The wait is over. CW’s newest DC show Gotham Knights premieres tonight at 9:00pm EST. Both The Hollywood Reporter and Cinemablend report that this version of Gotham would be different from the one most fans are familiar with. Instead of having the Dark Knight fight crime in the city, new characters and an adopted son of Batman would take up the mantle as Gotham’s protectors.

The project was first developed in December of 2021 by Natalie Abrams (Batwoman, Supergirl), Chad Fiveash (Gotham, Switched at Birth), and James Stoteraux (The Vampire Diaries, Legend of the Seeker). They all would also serve as executive producers with Greg Berlanti (Love, Simon, The Flash), Sarah Schechter (Free Guy, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zizzou), and David Madden (Something the Lord Made, The Hand that Rocks the Cradle), according to Variety. Chad Fiveash and James Stoteraux also act as the main co-showrunners and writers.

The show takes place in an alternate reality in which Bruce Wayne is dead and his adopted son is tasked with finding his killer. He teams up with the children of Batman’s former foes once they are all accused by Harvey Dent. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the main cast consists of Oscar Morgan (Millie in Between, Warren) as Turner Hayes, this universe’s adopted son of Bruce Wayne; Navia Robinson (Being Mary Jane, Free Rain) as Carrie Kelley who is Robin; Fallon Smythe (S.H.R.I.E.K., Grown-ish) as Harper Row who is Bluebird; Tyler DiChiara (The Virgin of Highland Park, The Furry Fortune) as Cullen Row and also Harper’s brother, Olivia Rose Keegan (Days of Our Lives, Daisy Jones & The Six) as Duela who is Joker’s daughter, Anna Lore (Doom Patrol, Katie) as Stephanie Brown, Rahart Adams (Foursome, Pacific Rim: Uprising) as Brody March, and Misha Collins (Supernatural, TSA America: Superstitious Bulges) as Harvey Dent.

This show is set to premiere on Tuesday, March 14th, 2023, alongside another CW show, Superman & Lois, which would release its third season ahead of Gotham Knights. Both shows would also air alongside CW’s The Flash, which would release episodes for its final season this year. Gotham Knights would join all of them in the extended Arrowverse, an in-universe concept created after CW’s Arrow established this DC continuity in 2012.

According to Cinemablend, the showrunners mentioned how they would continue with a recipe that worked with Superman & Lois and gathered lessons from another DC show, Batwoman, before it got canceled by CW. Many questions on how the CW plans on taking this new series have persisted up to this point.

The Hollywood Reporter had this to say about the series as a whole, “As a murder mystery, Gotham Knights is crammed with twists steeped in a deep and mostly endearing affection for Bat-lore. Each cryptic clue seems to bring the gang in contact with another well-known group of baddies, from the Mutants to the McKillens to the Court of Owls. And each revelation seems to stretch further and further back into the annals of Wayne history, until at one point the teams deduce that the real key to solving Bruce’s murder lies in a separate case from a century ago. Meanwhile, their episodic missions start to attract the attention of the rest of the city, who crown their mysterious new heroes the “Gotham Knights.”

They go on by explaining how despite what the show tries to accomplish, the story can’t seem to get out of Batman’s legacy or his shadow in any meaningful and fulfilling way. “Without enough style or personality to shed new light on this world, though, Gotham Knights‘ darkness starts to look awfully dull. Maybe there really is a fresh future for the DC franchise lurking in there somewhere, and it just needs some time to emerge; certainly, the cast chemistry is promising enough to hope for better from this gang. But if they’re really determined to blaze a new trail forward for Gotham City, these knights will need to start by not retreating so readily into its past.”

Whatever the case might be, many are still open to fresh ideas and new faces after the decline of CW’s Arrowverse with many citing how The Flash has seemed too rushed and ran out of ideas. Superman & Lois has fared better in comparison to where the show is now in its third season with good reception. It would take DC fans getting used to in order to understand how this would be incorporated into the broader Arrowverse, or even if it would rehash it in some way. The fan base though has seen more than its fair share of confusion outside of the CW’s DC continuity with James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy, The Suicide Squad) wanting to create yet another continuity for DC films.

You can watch Gotham Knights on the CW at 9pm EST and would be available to stream on HBO Max afterwards. The trailer for the show is down below to get a sense of what’s to come.