I loved this more than I thought I would. Maybe it's just because of my personal bias, but I thought they did a really good job with it. The atmosphere, and the seediness of Gotham was totally apparent, and they seem to be doing the characters justice. I, too, can see where people are coming from, when it comes to age and things, but I think it can work. Empires don't form overnight, so, it's reasonable to assume that guys like Penguin and Joker wouldn't gain their status that way. It's weird to imagine a rookie Batman going up against 40+ year old villains, though (but I suppose that could account for why he's always so successful
).
I think one of the things that benefitted the show, for me, anyway, was that I did go in with relatively low expectations. I was expecting it to be really cheesy, but, seeing that it was actually solid, count me in. The only thing that caught me off guard was the "executioner" who looked like something out of Resident Evil. On one hand, it kind of gives the impression that criminals are already starting to get a "taste for the theatrical," as Begins Gordon so aptly put it, but, on the other hand, it almost seems a bit too heavy handed. The chain mail apron was what really threw it over the top, I feel. I want to see Gotham start to Descend into that insanity, but it seemed too early to have something like that, but, maybe that was the point, initially, those people would seem out of place.
