Bard Investigations - Episode 1x01 - Gotham Confidential

I must say… I am thoroughly impressed with the premiere of Bard Investigations. Was it the best pilot ever? No. But was it pretty kick ass? Yes!

I’ll start off with the good. To begin, the entire episode kept me sucked right in. I literally didn’t stop at all. I finished it up faster than most other scripts that I read, so that just goes to show that I was deeply, DEEPLY interested in what was happening. The characters were interesting (although there is a problem involving characters, which I’ll get to later on).

James Marsden is absolutely perfect for the role of Jason Bard. Jason’s wit and sarcasm, in a word, is… delicious. I laughed a good few times while reading this episode. And when I say that the comedy aspects of the episode were good, I mean it. I don’t laugh at everything, so when you get a chuckle from me, you know that you did well.

Monica is a very interesting character. She is not only Jason’s secretary, but she also appears to be his right-hand man (well, woman – but you know what I mean). I can see her pulling through in tough situations throughout the entire season. She is obviously a determined and trustworthy women (she’s a mother, so she better damn well be). I hope to see her get a bit more spotlight sooner, rather than later.

Now that I’ve gone through the main ‘goods’, it’s time to get to the bad. As I said earlier, the episode kept me sucked right in. This was partly because of the fast pace of the script. However, at times, things went a little too fast. With the speed of things, the descriptiveness fell off at times, and that is something you don’t want to see in any script. If I had to guess, I’d say you were trying to cram a good bit into those 66 pages.

Speaking of descriptiveness, I was unimpressed by some aspects of the lead characters. You have 3 lead roles in this series. Those 3 should be front and center, especially in the first episode. Renee just jumped into the story without much information being given to us about her. On top of that, Renee was absent for most of the episode (yeah, I know she was shot, but still). Some of the guest stars (one of which died), had a hell of a lot more face time then her. I don’t think that’s right, especially in a pilot. There may have been a good reason for this on the mythology part of things, but in a pilot, I’d much rather see action with the lead characters, not more so with the guest stars.

Nonetheless, I was very satisfied with the first episode. Given, this is the first episode and it most cases, quality gets improved upon greatly after the first episode or two. I can’t wait to read next week!

And now, for my first theory for Bard Investigations, based on the events of this episode!

Jimbo’s Next Theory
Jason may find himself quickly regretting his decision to work for Batman. However, I do get a feeling that Batman will give Jason a difficult first case. There isn’t much for me to go off of here, especially since there is only this one episode to use information from. As I’ve already said – I can’t wait for more!