Television viewers looking for realism should generally look elsewhere than shows based on comics, which tend to filter reality rather than outright portray it. Gotham on Fox is one of the current comic series that is most grounded in reality, and even Gotham features resurrections and secret cults and a bad guy who can morph his face to copy other people's faces. Still, one of the stars of Gotham promises that the show will reflect a real life event when it returns to the airwaves for Season 3 in the fall. According to Riddler actor Cory Michael Smith, Gotham is about to get political on a national scale.
Gotham, like many superhero stories, is a parallel of today's society, of what happens every day, and in the third season, in the fall, when the United States will stand preparing to face one of the most important presidential elections in their history, even Gotham will address, in parallel, the issue.
Cory Michael Smith teased this political plot at the Festival de Television of Monte Carlo (via Cinefilos) in Monaco. His interview -- which has been translated from Italian -- reveals an interesting aspect of what is to come in Season 3. Gotham has actually gotten political before, although never on a national level. Theo Galavan in Season 2 won the mayoral election thanks to a fair amount of scheming and assassinations, and he used his influence as mayor to further the sinister goal of killing Bruce Wayne in the name of the secret society known as the Order of St. Dumas.
So, basically, politics on Gotham haven't exactly been inspired by real life events to this point. Campaigns can certainly get dirty, but there probably haven't been many elected officials who have won seats of power in the name of an ancient order with a grudge against a teenage billionaire.
Of course, Gotham itself has never really had its place in the world explained. The show is shot in New York City, and other locations have been mentioned, but Gotham seems to exist in a sort of time bubble featuring typewriters as well as computers with nary a smart phone in sight. It should be interesting to see if Gotham touches on the upcoming presidential election by mentioning the real candidates or creating fictional candidates. Election season has already been wild enough thanks to the White House hopefuls smearing each other in the press, so Gotham might be hard-pressed to come up with anything crazier than real life.
No premiere date has yet been set for Season 3, but Seasons 1 and 2 both debuted at the end of September. If Season 3 follows the same trend, Gotham will have plenty of time before the November election to make mention of the presidential campaigns, whether real or fictional. We recently learned that Season 3 will be introducing the classic Batman character Vicki Vale, so perhaps she'll be on the scene to report on the wider world of politics in the Gotham universe.
Given that there are plenty of other new characters slated to show up, and taking into account the crazy ending of Season 2, we shouldn't expect Gotham to spend too much time touching on the presidential election. Unfortunately, we still have a while to wait before we see for ourselves. Check out our summer TV premiere schedule to see what you can watch to pass the time before Gotham returns to the airwaves.
