Gotham is an American television series created by Bruno Heller, based on characters that appear in DC Comics publications in his Batman franchise, mainly Detective James Gordon and Bruce Wayne. The series stars Ben McKenzie as the young Gordon. Heller serves as executive producer on the series, along with Danny Cannon, who also directed the pilot. Gotham was announced on May 5, 2014, and debuted on September 22, 2014 at Fox Broadcasting Company (FOX). On May 13, 2018, Fox renewed the series for a fifth and final season.
As originally conceived, the series would have served as a simple story about Gordon's early days in the Gotham City police. The idea evolved, not only to include the Bruce Wayne character, but also to tell the origin stories of several Batman villains, including Joker, Joker, Penguin, Catwoman, Riddler, Two-Face, Poison Ivy, Lord Cold , Scarecrow, Ra's al Ghul, Mad Hatter and Hugo Strange. The first season would originally have 16 episodes, which was later extended to a total of 22.