Frobin

Oh, such a great, never seen before idea ... an all-female team ... Dan Didio's unique idea. Just about a year or more after Marvel started an all-female X-Men book.

Totally innovative, Mr. Didio!

Its a never ending story: DC and Marvel copying each other over and over again ... not realizing that both getting less and less interesting overall (while of course still having single books that are good).

After 2 very weak episodes and the overall disappointing first half of this season (so many potential wasted, especially by not focusing on Garth and his hunters, but instead coming up with the senseless hospital plot line), this was a good episode.

The episode did follow the comic book plot very accurate. I would appreciate if this will stay this way, since I already lost faith in the skills and quality of the showrunner/ writers team to adapt und develop the original for TV (which season 1, 2 and even the first half of season 3 did well). And AMC constantly milking the show and stretching the original plot to have 16 episodes and not going forward to quick isn't a a good Outlook too.

@hyperman: :

I agree: they really mixed up much, but not everything ... its different, but wouldn't say it has nothing to do with the comic. Its just based on ...

1. totally agree ... its hard to imagine. But since its at least 10 to 15 years in the past, the show has much space for development here. I'm thrilled to see the development of Barbara, a long way to go...

3. Same for Leslie ... I love the relationship with Gordon, because again there are so much room for development.

Of course the timeline in the TV show has to be adapted. I also always start counting years when a character appears. The Penguin and The Riddler for example are about 10 years older than Batman, but I'm ok with that. Therefore I hope they will not introduce some characters too early. Don't think Jerome was the Joker ... he would have appeared to early and honestly I don't want him to appear ever. The Joker came out of nothing and I see him the same age as Batman.

Moreover I really love the development of the Penguin and its the great opportunity of this show to focus on other villains than the Joker!

Also the "awakening" of Bruce's skills are a great plot line ... I'm really going forward to see how he's getting control over Wayne Enterprise ... and for sure there will appear some new villains and Bruce will train strategy and fighting unfair! I'd love to see that ...

Funny side effect: Selina is same age or even 2 years older than Bruce ... so far I've seen her always not much, but a bit younger. But I like that scenario. It fits. But I hope ... same as with the Joker ... the showrunner and writers will resist the temptation to get Selina too much involved with Bruce too early. For my feeling they should cross ways later as Batman and Catwoman.

@truemarvel:

First, its true that Gotham is my favorite DC show in terms of personal taste.

But second, its also better in terms of other criteria, more professional one. All three shows (Flash, Arrow and Gotham) are very well-made on a technical level, but they all are not really in the same league like high quality TV shows like Game of Thrones, Vikings, Justified, Sons of Anarchy, Deadwood, Bored to Death or Battlestar Galactica (just a selection).

Both Arrow and Flash are "Smallville success formula shows" ... just with a few adaptations. The plots are very flat, the dialogues are often mindless, without any real content and everything is totally overstyled. Both shows are teenage Fashion magazined on TV. The soap opera part is very big when it comes to built the relationships between the characters. Arrow is for the grown up teenage fans of Smallville, Flash is for teenagers. Both are a mix of Beverly Hills 90210 for grown ups and a more serious styled Dark Knight look and feel - the outcome is a "Twilight-like shallow superhero soap opera" with really predictable plots and not so interesting characters (at least if one has already puberty left behind). And the Eastereggs ... just hints for comic book nerds, but the story is always pretty empty and predictable.

Gotham of course is also a comic based TV show and therefore plots and characters are also highly stylized. Of course it also aims for a young audience, but the setting and most of all the main characters are not that shallow and not just Barbie and Ken in a superhero TV show scenario (like definitely Arrow and Flash are). Gordon, Bullock, Nigma, Penguin, Alfred, Bruce and the mafia characters are so far well established and they develop well. Cat and Ivy aren't really main characters so far, their development will come. Just Barbara doesn't fit for me ... she's so far very inconsistent. But we'll see ...

Of course, Gotham is perfectly styled and there are some unrealistic, comic book style settings ... but the show is not totally overstyled, the characters are not totally cliche and the plots are more interesting and not always that stereotypical and predictable assembly line Production like Arrow and Flash.

So Gotham is in terms of some quality criteria and not just personal taste slightly better (written) than Arrow and Flash.

And when it comes to personal taste: I personally can't stand a whole episode of Arrow (out since the first episodes of season 2, but now and then watching - because friends tell me, its getting better ... but its not) or Flash (after 4 episodes of snoozefest i knew its Arrow for toddlers) without getting bored and annoyed by such shallow characters and the stupidity of the plots. Always the same ...

So Arrow and Flash is in no way enjoyable to me, because i'm not blind to its issues. Gotham so far is very enjoyable to me, though i'm not blind to its issues.

I really like Gotham. Its the best DC show on TV, much better than Arrow and Flash, which are totally flat in characters and plots and everything looks like jumped out of a teenage fashion Magazine. Gotham has much better characters and plots and its styled, but not overstyled.

This episode was great. I love all the characters, with the exception of Barbara - Gordons ex-girlfriend. She's portayed totally inconsistent and implausible. But I can't imagine thats not intended ... so I'm really keen to see what her role will be.

After the snooze-fest of season 4 and all these super-lame stand-alone-episodes (some called it "character development" ... in fact it was a total loss of direction for the show and the group plot), I'm not really interested ... but I will take a look, since I think the changes to the Hunters story arc could make some sense. But the pacing of TWD must speed up.

Totally agree with the analysis that this issue (as well as the issue before) is very Luthor-centered ... a bit too much in my opinion, because Batman comes out as some jerk played easily. While its ok that Lex and Bruce can match each other in terms of technological and strategical genius (Lex more technological, Bruce more strategical), its totally out of character that Bruce acts so predictable and playable and Lex knows so much about Batman.

By the way: its a thrilling story, well written and I really loved some moments (best: Cold taking Quicks leg), BUT its not very original - since its an unashamed step-by-step rip-off of Marvel: 1- conspiracy (skrulls = secret society) - 2 - world devasting invasion (Secret Invasion/Skrulls = Forever Evil/ Crime Syndicate) - 3 - villain glory (Osborn = Luthor) - 4 - dark reign (Osborn takes over Stark technology and Avengers = Luthor plays Batman and lets see how it follows with the League?).

True in a way, but the role of a character can be replaced by another. My guess is Tyreese - since he didn't really match the team (Abraham has much more potential and on TV we have also Daryl ... so too much strong male characters). He also hasn't the connection to Rick and I guess will not get it. And his leg has way more meaty than Dale's ... *barfing*

7 episodes since the fall of the prison and this one was the first gleam of hope … ok, it was far from being good, but it got some direction again. Of course there are still some pretty dumb moments like the tunnel scene: Tara jamming her leg just for artificial suspense and of course it’s impossible to lift the stone … come on … it’s so hackneyed, so lukewarm.

At least 4 or better 5 of these super-lame, mega-boring stand-alone episodes should have been made like this one: watching the splinter groups parallel in one episode and cutting the stretched “2-3 person stories” of 5 episodes into 2 or 3.

However, if this is the TV adaptation of “The Hunters”, I really hope the show runners don’t mess it up like the Governor story arc. In my opinion, The Hunters story arc had a very important role in the overall character development of Rick as well as the forming of the group. First, of course, the cannibalism was the shocking moment, but the real surprise of the Hunters story arc was in my opinion: the new formed group (Rick's and Abraham's) handled them easily. The Hunters considered themselves bad ass, but were always portrayed as cowards (they usually didn't attack large groups, but they were hungry) ... they never were a real threat to Rick and Abrahams group. So for the first time Rick's group was the bad ass group. In my opinion this is important, because it later misleads the expectations of the reader and creates an amazing twist in the Alexandria Safe Zone story arc.

So I really hope they do this story arc well.

Still I’m totally disappointed of this season. I really hoped after the endless stretching of the Governor story arc till midseason final, the second half of the season would tell the Hunters story arc and the cliffhanger of season 4 would be the beginning of the Alexandria Safe Zone story arc.

Now I’m afraid, we’ll see the Hunters story arc next season. And I really, really hope they rush with the pacing of this annoyingly slow show next season.

Another irrelevant, isolated stand-alone episode. More than one splinter group, but still no clue about the main plot ... still much tooo slow ... tooo much repeating "character development" ... and even a good soundtrack can't cover the weak writing. Good writting means that you afterwards recognize how good the soundtrack was ...

However, still a weak episode and the overall plot line and main theme of the show totally lost: Rick and his group. Character development has to be connected to the group and has to be placed within the group. TWD is a 90s stand-alone episodes TV show now ...

And why would Daryl open the door without any caution in the middle of the night - just because once a dog came by??? Ridiculous! What was the purpose of the scenes of him and Beth in the house anyway? What was the purpose of the last epsiode, and the one before ...

This show is so done!