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Post by thwhtguardian on Aug 11, 2014 13:42:12 GMT -5
The Staten Island location looks rather more gothic. The Queens hospital looks more brutalist. And from those pics of the interior... that would be a lot of work to shoot anything inside there that looks like a functioning institution. I've never lived in an old asylum, but several years ago, I attended an art installation show in an abandoned asylum in DC. Too bad it's a Bruno Heller show, which means I won't be watching it, thanks to his Red John screw up. Who is bruno Heller? What is Red John? No idea who red john is but I love Bruno Heller's show Rome so I have high hopes for Gotham. |
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Post by Jasoomian on Aug 11, 2014 13:51:17 GMT -5
ROME was pretty excellent...
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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2014 14:13:41 GMT -5
Who is bruno Heller? What is Red John? No idea who red john is but I love Bruno Heller's show Rome so I have high hopes for Gotham. Rome was OK and Red John was the mysterious serial killer from his recent show The MENTALIST. It had a great build up, lots of red herrings, interesting characters and great possibilities. Bruno failed the Red John fans in all aspects with a ludicrous reveal and turning the show into a romantic soap opera, at the end. |
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Post by Jasoomian on Aug 11, 2014 14:17:13 GMT -5
I never watched THE MENTALIST since it was a rip-off of the great show PSYCH. And it was on CBS. I now adjust my expectations for GOTHAM downward accordingly.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Aug 11, 2014 16:27:42 GMT -5
I never watched THE MENTALIST since it was a rip-off of the great show PSYCH. And it was on CBS. I now adjust my expectations for GOTHAM downward accordingly. My expectations are up, Rome was one of the best TV shows that I've ever seen, and it was great because of how well it show cased everyday life drama and that is also what made Gotham Central work as a book so it seems like a perfect match. |
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Post by Jasoomian on Aug 11, 2014 21:49:17 GMT -5
Funnily enough, I was visiting my parents earlier this evening and found out my father has started watching ROME reruns on one of the HBO subchannels. I caught a few minutes of a rerun. I wasn't slamming ROME at all but rather THE MENTALIST.
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Post by Randle-El on Aug 11, 2014 23:18:36 GMT -5
I heard about some advance reviews of Gotham, and they were pretty disappointing. Now that Smallville has run its course, I have a lot of reservations about prequel shows. Let's be honest -- origin stories, as essential as they are, are only interesting because of the eventual payoff of seeing the main character become the hero. If they are going to be told, they need to hit the main points while being brief enough to get on with what the audience really wants to see.
I think this was the fatal flaw of Smallville. There's only so many seasons where you can show Clark stumbling over his powers and figuring out his destiny. After a while, the audience gets restless and they want to see him do his thing as Superman. By the later seasons, the producers seem to have resigned themselves to that fact, and gave us a show that was pretty much Superman in everything but name only -- Clark had a costume, a secret identity, worked at the Daily Planet, was dating Lois Lane, and fighting full-on Superman villains like Zod, Doomsday, and Darkseid.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2014 23:36:56 GMT -5
I heard about some advance reviews of Gotham, and they were pretty disappointing. Now that Smallville has run its course, I have a lot of reservations about prequel shows. Let's be honest -- origin stories, as essential as they are, are only interesting because of the eventual payoff of seeing the main character become the hero. If they are going to be told, they need to hit the main points while being brief enough to get on with what the audience really wants to see. I think this was the fatal flaw of Smallville. There's only so many seasons where you can show Clark stumbling over his powers and figuring out his destiny. After a while, the audience gets restless and they want to see him do his thing as Superman. By the later seasons, the producers seem to have resigned themselves to that fact, and gave us a show that was pretty much Superman in everything but name only -- Clark had a costume, a secret identity, worked at the Daily Planet, was dating Lois Lane, and fighting full-on Superman villains like Zod, Doomsday, and Darkseid. And yet Smallville managed to run 10 seasons, a success by any network standard let alone a network like the CW that changes it's line-up as often as I seem to change socks except for Smallville and Supernatural. If Gotham ran half that long, it's network would be ecstatic because that means it had hit the magic syndication number and generates extra revenue beyond advertising and DVD sales. -M |
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Post by Randle-El on Aug 12, 2014 0:08:17 GMT -5
I heard about some advance reviews of Gotham, and they were pretty disappointing. Now that Smallville has run its course, I have a lot of reservations about prequel shows. Let's be honest -- origin stories, as essential as they are, are only interesting because of the eventual payoff of seeing the main character become the hero. If they are going to be told, they need to hit the main points while being brief enough to get on with what the audience really wants to see. I think this was the fatal flaw of Smallville. There's only so many seasons where you can show Clark stumbling over his powers and figuring out his destiny. After a while, the audience gets restless and they want to see him do his thing as Superman. By the later seasons, the producers seem to have resigned themselves to that fact, and gave us a show that was pretty much Superman in everything but name only -- Clark had a costume, a secret identity, worked at the Daily Planet, was dating Lois Lane, and fighting full-on Superman villains like Zod, Doomsday, and Darkseid. And yet Smallville managed to run 10 seasons, a success by any network standard let alone a network like the CW that changes it's line-up as often as I seem to change socks except for Smallville and Supernatural. If Gotham ran half that long, it's network would be ecstatic because that means it had hit the magic syndication number and generates extra revenue beyond advertising and DVD sales. -M managed to last that long because there was some built-in fanbase due to being a Superman adaptation, and it was on the CW network during an era where it had few, if any, reliable ratings generators. They also strung fans along for a number of seasons with indications that they were actually moving Clark along towards his superhero destiny. By seasons 5-7, many longtime viewers figured out that the network was just spinning its wheels, which coincided with the lowest ratings of the show. This was also the era when the original showrunners left the show, as well as a good chunk of the original cast. Seasons 8-10 moved the show to Metropolis and the Superman-in-everything-but-name-only era. The ratings experiences an uptick, enough to convince the CW to keep milking the cow for another couple of seasons. I think by this time they knew they couldn't keep up the pretense of it being a prequel, and figured that the only way they could justify keeping the show on the air was by basically giving them proto-Superman. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 12, 2014 0:53:00 GMT -5
And yet Smallville managed to run 10 seasons, a success by any network standard let alone a network like the CW that changes it's line-up as often as I seem to change socks except for Smallville and Supernatural. If Gotham ran half that long, it's network would be ecstatic because that means it had hit the magic syndication number and generates extra revenue beyond advertising and DVD sales. -M managed to last that long because there was some built-in fanbase due to being a Superman adaptation, and it was on the CW network during an era where it had few, if any, reliable ratings generators. They also strung fans along for a number of seasons with indications that they were actually moving Clark along towards his superhero destiny. By seasons 5-7, many longtime viewers figured out that the network was just spinning its wheels, which coincided with the lowest ratings of the show. This was also the era when the original showrunners left the show, as well as a good chunk of the original cast. Seasons 8-10 moved the show to Metropolis and the Superman-in-everything-but-name-only era. The ratings experiences an uptick, enough to convince the CW to keep milking the cow for another couple of seasons. I think by this time they knew they couldn't keep up the pretense of it being a prequel, and figured that the only way they could justify keeping the show on the air was by basically giving them proto-Superman. And none of that matters to network execs who could care less who is watching beyond advertising demographics. As long as it gets ratings, and the right demographics to sell ad time, they're happy, and if it hits the syndication mark (usually 100 episodes) bonus. The thing genre shows have is higher sales potential in DVDs so they are willing to take a few more risks now that genre shows have succeeded because they know they can generate a little more revenues in DVD sales with those shows. Cast turnover often helps bottom line as well, as new cast gets paid less per episode usually, so that's not a concerns unless the cast turnover would affect ratings/ad sales. Neither is turnover in showrunners, as again it can lower your bottom line on a series if the new folks you bring in get less salary. If the show changes tenor or plot, not a concern of the execs who make decisions as long as ratings stay at adequate levels and sweeps numbers are good. If it has a built in fanbase, that fanbase better translate to ratings in the right demographics or it doesn't matter. The average lifespan of a show is 2-3 seasons-not enough to hit syndication numbers and not enough to be a real revenue generator in DVD sales. Gotham doesn't need to be a great Bat-verse show or even a good one to be a television success. If it draws in ratings, and hits the right demographics to last 100 episodes, Catwoman and Ivy could start as chorus girls for all the execs care, and a 12 year old in a Batsuit throwing nerf batarangs could be in every episode as it becomes the adventures of Batboy. If people tuned it, they would term it a successful Batman show. I don't expect it to be quite so ludicrous, but in many ways Smallville was a terrible Superman vehicle (and even I liked it for most of its run), yet it was a television success. Why? Because it appealed beyond that "built in fanbase" and drew in a young adult demographic for a good chunk of its run who could care less what Superman was like in the comics, but threw in enough comic nods, Easter eggs, and classic comic characters to keep those hardcore fans tuning in even if they didn't like how it was being done. Gotham looks to be trying to hit that same kind of note-appeal beyond the built in fanbase, yet enough breadcrumbs to keep that built in fan base coming back. -M |
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Post by Icctrombone on Aug 12, 2014 3:45:10 GMT -5
Smallville was a great show that tapped into the teen angst market and later became all that the comic geeks love.
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Post by Jasoomian on Aug 12, 2014 9:58:19 GMT -5
I sat through every episode of "Smallville" for ten years, but I can't bring myself to buy Smallville comics from the dollar box.
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Post by Randle-El on Aug 12, 2014 10:12:12 GMT -5
Gotham doesn't need to be a great Bat-verse show or even a good one to be a television success. I think we're really making two different points. From a television executive's perspective, you are absolutely right -- so long as people tune in and they have enough ratings to go for a few seasons, make some DVD and other merchandising sales, they are happy. By this measure, Smallville was absolutely a smashing success. I speak more from the perspective of what I as a fan would personally like to see from such shows. Now don't get me wrong -- even with its flaws I enjoyed Smallville. But when all was said and done, looking at the whole of the experience, I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed in some ways. I would have liked to see it end sooner -- maybe 5 seasons. I would have preferred it if the showrunners had not dragged out the process of Clark embracing his destiny. We all knew he had to get there at some point, but by season 6 when Clark is still conflicted about his father and his destiny, it just started to get old and made the network look like they are trying to milk their cash cow for all they could. Also, in essentially giving us Superman in season 8-10, it showed that the showrunners no longer believed in their original premise -- that the formative years of Clark Kent could make for good stories. My fear is that Gotham will suffer from that behavior as well. Maybe they will get a few good seasons out of it, and then realize that child Bruce Wayne and his rogues before they became his rogues are running out of steam. At that point, they should just end it. But knowing TV execs, they will probably try to keep the thing going by giving us Batman without Batman, if you get my drift. |
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