For the past five seasons, Gotham has graced our TV screens with its wonderfully chaotic take on Batman’s origin story. However, when viewers first watched the show, they realized how much of the focus was on Commissioner of the Gotham City Police Department, Jim Gordon. Co-showrunners Danny Cannon and John Stephens shared why they chose to go with this direction for the show.
“You see through the eyes of a new detective,” said Cannon. “He sees all the darkest stuff about the city. He looks into the corners and the alleyways of Gotham. Through all five seasons, Jim Gordon walks that thin line between the just and the corrupted. At any point, he could have left. There will always be corrupt people who attempt to control chaos in Gotham. Jim knew he was fighting the true nature of the city. That’s good drama.”
The show has brought out iconic villains such as Oswald Cobblepot/the Penguin (Robin Lord Taylor), Riddler (Cory Michael Smith), Bane (Shane West), and Gotham’s version of Joker, referred to as “J” (Cameron Monaghan).
“Casting Gotham was the most fun I’ve ever had on a job,” said Cannon. “Those first few months before we started shooting, we had these characters on a board and basically said, ‘Here are 20 things we want to do this season. We can do five of them.’ I still think that the show evolved probably a little too fast. But it evolved naturally. And that’s the way I wanted it to go.”
Gotham’s last episode of the series will also be its 100th.
“You know, I’m not sure that reaching a hundred episodes means what it meant 10 or 15 years ago,” said Stephens. “But there is this weird sort of a milestone element to it for all of us that made it feel like we had run a marathon. Even though it would have been a huge chunk of our lives if the show only ran for four seasons, doing 100 episodes made it feel like we topped off that entire journey. I felt like I was pretty ready for a vacation at the end. We deserved it.”
Catch the series finale of Gotham tomorrow on Fox at 8/7c.