Gotham season 6: Could it ever happen down the road?
Following tonight’s finale, is there a chance that we could ever see a Gotham season 6? We know that this is something many a fan out there would be curious about, but what about the folks behind the scenes of the show?
Before we even try to dive into these rocky waters, let’s start by giving the cast and creative team copious amounts of praise — lasting for five seasons and a hundred episodes is an incredible feat in an era where viewers are thumbing their noses at traditional television. It’s even more impressive for genre television, since such a high percentage of these shows just don’t making. Even though Gotham did have the backing of its source material, it did a lot to fight its way to where it is today. We can’t think of many shows that went through so many constant reinventions. When you think back to the first season, it was more of a gritty police drama than basically Batman minus the Dark Knight. The wackier characters were minimized and we spent a whole lot more time at the GCPD. We think that Barbara killing her own parents was a key turning point in how the show presented itself. Beyond that, you then had the expansion of Jerome as a character, bringing in more supernatural elements, and then eventually the mad-cap, crazy show we all know and love.
The best thing for Gotham was, basically, the show decided to let loose and be a little bit more like Batman. It’s now one of the best adaptations of the source material we’ve ever had, and that’s without an actual Dark Knight or even the Joker going by its proper name.
Unfortunately, the idea of there being a season 6 in its current form is rather problematic. With the way in which the characters were written for the massive time jump leading into the finale, it’s hard to really go back to that period without fundamental parts of the story being either missing or scattered. In order for Bruce to be Batman, he had to go away for a while. Meanwhile, other notable names are either locked up or missing in action. Could you do something set after the events of the series finale? Sure, but you’d probably have to wait years for it to happen. It’s one thing to find makeshift solutions for aging up characters for a single episode, but doing this for a full season of TV at this point is problematic.
Ultimately, signs point to tonight being the end of Gotham — logistically, it’s hard to see it coming back, and ratings-wise, there may not even be a huge justification with the numbers for the final season being what they are. We’re talking a 0.8 rating in the 18-49 demographic — that’s not far below some of Fox’s other shows, but we gotta think that this isn’t the cheapest production in the world given the New York City and all of the action.
Enjoy Gotham for the crazy story, the humor, the Batman teases, and the performances. Maybe years down the road, something more can happy — it’s just crazy to see something in the crystal ball that is so far beyond the horizon. Tonight is most likely it, thought we imagine that there will be reunions at comic conventions for many years to come. We’ll miss Gotham for all of its imagination and love of the source material. If you’re still checking out the show after all these years, we’re sure that you feel the same.