Gotham Knights Review: A Spunky, Salvageable DC Drama

By Nicole Drum

It's an interesting time for a new series on The CW, particularly a new series set in the expansive DC universe. After all, not only are most of the network's other DC-inspired series already over or ending soon (the exception being Superman & Lois, which is heading into its third season), but the network itself is undergoing some major changes in the wake of being sold to Nexstar late last year. It's within that interesting and somewhat uncertain landscape that what might be one of the network's most ambitious projects arrives — Gotham Knights. Not part of the fan-favorite Arrowverse and not exactly a Batman story, Gotham Knights instead draws on elements of both to tell an original story steeped in aspects of the comics in the hopes of appealing to a wide range of fans — and if you can get through the first few episodes, this next generation DC series may do just that.

Gotham Knights follows the story of Turner Hayes (Oscar Morgan), the rebellious adopted son of Bruce Wayne who, along with a trio of young criminals — Duela Doe/The Joker's Daughter (Olivia Rose Keegan), Harper Row (Fallon Smythe), and Cullen Row (Tyler DiChiara) — are framed for Wayne's murder. As the quartet soon comes to realize, there is much more to the crime than meets the eye and that Gotham is perhaps in more danger than it has ever been, so with no Batman to protect anyone, they must not only clear their own names, but rise as the city's next generation of heroes, aided in this mission by Stephanie Brown (Anna Lore) and Carrie Kelley (Navia Robinson).

That premise is very much only a jumping-off point for the series, with the end of the first episode establishing just how deep the threat to everyone involved really goes with the revelation that The Court of Owls is a part of this story. This isn't a spoiler — we've gotten a glimpse of this in a recent sizzle reel for The CW featuring Gotham Knights — but it certainly sets the tone for the series, which is notably a bit darker than most of the network's previous DC fare. Ultimately, that plays to its favor in the overall storytelling of things over the course of the six episodes provided to press for review, but there is a catch: viewers will have to hang on for just a bit if they want to get to the good stuff.

The first episode of Gotham Knights, "Pilot," is a rough ride. Out of the gate, the show doesn't seem to quite know what tone it wants to take in terms of its approach. It attempts a grand cinematic scope on a smaller television budget and the result looks like a discount version of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Trilogy (complete with some shots that are obviously cribbed from the films) tossed in a blender with Fox's Gotham. There is a great deal of style over substance in that first episode. Characterizations in the first episode are pretty rough, too, as most of the characters don't seem to really know who or what their characters are. Turner goes from being this devil-may-care rebellious brat to suddenly being a super serious devoted and loving/grieving son that we're supposed to care deeply for in just a few scenes and the whiplash is hard. The Bruce Wayne/Batman most of the characters describe seems to have absolutely nothing in common with any version of that character that's appeared on screen or in print — and let's not even quite touch how almost contrived his death and a few rapid-fire reveals are. Most viewers will come out of this episode wondering how Batman managed to do anything in this Gotham City without getting murked long before now. The only real redeeming factor in the first episode is Keegan's Duela, who is delightfully bonkers.

Fortunately, the second episode is vastly better and, by episode three, the series has found a much more consistent tone and characterization, and the way the series paces out its story works very, very well. Why these kids are being set up and why the Owls wanted Bruce Wayne dead is a mystery that is set up as a slow burn with just the right amount of stakes to keep it fresh and interesting enough to distract from some of the show's weaknesses, the largest of which is that it asks viewers to suspend a little more disbelief than most superhero genre shows. After all, these kids are supposed to be high schoolers. They're even more sophisticated than the Riverdale crew. In fact, by the time the series hits around episode four, it has course-corrected almost all of its weaknesses from the pilot episode and instead, some of the things that were early advantages become annoyances. Specifically, Keegan's Duela goes from a deranged bright spot to grating pretty quickly.

In terms of performances, most of the actors carry their parts well. Keegan does a great job as Duela, and it feels more like the grating aspects of the character's presentation is more part of the writing than her performance. Morgan grows into Turner fairly well, and DiChiara gives Cullen a fast wit and an agility that really feels like the glue of the team. The only real miss feels like Misha Collins as Harvey Dent, but again, much of that feels like the writing rather than the performance. While in the pilot Collins' Dent feels very much like his Supernatural character in a nicer trench coat, we start to see the character more on his own journey, as Collins does give the character a few more shades and complexities — just not quite enough to buy that he's on the way to becoming Two-Face, at least not in the first six episodes. In fact, this series could generally function well without any of the adult characters, and in most episodes, does just that and it works just fine.

Gotham Knights is far from perfect, but it is also a bit unlike anything else that The CW has tried when it comes to its DC-inspired series. While it struggles just a bit to get out of the gate, once it does it, delivers an interesting approach to a Gotham-centered, Batman-adjacent story that's got just enough mystery and enough comic book DNA to make it an intriguing watch. Whether that will be enough to keep things going in what is an interesting time for the network remains to be seen, but this is a series that is worth investigating.

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Rating: 3 out of 5

Gotham Knights premieres on Tuesday, March 14th at 9 p.m. ET on The CW.

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