The following contains spoilers for Gotham Knights Season 1, Episode 11, "Daddy Issues," which debuted June 6 on The CW.
When fans learned The CW would renew either Superman & Lois or Gotham Knights, many assumed the former would be the winner. It's just a better show, and true to form, Gotham Knights has been canceled. It's quite predictable, because despite some surprising ratings and a devoted fanbase, it just never garnered steady momentum the way other Arrowverse shows have.
Even HBO Originals like Titans and Doom Patrol gain more buzz and chatter, which feels like the writing was always on the wall. But reconciling what Season 1 has done so far, Gotham Knights really was doomed to fail from start, and it's all due to its painfully missing component: Bruce Wayne.
Gotham Knights Couldn't Work Without Bruce Wayne
Gotham Knights only had Bruce briefly appear in the pilot, with his dead body found. This pushed Turner Hayes to find out who dropped him off Wayne Tower and why. This led to Turner, the Joker's Daughter, Duela, Harper and Cullen Row joining forces to to investigate the murder. This led them to discovering the existence of the Court of Owls, who were responsible for his death.
The problem with this premise is that Bruce hasn't had any sort of presence since. It's therefore hard to imagine a Batman series without Batman would last. Even Gotham turned a young Bruce into the proto-Dark Knight, realizing ratings craved some form or fashion of the Caped Crusader. When the Gotham Knights video game killed Bruce too, it still had memorials, flashbacks and his butler, Alfred Pennyworth as a means of preserving his presence. The Gotham Knights TV series does the complete opposite of that.
Bruce is barely name-dropped, with his diary brought in on the rare occasion. The journal mentions Batman killed Turner's parents, but without flashbacks, the reveal lacks any emotional weight, which would have helped viewership. Even a sequence of Turner hallucinating or dreaming the event would have given this reveal more depth. But this gets to the heart of the problem with the series: without Batman, this series never truly had a chance to take off. This similarly reduces the impact of Carrie Kelley as Robin, with loyalists disappointed their Frank Miller-era partnership isn't seen in recollections.
Gotham Knights Fails to Make Bruce Any Sort of Symbol
Without flashbacks with Carrie or Turner, there's no emotional attachment to Bruce as a father figure. The show harps on this duality, but without Bruce, it asks fans to fill that space with their imagination. It's quite unfair, when it's the job of the show to present its version of the Gotham hero. In addition, there aren't other past sidekicks such as the male Robins, Red Hood, Batgirl or a Jim Gordon to illustrate how Bruce was as a vigilante. The game had all this, so Bruce still felt alive and cast a pall of hope.
While Misha Collins' Harvey Dent is a commendable character, his past with Bruce is also scrubbed. They're supposed to be friends, making Two-Face's debut more tragic. But that energy isn't there without seeing Harvey and Bruce plotting to heal Gotham over the years. The show could have added more Bat-Family members or rogues to help with this. But Alfred is scrubbed for Cressida Clarke, only for her to be killed by a displeased Court of Owls that feels so done to death across the comics and games. Even Leslie Tompkins would have added more weight, working as a therapist on Harvey's mental health, while the Joker could have been shown protecting Duela.
Gotham Knights was also a chance to have Anarky, Punchline and other villains fans have clamored for in live-action over the years to enter the fray, proving how Bruce creates the very chaos he tries to fight. Instead, the show hinges a lot on Stephanie Brown (who's not Spoiler), and the Rows, when really, these are fringe characters in the books. Had Bruce's son Damian Wayne been included, that would have been more meaningful, and the stakes would've been better. As it stands, Gotham Knights tried to be Bruce-adjacent without any associated elements to keep his fire burning. Ultimately, it's a recipe for disaster, which makes it no surprise Gotham Knights is dead in the water.
Gotham Knights returns June 20 at 9 pm ET/PT on The CW.