Gotham: The Complete Fourth Season - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Gotham: The Complete Fourth Season



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:



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Movie
Gotham is kind of the red headed step child of this new craze of DC live action TV shows. Most of these shows have all been herded over to the The CW and crammed inside of the Arrowverse (with small exceptions like Black Lightning), and even Supergirl left NBC after the first season and was absorbed by the behemoth that is The CW DC lineup. Well, all except for Gotham, that is. The Fox based show has stood to the side with solidarity, acting as the outlier to the DC live action lineup, marching to the beat of a different drum. Instead of being angsty (well, TOOOO angsty), filled with teenage drama, and really light on the violence, Gotham revels in the bizarre. It gleefully bathes in darkness, and doesn’t shy away from the fact that it isn’t even remotely close to the Batman canon. In fact, it’s almost like watching one of the Elseworlds, or mirror universe shows, as the series unabashedly takes ideas and concepts from Batman’s lair of villains and heroes, morphing them all into a completely unique show that still carries the essence of Batman, but braves its own narrative path in doing so.

Gotham is completely nuts. I’ll say that straight up. The series is darkly Gothic, and it LOOOOOVES to infuse in a huge conglomeration of villains from Batman’s gallery of rogues (along with some invented ones too). While The CW shows in the Arrowverse have been steadily stumbling and faltering as their respective series continues (except for DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, which has actually gotten BETTER over time) Gotham has been getting better and better as it progresses. I was a little bit nervous when I watched season 1, but by the time season 3 ended I was completely hooked. Season 4 manages to top season 3 by the barest of amounts, and does so by reveling in he insanity of the concepts. The series is just ALL over the place in terms of villains and concepts. Penguin (Robin Lord Taylor) is in charge of the criminal underworld, Edward Nygma is fully entrenched in his dual life as The Riddler (Cory Michael Smith), Scarecrow is here, Jerome (who is supposedly NOT the real Joker) is hacking up the place in true Heath Ledger style, and a myriad of other super villains make themselves known. Solomon Grundy, Professor Pyg, Ivy’s mutation into her evil self, and even Falcone and Sofia make themselves known in the universe. In a lessor series this would be seen as overstuffed to the gills, but somehow Gotham manages to balance the rogues gallery evenly across the 22 episode series.

This brings me to a curious comparison with the other DC universe shows. Shows like The Flash, Arrow and the like all seem to have a really hard time with multiple villains. Sure we get “villain of the week” episodes through all the shows, but the majority of The CW oriented Arroverse shows always have one major villain, and the rest are just there for cannon fodder. Gotham somehow manages to infuse over a dozen major villains simultaneously into it’s season and still come out feeling fairly balanced. It’s something that I truly appreciate about the series as it continues. That being said, the show still has no problem killing off major characters, and warping good guys into bad guys. Even characters like Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie) have gone bad (see Hugo Strange last season for that little bit of fun).

Season 4 also is a drastic change of pace for the series. We saw hints of it last season, but the series is changing from “The Jim Gordon Show”, to more of the creation of the Dark Knight himself. We saw Bruce (Mazouz) wanting to take a more active role in protecting Gotham City, but this season is full of his progression from teenage rich kid to full on warrior, facilitated by Alfred (who is markedly one of the most unique, yet still accurate, portrayals of Alfred Pennyworth to his comic book lore). It’s actually neat to see the change, as Mazouz has slowly changed from the annoying little kid, to a stoic character that is slowly showing the signs of the iconic Bruce Wayne. Tortured, cold, and completely intelligent to the core. Gordon still takes up a large majority of the show though, as he maintains more of the detective aspects of the Batman universe, hunting down criminals and scumbags in ways that young Bruce can’t at this point.

As usual, the show is also split up into two halves. The first half is arguably the weaker half, but it’s the second half that brings home the bacon. The machinations of Jerome and Jeremiah as the “wannabe Joker” (I’m still curious who they’re going to reveal as the real clown prince of crime) is intoxicating, and WELL worth the price of admission of the season alone. The overacting (on purpose), the rabid glee, the maniacal machinations, all add to the flavor of the show, giving it an almost Joel Schumacher vibe, without the absurdity of George Clooney, batnipples, and the sloppy insanity that was his addition to the Batman movies.




Rating:

Rated TV-14




Video:

I’m going to sound like a broken record here, but sequel seasons in a series of high quality Blu-ray encodes are going to be very similar. Like the previous seasons before it, Gotham: The Complete Fourth Season is near impeccable in the video department. The 1.78:1 AVC encode takes a nice balance between the Gothic darkness of the city and daylight sequences, blending in a healthy amount of stylistic grading to give it that blue/gray vibe offset by amber lighting. Blacks are deep and inky without showing much crush at all, and the details show on leather outfits, or brocaded shirts is insanely done. You can see every little bit of makeup smear on Jeremiah’s garish face, or the little feathery fibers on The Riddler’s iconic green costume. Primaries are strong and sharp, contrasting nicely with the bleak Gothic stone and rubble that the city resides in, and I couldn’t find nary an artifact besides a scene or two that shows off black crush. Overall, this is an exemplary encode that really is typical of the show’s dedication to quality looking Blu-ray releases.





Audio:

Yeah yeah, I know, broken record. Warner once again delivers a stunning 5.1 DTS-HD MA mix that really shows just how good a “paltry” 5.1 mix can sound in a home theater world obsessed with Atmos and 7.1 mixes. The series is extremely action oriented, pitting villains vs. heroes in the slums of Gotham City. This allows for an awesome sense of immersiveness, as the battles echo off of stone walls, and thunder and roar with deep waves of LFE. The fight scenes with Ras and Bruce is awe inspiring in the deep caves underneath Wayne manor, and the busy nightlife of Gotham City (which seems to all be comprised of thugs and gangsters) allow for a really nice sense of layering to the track’s sound levels. The whisper of a footstep contrasts nicely with the report of a gunshot on the pier, and the score itself just pulsates with deep energy. Vocals are well placed up front and hold no flaws that I can hear as well, and the nuanced directional shifts in the show make for some really neat heard turning moments (especially in the underbelly of Gotham).





Extras:

• The Best of DC TV's Comic-Con Panels San Diego 2017
• Solomon Grundy: Born on a Monday
• The Sirens Take Gotham
• Deleted Scenes

Final Score: ​

The series is unique, fresh, and completely bizarre for those of you used to the more traditional superhero shoes. The series is literally all over the place (in a good way), allowing for multiple simultaneous villains, crazy Gothic locations, villains who are pure evil, good guys who have a darkness in them, and the differing shades of gray that is indicative of Gotham city. The series has an ambiance that is completely unique, and one that actually had me wondering if Fox was going to cancel it after the second season (like it’s famous for doing). Luckily the series has survived a full 4 seasons (with the 5th season being it’s last by all accounts), and doing better and better as time goes on. Warner Brothers gives us a typical home video package for the show, which includes amazing audio/video, and the same standard special features that are plastered on all their comic book show releases. Still highly recommended by me as my favorite of the superhero shows at the moment.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Ben McKenzie, David Mazouz, Donal Logue, Robin Lord Taylor
Created by: Bruno Heller
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, Portuguese DD 2.0
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Korean, Norwegian, Swedish
Studio: Warner Brothers
Rated: TV-14
Runtime: 965 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: Own on Blu-rayTM and DVD 8/21

Recommendation: Highly Recommended.