Warner Bros., in its zeal to keep Batman exclusive to the movies, has inficted considerable harm on its own TV productions.
I understand the impulse, given the success of the eight Bat-movies so far (nine if you count Adam West's outing, 11 if you count the serials). But Superman has been pretty successful in the movies, too (two serials, Superman and the Mole Men, Superman: The Movie, Superman II, Superman III, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, Superman Returns, Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Justice League) but he still finds time for the small screen (Superboy, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Smallville, Superman & Lois).
But not the Dark Knight. WB keeps producing Batman TV shows ... without Batman. Here's my list:
SMALLVILLE
Years: 2001-2011
Set in: Smallville, Kansas
What it's about: Tom Welling stars as Clark Kent/Kal-El/The Blur, as the young Kryptonian grows into his role as Earth's greatest champion, Superman. He is aided early by his foster parents, Lana Lang, Pete Ross and Chloe Sullivan, but later episodes focus more on Lois Lane, The Daily Planet, Green Arrow and Clark's growing number of Super Friends.
Where's Batman: He does not exist.
Commentary: Yes, this is a Superman show (although that name is never mentioned). But the last few years focused heavily on Clark's "world's finest" friendship with Oliver Queen (Justin Hartley), who is Batman in everything but name. And he should have been Batman, because the Clark-Ollie duo becomes the nucleus of a nascent Justice League, including Martian Manhunter, Supergirl, Aquaman, Flash, Cyborg and Black Canary. Have you ever heard of Superman and Green Arrow as the anchor of the Justice League? No, you know who it's supposed to be. And no offense to Justin Hartley, but it would have been so much cooler with Batman.
BIRDS OF PREY
Year: 2002
Set in: Gotham City
What it's about: This show starred Ashley Scott as Selina Kyle/Huntress (the daughter of Batman and Catwoman), Dina Meyer as Barbara Gordon/Batgirl (daughter of Jim Gordon) and Rachel Skarsten as a teenage Dinah Lance/Black Canary. The three team to protect Gotham in Batman's absence as the Birds of Prey.
Where's Batman: Missing for years
Commentary: Well, he's dead, right? No way Batman would abandon Gotham. So we're starting the show on Dead Batman. That is, like, the opposite of cool. And every time his daughter or his protege shows up on screen, the audience is reminded: They killed Batman.
GOTHAM
Years: 2014-2019
Set in: Gotham City
What it's about: The show follows a young Jim Gordon (Ben Mackenzie) as he rises through the ranks of the GCPD and encounters increasingly bizarre criminals.
Where's Batman: Underage.
Commentary: Of all the no-Batman Batman shows, this is my favorite. We get to see a young Bruce Wayne gather a number of the tools and skills he'll need for his eventual nocturnal career, and we also see the origin and growth of a lot of Bat-villains like Penguin, Riddler, Catwoman, Joker(s), Hugo Strange and more (some original to the show). But as nice as it was for Gordon to get the spotlight, and as nice as the rest of it was, it would have been better with Batman. Just like with Smallville, you can only delay the central character's debut for so long before it gets silly.
TITANS
Years: 2918-2023
Set in: Gotham City, Metropolis, San Francisco
What's it about: Dick Grayson/Robin (Brendan Thwaites) leaves Batman and re-assembles the Titans with some old members and some new ones.
Where's Batman: Batman retires after killing The Joker, while faking his death as Bruce Wayne.
Commentary: In this show, starring Batman's first sidekick, the Dark Knight is mentally unbalanced. Which is demonstrated by his murder of The Joker ... which is left off-screen! And then he's shoved off the show.
Well, at least he's not dead.
BATWOMAN
Years: 2019-2022
Set in: Gotham City
What it's about: Bruce Wayne's cousin Kate Kane takes on the role of Gotham's defender in the Dark Knight's absence, with the aid of Lucius Fox and all of the Bat-stuff in th Batcave. In the second season, a second woman wears the cape and cowl.
Where's Batman: Missing
Commentary. Which still means "dead" to me. See Birds of Prey above. Launching a show from Batman's corpse is still a turn-off. But even so, why would we want to watch a fill-in Batman instead of the real thing?
GOTHAM KNIGHTS
Year: 2023
Set in: Gotham City
What it's about: Bruce Wayne is murdered and his adopted son Turner Hayes (Oscar Morgan) forges an alliance with the children of Batman's enemies. As the city becomes more dangerous, these mismatched fugitives will become its next generation of saviors, known as the Gotham Knights.
Where's Batman: No mucking about with "missing" here; he's straight-up dead.
Commentary: Call me a snowflake, but I can't warm up to a show where they kill Batman. Jesus, what are they thinking?
And worse, they invented an adopted son, when they could have just called the guy "Dick Grayson." Why invent a total stranger, rather than rely on decades of character development and goodwill? If they can't use Grayson for some reason (I mean, they're Warner Bros., they could use him if they want), they could have called the kid Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Barbara Gordon, Damian Wayne, Stephanie Brown, Cassandra Cain, Carrie Kelley, Duke Thomas, Harper Row, Bette Kane ... yeah, they had a lot of options for an adopted Bat-kid. But they made up some new dude instead, alienating fans like me. (Full disclosure: Stephanie Brown, Harper Row and Carrie Kelley are part of the enemble.)
And need I mention that there's already a Gotham Knights video game that stars Bat-sidekicks instead of Turner Hayes and the Also-Rans? That's bait-and-switch for gamers.
So, OK, Legionnaires, what shows did I miss? And what are your thoughts about non-Batman Batman shows?
Replies
Tracy and I watched all of these shows except Titans. Of them, my favorite was Gotham Knights... or maybe Gotham. I think Gotham Knights had potential, but it was cut short. Tracy liked Birds of Prey (more than I did, certainly), and I remember listen to her side of the conversation when she was telling a friend about it over the phone. (She later filled me in on the other half.) It went something like this...
TRACY: Batman is missing after a big fight with the Joker and his his daughter is the Huntress.
FRIEND: Which movie is she from?
TRACY: She's not from a movie, she's from the comics.
FRIEND: Well, what's her story?
TRACY: Do you want my version or Jeff's?
FRIEND: What's Jeff's?
TRACY: Well, in the pre-Crisis DCU...
FRIEND: STOP! STOP! STOP! What's yours?
TRACY: Batman is missing after a big fight with the Joker and his his daughter is the Huntress.
FRIEND: Which movie is she from?
TRACY: She's not from a movie, she's from the comics.
FRIEND: Well, what's her story?
TRACY: Do you want my version or Jeff's?
FRIEND: What's Jeff's?
TRACY: Well, in the pre-Crisis DCU...
FRIEND: STOP! STOP! STOP! What's yours?
I literally LOL'd.
It's been a long while, but I seem to remenber Batman being teased as living in "Birds of Prey". One moment that made me think was a scene where Alfred was having a phone conversation with some unknown person regarding events in Gotham. If I remember, you could cut the scene entirely without affecting the plot for that episode, which had me thinking the unknown caller was Bats checking in.
Gotham Knights: yeah, right. Someone tosses Bruce out a window, revealing he's Batman in the process.! Again, Yeah, right. That's about all I could watch of this show. I did scan the internet hopping it wold be revealed that this was some Mad Hatter plot, or something; but, no such luck. Thankfully, the show mercifully came to an end.
Yes, Batman was still alive in Birds of Prey, just missing. I don't recall that phone call specifically.
There is a lot more to Batman's death than was revealed in the first episode. What I liked about it was, if they're not going to do Batman, at least they did something new. Rather than Turner Hayes, I would have preferred it if that character had been Tim Drake. Only one of the Knights is a child of a Batman enemy, BTW. Two others are criminals (or criminally inclined), but two are Stephanie Brown and Carrie Kelley).
I copied that description from IMDb.com, since I didn't watch Gotham Knights.
That's okay. I didn't even realize some of the "knights" were from the comics; I thought they were original to TV. Also, this series ties in heavily with the "Court of Owls" (as did the last season of Gotham), which I have never read.
By default my favorite would be Gotham, as I saw the first season of that, but never got around to watching the rest. I liked it though.
I watched one episode of Birds of Prey and I thought it was pretty bad. Outside of that I haven't watched one episode of any of the rest.
First, I’ll say that it doesn’t bother me that much that all of these shows diverge from the original versions. I believe it was the famous author James M. Cain who was asked what he thought of what the movies had done to his books. He pointed to the bookshelf and said that his books were just fine (or words to that effect).
GOTHAM
My favorite of the Bat-verse shows. It had time to develop all of its many characters, which are well-acted. Anyone who hasn’t seen the entire run should do so.
GOTHAM KNIGHTS
My second favorite after Gotham.
Captain Comics said:
Call me a snowflake, but I can't warm up to a show where they kill Batman. Jesus, what are they thinking?
For a long time TV productions were dissuaded/ordered not to actually use Superman. Now this seems to apply to Batman. Why? Do they really think that people won’t go to see a Batman movie because he’s in a TV show? I think that was the reasoning for their Superman anxiety.
And worse, they invented an adopted son, when they could have just called the guy "Dick Grayson."
I suspect they invented a new character as his adopted son because all of the other choices have constantly changing stories, baggage and expectations. There are no expectations attached to Turner Hayes.
I copied that description from IMDb.com, since I didn't watch Gotham Knights.
Whoever wrote that description obviously did it before anything aired. This description from Wikipedia is accurate:
In the wake of Bruce Wayne's death, his adopted son Turner Hayes forges an unlikely alliance with runaways Harper and Cullen Row, and the criminal Duela, when they are all framed for the murder and publicly accused of committing it by the Gotham City Police Department and District Attorney Harvey Dent. The four youths attempt to clear their names and find out who really killed Bruce Wayne, with help from Turner's friend Stephanie Brown and Turner's classmate Carrie Kelley, who secretly operates as Robin. The mystery of who framed them soon leads to the Court of Owls. Over time, they evolve into becoming Gotham's new protectors known as the "Gotham Knights".
Season One (and only) tracks the evolution of Harvey Dent into Two-Face. The acid is almost an afterthought. Dent is running for mayor against someone who isn’t as good as his image. I didn’t even know that Harper and Cullen Row were DC characters, so I don’t know how they match up with the originals. Duela (no last name) grew up thinking her father was the Joker. Just like in the comics (and what is suggested by her name) she’s really Dent’s daughter. She is wonderfully portrayed. Stephanie Brown, like in the comics, has Cluemaster for a father. On the show Arthur Brown is a game show host, apparently not a criminal. IMO, all the actors did a fine job. I recommend that anyone who passed up the show give it a chance in the time we will all soon have lacking new shows.
SMALLVILLE
I had almost forgotten that the Green Arrow in Smallville, like the character in Arrow, was a Batman knock-off. In Arrow he also took on many of Batman’s enemies and locations.
(I don’t know about the 40s, but in the 50s comics Green Arrow was a really obvious steal from Batman (Arrowcar, Arrowcave).
BIRDS OF PREY
For whatever reason, I watched several episodes of this show, liked it, but didn’t continue. My intentions to continue have been good. I have the DVD set. Amazon Prime has it for rent if my DVD set is no good. I’ll probably get to it in the approaching strike-desert. What sticks in my mind are two things. Shemar Moore, who went on to bigger things, playing the police detective and seeing the Earth-1 Black Canary in full comics-accurate costume with her canary cry.
BATWOMAN
Though not high on my list, I think they did a pretty good job. When the original lead actress bowed out because it was too physically demanding, they made a believable transition to a new Batwoman.
TITANS
I still haven’t watched an of these. Another one I’ll try to get to when most things are off or in reruns.