Batwoman Pilot

This is probably going to be a long post, so get some popcorn, a drink or two, and get comfy for a solid read. Or maybe you'll be reading just me venting my thoughts, but here we go!

Overall, I think the Batwoman show has potential. There are a lot of flaws that I will be incredibly nit-picky about and that I will highly criticize because of my favor towards the Dark Knight (I mean what with becoming the Liberty Batman and everything? If I didn't like Batman, I think we'd have a problem here/something would be way off if I were to still be the Batman).

First things first, they are so far doing well on not shoving a more liberal agenda down the viewer's throats. And I don't say that as if I would like it if they were to shove a more conservative agenda down the viewer's throat either (ICYMI, I am more right-winged/conservative when it comes to politics). They do include some open gay-ness so to speak. I mean it's fine though because in the comics, Kate Kane is a lesbian. So of course they had to address that. What with being politically correct. It did give me a bit of chuckle though when the other character, Sophie, denied the relationship and then again when they revealed that she has a husband.

The biggest point of criticism that I will be focusing on is the details and the locations. Let's start with location.

As they say, "location, location, location", because everything is all about the place you are in physically, at least as far as businesses go. So riddle me this: why is the batcave underneath Wayne Tower? How could there even be a cave system in the middle of Gotham City that somehow no one has discovered? I mean it's an urban city, so someone must've been doing some underground work, whether it's the subway, or plumbing, or electrical, or any other civil engineering task that you could think of. I guess it's way deep underground, but still that's odd that a whole city was built over a cave.

Now the details: First off they have a scene of Kate Kane and her sister Beth running around Bruce Wayne's office when they were children, say maybe 8 or 9 by my estimations. No more than that, possibly younger. IF the head office belongs to Bruce Wayne, then how much older is Bruce Wayne supposed to be over Kate Kane? I know that they are cousins, but Bruce was a grown man and was the Dark Knight in the time that Kate was of that young age. Side note: it has already been confirmed that Kevin Conroy, voice of many animated Batman series and the voice of Batman in the Arkham video game trilogy, is supposed to make an appearance for this year's CW crossover as an older, retired Bruce Wayne. Still age is a big question, because I'm sure they can bring some weird voodoo magic guy like they did for Elseworlds and shift the time period.

Second detail, the CW typically has great costume design. I mean the Green Arrow has an incredible suit, the Flash is pretty solid, and even the side characters have some good suits. So riddle me this when the famous Dark Knight was apparently wearing this garbage:

And then we get to my least favorite line that had me skeptical since promotional material came out of: "I need you to fix his suit." "Why it's literal perfection?" "It will be when it fits a woman." Like I get it, the show is about Batwoman but come on, the batsuit was Batman's first. There was in no instance a spot where Batwoman was supposed to be the primary wearer of the suit. Also side note, a nod to Lucius Fox by putting Lucius' kid in, Luke Fox. That leaves the question as to whether or not we will see a Batwing in the future, or if Batwoman will be the only member of the Batfamily in this CW show. Only time will tell.

Thirdly, I know that Batwoman will eventually get a different suit as the suit she wears in this first episode looks nothing like the suit that all of the promotional material had her in, but this looks like the dumbest thing ever. It looks worse than the batsuit that they had for the 30 seconds for Bruce to wear at the end of FOX's Gotham series. It looks even worse than going to Party City for a Batman suit that would cost you maybe $20. This is supposed to be a professional TV series, and you're telling me that similar people who must've worked on the costumes for other shows on the same network, or at least the people who know what kind of costumes they want, can't get someone to design something better? I mean just look at how Kate Kane looks in this ugly thing:

It's really dumb and it's really ugly. I can't wait for them to actually get to the final suit/whatever suit they were teasing in promotional images/trailers.

Finally, there were a lot of cliche things that happened. Childhood memory sparks an interest towards an object that will further the plot, i.e. the recognition of Martha Wayne's pearl necklace that's oddly sitting in Wayne Tower that when turned opens the bookcase to the batcave. Or when she walks into the batcave, turns on the power, then bats swarm the new person who enters (Might I add that the SFX for this show is beyond awful? The bat swarm was low quality, and even the one bit where they show Kate gliding away looked super cheesy). Then you also had the "save the damsel" sort of scene with Sophie falling from the construction site and then the hero catches and saves the damsel. Although, do explain to me how the cape can slow the fall when the backside is facing the ground, a.k.a. the opposite way it normally would be if Batman were gliding around. Or even the ending where surprise surprise, the reason the World's Greatest Detective could never find the body of the sister after an acclaimed miscalculation with the grapple hook on a crashed car, was because the sister survived and is the villain, Alice. (How does someone of Batman's skill not account for everything? Supposedly he accounted for all the weight so he used 2 grapple hooks, but didn't account for the poor engineering of the vehicle so the frame broke and the grapple hooks couldn't hold the car as it went over the edge of the bridge? And sure Batman would go to save as many lives as possible, since the school bus that hit the car apparently had 38 other lives to save and was being driven or somehow involved with the Joker. They gave so much credit to Batman, but then also backhanded him in same 30 seconds. A peculiar way to go, but alas it's what we're going to have to settle with).

All in all, I'm probably just being super critical and harsh on this show. I mean it's got my interest, I'll keep watching it for the next few weeks and see if any new developments happen that make the show fulfill it's potential that I can see in it. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to finally have something of the Dark Knight on the CW, but they better do this right because if not just for me, but I'm sure a lot of other fans of the Batman out there are wanting something good, and Batman is a way more popular hero than the Green Arrow, the Flash, Supergirl, or any of the Legends of Tomorrow.

CW, do this right, and you'll have your cash cow for a solid couple of seasons. Butcher the Dark Knight/the Batfamily, and you'll regret it.