The Gotham Television Series Almost Looked A Lot Different

Gotham has been one of the more popular comic book based television series to be introduced this year, along with Flash and the ever increasing in popularity Constantine.  But few people know that while this version of the show was being created, another vision of a prequel was also in development.

Harry Locke IV had envisioned his own idea for a show that featured the city as it's title character.  He had put together his ideas, and with the help of some friends and producing partners that had faith in his idea, was introduced to a former 'showrunner' from the Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman to help bring together his idea so that he could pitch it to the studios.  They put together a flow of how the show would work from week to week, and were going to make an impresive presentation.  But things never got to that point.

Unbeknownst to Locke, the studio was in the process of developing their own version of a Batman prequel, and his idea never got to see the light of day.  Since the show is up and running, and seems to be doing quite well, Locke and his developing team decided to reveal their own version of the show for people to read.  Here's the synopsis of their idea, courtesy of Blastr.com:

The home of the Dark Knight viewed through the eyes of its citizen’s greatest threat…themselves.

Synopsis: A world asphyxiating on its own blood and moral depravity, GOTHAM thrusts us into a community at its breaking point, barreling headlong into urban warfare with the greatest gallery of rogues known to man smelling blood in the water. Winter is upon the dark city, and its citizens are being ushered towards an inevitable confrontation against a most vicious threat… their own sins.

Olivia Sage, a struggling 21-year-old college physics student, reluctantly returns home to Gotham City following the grisly murder of her younger sister. Amidst mourning her death and tending a frayed relationship with her father, she finds the sprawling megalopolis quickly becoming engulfed by a powerful new hallucinogenic derived from Joker Venom. The drug spreads rapidly from the city’s underbelly and into its mainstream consciousness, igniting urban warfare in its wake, and exposing a corrupt political façade teetering on the edge of collapse.

GOTHAM seeks to bring forth the creation of an episodic fiction series that explores the famed city of DC Comics through an unfamiliar perspective, the lives of its very inhabitants. For over 50 years, fans around the world have made countless trips to a nightmare built from stone and metal, witnessing the world’s most revered heroes and despised villains engage in colossal warfare. However, these stories have often utilized Gotham City as a backdrop to the action, viewing the city on a macro level to the trials and tribulations survived by its patron guardian… until now. GOTHAM takes us into the city deeper than ever before, bringing specific focus to the unknown inhabitants that make the city come to life, and offering a glimpse at daily survival under the constant threat of super-villains, inexplicable supernatural occurrences, and the looming presence of an unpredictable entity known only as The Batman. 

It's a pretty good idea, and his vision of showing the decline of Gotham from a "regular" person's point of view is pretty imaginative.  Where Locke's version shows what's going on in the city from the "every man's" point of view, the current version is from a title character in James Gordan.  Also, in Locke's version, the villians already exist, and so does Batman.  The current version is long before Batman is even a thought.

So what do you think?  Would you have rather seen Locke's vision of Gotham, or are you enjoying the current program?  I would have enjoyed to see a pilot episode of the former at least, just to get a better idea of the direction it would have taken, but alas...