In a tragic mugging gone wrong, young Bruce Wayne is left an orphan. When new detective Jim Gordon vows to crack the case and find the killer, he finds himself in a whole new world of violence, corruption and a changing criminal mentality.

Welcome to Gotham, the latest in an expanding line of DC comics inspired TV shows. Unlike Arrow, the upcoming Flash and the rumoured Supergirl shows, this boasts no superhuman feats, choosing to focus on police procedures and corruption.

Cards on the table. I expected this to suck. Hard. Nothing about it sounded good, and I’m sick of origin stories. Smallville at least had Clark Kent (Tom Welling) investigating his origins and dealing with being an alien and becoming Superman. This is Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie ) and Harvey Bullock (Donal Logue) basically playing “Before they were famous.” I am very happy to report that I was wrong. This was good. It was great, actually. Enjoyable, gritty, with oceans of possible stories, I’m honestly excited for this show.

The cast is great, Jada Pinkett Smith’s Fish Mooney in particular is amazing. The cameos are brief and serve a point, rather than the references for the sake of references that plague the movies. A particular stand-out is the weird, quirky guy (every police procedural has at least one), named Eddie Nygma (played by Cory Michael Smith).

I didn’t expect to say this, but I’m really looking forward to seeing more of this. Gotham airs Mondays 8pm ET on CTV and online on Tuesdays.

Cast: Ben McKenzie, Donal Logue, David Mazouz, Zabryna Guevara, Sean Pertwee, Robin Taylor, Erin Richards, Camren Bicondova, Cory Michael Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith and John Doman.

Donal O’Connor