Martha Byrne's Gotham is BACK (now on TV)

[Chris B]

I'm surprised I haven't seen a thread about this, although I may have missed it! The show will be syndicated and also air on the web. The episodes will be 30 minutes each, but no word on if it'll have a daily or weekly format.

LINK: http://www.prurgent.com/2013-03-21/pressrelease290280.htm

Thoughts?

For me, I'm more shocked than anything. It's been four years since Gotham aired. I've always said Gotham is one of the few web soaps I'd LIKE to see move to tv because it had a good premise that would led itself to that. The production values weren't the best, but I could see what they were trying to achive and it felt like good soap. I hope with a bigger budget that these kinks are worked out. I hope it's a success! They certainly picked a good year to do this.

[DRW50]

Are we going to continue to have episodes where the credits take up half the show?

I will watch this if they bring back Melanie Smith and Lisa Peluso and Margaret Reed, etc. Not interested in Martha herself, never really have been.

[Chris B]

She said to expect some big names in the cast. It'll be nice to see a project that hopefully features a good amount of unemployed P&G actors. I'd love Maura West to have a role in this.

[DRW50]

That would be nice, depending on the P&G actors. I would be so happy to get people like Melanie Smith back on TV again. Liz Hubbard, Finn Carter, Kathleen Widdoes, Susan Marie Snyder, Marie Masters, Don Hastings, Kathryn Hays, on and on and on, from the ATWT cast alone.

[DramatistDreamer]

I think it's a good idea, although, unlike a lot of soap fans, it didn't bother me whether I watch online or not (or course, having a giant gaming laptop screen doesn't hurt).

Yeah, I agree about the credits and/or the intro taking way too much time. That seemed excessive to me. I think I know why they did it (as a sort of recap but I watched a bunch of episodes in one sitting, so those intros seemed especially tedious and a waste of precious storytelling time.

Hopefully, they will be able to expand the set of character so that the storytelling is a tiny bit broader.

CarlD2, I'd love to see some of those ATWT characters appear in some capacity. I'd especially love a mini reunion with Finn (whom I haven't seen in so long) and Elizabeth. All the rest sound good too. Now, if they could get Brian Bloom, I'd really get excited!

Regardless of what people think of Martha, it is unlikely this show would have a chance of returning without her ability to network. She strikes me of someone who knows how to connect those links she's made throughout the years.

[EricMontreal22]

"Are we going to continue to have episodes where the credits take up half the show?"

I feel mean, but this is my main memory of the show, as well...

[P.J.]

I would have to see what "nationally syndicated over our stations" really means.

As much as I love MP, I watched about TWO minutes of "the show" (which seemed to be mostly credits) before I gave up.

Although I will admit, I was HUGELY turned off by the casting choices and the fact it started airing (I believe) slightly before ATWT ended. It hurt too much to watch.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I'm just not a fan of Martha Byrne (acting or personality)...

[Vee]

Let's just say this [!@#$%^&*] leaves me a good deal more skeptical about it somehow making it to a television screen than PP did in December.

That show was not exactly cable-ready.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Hell, it wasn't even cable-access ready.

[Vee]

That too.

[DramatistDreamer]

I think the show needs to make some major structural changes. Many web series have increased their production values and started to improve the writing since Gotham streamed its last episode. So even if it would have returned as a web only series, it would've needed to make some improvements. On TV (even if it ends up one MeTV or Cozi) the expectations will be that much higher.

It will be interesting to see how this pans out.

[Vee]

Like adding walls.

[DramatistDreamer]

LOL. True. Things were looking kinda flimsy on some of those locations.

[EricMontreal22]

Well said. When Gotham was running--or at least the first few episodes I saw, while webseries were obviously starting to become a viable thing, I still allowed a lot of leeway in terms of quality--and Gotham frankly still didn't live up to that IMHO. By current standards when you have a lot of webseries that honestly do look as good as (cheaper) cable programming, it seems odd to me that this would even still be viable. Is there a huge fanbase I am completely clueless about? Are people writing fanfic about what could have happened after the last made episode? Otherwise why not just start again from scratch?