Gotham fans, rejoice! After months of worry and doubt while the Batman prequel series sat on the bubble between renewal and cancellation, FOX has officially decided to bring it back for a fifth season this fall.
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A report from the Hollywood Reporter confirms the 13-episode season 5 order, giving Gotham the necessary 100 episodes total for it to sell in syndication.
The announcement came not long after the network had taken the axe to several other beloved programs on its schedule. Fan-favorite comedies Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Last Man on Earth, and The Mick were all cancelled on Thursday afternoon, which led to increased concern over Gotham‘s future.
Fortunately, the folks at the network appreciated the new stories Gotham has been telling this season, which included a new version of the Joker and a take on No Man’s Land.
While fans of the show certainly aren’t surprised to see it return, given the overall spike in quality over the last couple of years, people that pay attention to television as a whole may not have seen this renewal coming. Gotham had endured some of its lowest ratings in Season 4, but much of that can be attributed to its move from Monday nights to Thursdays. On its new night, Gotham had to compete with the likes of Supernatural, The Big Bang Theory, and Grey’s Anatomy.
When the show returns in the fall however, it will have to shift to another new time slot, as FOX completed a deal to air the NFL’s Thursday Night Football throughout the fall.
Even when many were saying Gotham was a prime candidate to be cancelled, the producers on the series remained hopeful that it would be picked up for a fifth season due to the story that they were building toward. As we’ve learned by now, Gotham is beginning its No Man’s Land story arc in the Season 4 finale, which will level the city and bring a sort of “reboot” to the show in Season 5.
“Our characters have reached a maturity now, our characters are so well defined and that’s why I think as writers, that’s right about the point when you want to change people’s perception of them,” Gotham EP Danny Cannon told ComicBook.com earlier in the season. “The [term] ‘reboot’ means, just when you thought you knew people, something else will happen, and just when you thought your Season 5 would be like Season 4, Season 5 is completely different. New characters and old characters that have changed. It’s a complete [departure], and the city has changed too, new characters on a new landscape.”
As Cannon continued, he noted that the massive cliffhanger couldn’t be the series finale.
“We’re building to something much bigger,” Cannon explained. “It’s the biggest cliffhanger we’ve done. I mean, there has to be Season 5. Everything points to that because it’s set up in that way.”
Are you excited for Gotham to return in the fall? What new direction do you think the story will take in Season 5? Let us know your thoughts by dropping a line in the comments below!
Gotham‘s Season 4 finale, “A Dark Knight: No Man’s Land,” will air on Thursday, May 17 at 8pm ET on FOX.
