Gotham Season 4 ended things on sour and dour notes for the titular criminal haven, with Jeremiah having blown all the bridges to smithereens, leaving a multitude of sadists and maniacs with quite the large-scale playground. It wasn't yet clear when Season 5, Gotham's last, would pick the narrative back up, but it's now been revealed that Gotham City will give fans two looks into the future of the No Man's Land disaster. The premiere will jump ahead around three months, and it will then deliver a flash-forward that takes place over a year after the events of the finale. That's a long time to try to survive beneath Jeremiah's chaotic thumb.
It will assumedly be in the early months of 2019 when Gotham Season 5 debuts on Fox, so the TV series' 87-day time jump, which was confirmed by ComicBook.com, won't be as reflective of the real world hiatus as it would be if the new season was part of the fall primetime lineup. While it might have been exciting and potentially different for Gotham to pick back up right after the events of the Season 4 finale, that wasn't a very good option to run with after Fox decided to pull the plug on Gotham beyond a shortened fifth season. As such, skipping ahead a bit made a lot more sense for the creative team.
Perhaps the most intriguing thing about crossing that 87-day time gap is fans will assumedly be seeing a vastly different Gotham City in the upcoming premiere, since it will have been stuck in a state of near-lawlessness a fourth of a year. That might not seem like a long time in and of itself, but just imagine if your own neighborhood had heavies like Mr. Freeze, Penguin, Jeremiah and more running everything, and that they had been wreaking havoc since June. Not a lot of silver linings to be found for innocent people, assuming there are any left.
Lurching forward also allows Gotham to bring characters and situations into Season 5 without needing to establish any set-ups. Sure, Bane will probably get a formal introduction across the season, but other new characters and settings can already be a part of the show's fabric without falling back on mini-origin stories. I'd be much happier if Bruce Wayne already has his new Batcave when the season starts, even though it might take longer than three months to make that happen. Plus, three months of Jeremiah's influence could certainly be enough to draw out the real Joker, right?
Then there's that curious promise of a flash-forward, taking viewers into Gotham City a full 391 days after its transportation routes were destroyed. Will we possibly get a death or two hinted at via a funeral? Will we see Bruce in full-on Batman mode for the briefest of moments? Will Penguin finally be fat? The potential is there to really throw caution into the wind for Gotham's writers, and I'm hoping for the wildest season yet.
Gotham will return to Fox for Season 5 at some point in 2019. To see what other new and returning shows are popping up sooner than that, head to our fall TV premiere schedule.
