Gotham is a series that is more gritty than glittering, but that seems to be exactly what the doctor has ordered. Fans have flocked to the DC Entertainment series airing on Fox across its first few weeks, and it seems like the show has numerous characters and directions to still develop. With that in mind, it's no surprise that Fox would want to sign on for additional episodes of the hit series. On Monday, the network announced that it had signed on for a full season of Gotham, which means fans have six more episodes to look forward to.
The confidence in the series all comes down to number crunching. Fox is reporting the show has been this fall’s top-ranking broadcast among men in the 18-49 demographic. I think the network is only counting broadcast, here, but even if they aren’t, the recent premiere of The Walking Dead Season 5 might put those numbers down a little bit. Still, Fox is also noting the show outperformed both The Blacklist and Scorpion during its premiere week and has continued to do well in subsequent episodes. When calculating Live+3 ratings, all three episodes have done at least a 4.0 rating. In fact, Gotham has been the highest ranked debut Fox has aired in 14 years. When considering network TV’s faltering in the ratings thanks to better cable programming, rising costs and Netflix, that hot fact is pretty impressive.
When Gotham first went to series, Fox gave the show a 16-episode order. That should have given the crew and writers an ample number of episodes to begin to build up the mythology related to Gotham, its villains, a young Bruce Wayne and, of course, James Gordon and Harvey Bullock. Now, we just have to hope that showrunner Bruce Heller and company have planned for the possibility of additional episodes, and will still be able to deliver a set of final episodes and a finale that are worth watching, without too much filler in between.
I would guess that the writers already have plan for landing those extra episodes. As the numbers show, Gotham is certainly a success for Fox and you would think that the cast and crew would have assumed a 22-episode order was on the way. With that in mind, there’s a ton of different directions the extra six episodes could go in. Gotham has already promised us a slew of villains, and we can even name a few. We recently learned that Nicholas D’Agosto has signed on to play famous villain Harvey Dent in the series, although he’s described as an “idealistic” District Attorney making a name for himself in Gotham by attacking those who are corrupt. We’ll have to wait and see whether there are any two-faced attributes to his personality.
Fox’s Gotham airs on Monday nights at 9 p.m. ET. This week’s episode, “Arkham,” will feature politicians in danger. While Gordan and Bullock race to save the day, Oswald Cobblepot gets a criminal name.
