The Dark Knight: Television Show
Synopsis: The television series would follow the early years of the caped crusader and his initial uneasy alliance with Commissioner Gordon and the Gotham Police Department.
Atmosphere-The show would be as close to a cinematic experience as you could get and have some elements of a procedural cop show such as Law & Order with a cold opening revealing the crime that would initially get Batman involved. Exteriors could be shot in Chicago, Detroit & parts of Downtown Los Angeles.
Story: Batman has been operating in Gotham for about six months and has recently taken down the Falcone Crime family. Word on the street is that a new kingpin is setting up shop in Crime Alley: An elusive figure known as “The Penguin” a.k.a Oswald Cobblepot.
Cobblepot seems to have bottomless pockets and appears untouchable, but Commissioner Gordon’s campaign against organized crime and Batman’s nocturnal attacks are starting to put a strain on his operation. The embittered crime boss already embroiled in a gang war with “The Black Mask” begins to hire mercenaries to take care of his massing enemies.
Commissioner Gordon has his hands full with his war on organized crime, fight against department corruption, the vigilante BATMAN and trying to raise a teenaged daughter on his own. Barbara seems to be interested, inordinately so in police work and activity. His wife and young son have moved to Central City after being targeted by the mafia. Barbara remained with her father claiming that he needed someone to take care of him. She has even volunteered her time at the local precinct as a Police Explorer.
Unknown to her father, Barbara has made contact with the Dark Knight and supplies him with information on crimes and ongoing police cases.
Bruce Wayne lives a double life as a billionaire industrialist and tech maven of Wayne Enterprises by day and spends his nights in an unending war on crime as the vigilante: BATMAN. His dual life is known only to family caretaker Alfred Pennyworth who has a few secrets of his own. Wayne is feeling the stress of his dual life as he is being pressured to take his company public while a police task force is hampering his ability to fully deal with organized crime.
Series Overview for Season One:
BIG BAD: The Penguin
SECOND BIG BAD: Black Mask
Batman and Commissioner Gordon will be brought together as pressure from outside forces them to work together in order to stop the chaos engulfing the streets of Gotham.
Barbara Gordon will learn the identity of The BATMAN and this information will put her in continual danger as Bane is hired by THE PENGUIN to murder her in order to punish Commissioner Gordon for dismantling his crime organization. Note: She suspects Wayne of being the enigmatic vigilante but discovers the truth after he nearly dies saving her from BANE. She ultimately goes into the Witness Protection Program keeping her secrets to herself.
Series Overview for Season Two:
BIG BAD: The Joker
SECOND BIG BAD: The Penguin
New Character(s): Selina Kyle (Catwoman), Vicky Vale & Chief O’Hara
The Joker has emerged as if from the shadows to take complete control of Gotham’s organized crime scene after murdering Black Mask and casually brokering a deal with Penguin to supply him with weapons and additional personnel. The Joker is initially obsessed with killing BATMAN but over time comes to consider the Dark Knight as his equal and desires to corrupt the hero in tandem with his own jaded world view.
At the urging of Alfred, Bruce has taken on more of the semblance of normal life even casually dating reporter Vicky Vale, but with the emergence of the Joker everything is turned on its head. Joker begins a campaign of terror by targeting the Gotham police force killing a cop every day and antagonizing Gordon forcing Batman into continual action. As a result Bruce pushes Vicky more and more out of his life which comes to a head when he meets Catwoman and they begin a heated in-costume affair.
Catwoman is passing through Gotham on a stealing spree and runs afoul of the Penguin after she cleans out one of his hidden caches of cash. She has to avoid being killed after a hit is put on her from the still-in prison Cobblepot who hires Deadshot to take her out. She also has to deal with her feelings for the Batman. She ends up taking a job to rob Wayne Enterprises of some valuable tech to clear her ledger with the Penguin and ends up being apprehended by the man she loves.
Gordon has more than enough on his plate as The Joker’s rampant terror campaign has put the force nearly on its knees. The police are threatening to strike if he doesn’t bring in the National Guard and the mayor is threatening his job. Fortifying his alliance with the BATMAN, Gordon installs the iconic BAT SIGNAL on top of police headquarters and hires the TYGER-SECURITY firm to fortify the remaining cops.
Unknown to Gordon, the mercenaries are working for the incarcerated Cobblepot who uses his resources to find out where Barbara Gordon is living and sends that information to the Joker.
The Joker appears at the girl’s doorstep and shoots her several times ultimately crippling her.
Gordon begins drinking heavily and considers quitting the job until an untimely intervention from the Dark Knight forces him to face the harsh realities of life as they band together to stop the Joker and dismantle the remaining vestiges of Penguin’s criminal empire (The insane Joker was only a front.).
The recovering Barbara Gordon uses her computer skills to expose the Penguin’s involvement and he finds himself indicted by the federal government and moved to Guantanamo Bay as a convicted terrorist.
The Joker is convicted and declared criminally insane. He is sent to Arkham Asylum for several life sentences to run concurrently. He is introduced to his attending therapist Dr. Harlene Quinzel.
Bruce breaks off his relationship with Vicky Vale and devotes himself to ridding Gotham of crime.
SEASON ENDING TEASER: Caribbean Republic of Santa Prisca- BANE receives a briefcase with millions of dollars and a simple piece of stationary with the bat symbol drawn on it. The wording reads-“HAVE FUN”
Series Overview for Season Three:
BIG BAD: BANE
SECONDARY BIG BAD (S): The JOKER & HARLEQUIN
NEW BAD (S): MR. FREEZE & POISON IVY
Notes on Freeze & Ivy- These characters would be slightly modified visually using the Arkham Asylum designs as guides. / Mr. Freeze would be serious science fiction & Ivy would be nature run amok.
The is political unrest in Gotham as Wayne Foundation is hosting the World Trade Organization and the city has been swarmed by protesters and anarchists hoping to disrupt the proceedings. Scientist Victor Fries is hoping to garner an endorsement from Bruce Wayne to finance his research into cryogenics as a medical application and has prepared a demonstration of the technology for all the gathered board members.
Poison Ivy makes herself known to the world at large when she encases Wayne Enterprises in a massive cocoon of plants. Wayne slips away to become BATMAN (Using a secret area inside the company) and ultimately receives assistance from Fries when the latter uses his technology to destroy the massive vine covering the building. The technology would overload and explode flash freezing and simultaneously mutating him. Ivy would escape by flooding the ventilation system with plant based toxins to mask her escape with a diversion.
The CCDC would declare the entire city of Gotham under quarantine due to the unknown nature of Ivy’s toxins. Freeze would be held in a hastily built containment unit having now been genetically altered into a creature that only exists in sub-zero temperatures. Fries is hysterical due to the fact that he has placed his wife in cryogenically induced coma until a cure can be found for a fatal illness she had contracted.
Wayne unwittingly supplies the now deranged scientist with material to make the first prototype of his signature containment suit and freeze gun. He escapes from his containment unit.
BATMAN tracks down Poison Ivy and manages to capture the villainess subsequently securing the antidote for her toxin. Ivy is detained by the department of Homeland Security and carted off by the feds.
Unknown to the Dark Knight and the city of Gotham, BANE has slipped into the city disguised as one of the relief workers and gone off the grid.
Barbara is having a difficult time adjusting to life in a wheelchair and is taking it out on everyone around her. Wayne begins spending time with her due to guilt and starts to give her some training so that she won’t feel helpless in a chair for life. Gordon unaware of Wayne’s dual idea gets the wrong idea and bans his daughter from seeing Wayne. Barbara is also spending a lot of time online chatting with a female friend who goes by the name Harlequin.
Gotham is hit by a huge unrelenting thunderstorm.
An unmasked BANE has allowed himself to be locked away in Black Gate prison and has fed-exed his mask to Vicky Vale with a note simply saying: “Deliver this mask to Antonio Diego for the story of the century”. Vale delivers the mask to Bane in the visitor’s section and tells her that he will “BREAK the BAT” before putting on his mask as numerous explosives are detonated around the prison freeing the inmates as hired mercenaries storm the facility. Vicky Vale and her camera man are forced to accompany Bane as he tears through the prison.
Bombs are also detonated at Arkham Asylum freeing the mentally disturbed patients there and “The Joker.”
Gordon, the entire police force and the National Guard are stretched thin trying to contain the chaos as it engulfs the city.
Wayne is alerted to the chaos as he watches Bane challenge him to a fight via television declaring the prison guards and Vicky Vale his hostages. Batman suits up and uses his new batwing plane to speed off to Black Gate prison. En-route he receives a call from Barbara alerting him to the situation at Arkham Asylum. He dispatches Alfred to pick up Barbara with the Bentley.
Barbara receives a computer message from Harley asking if she can come over. When Barbara rebuffs her, she receives another message indicating that she’s right outside the door. She looks out the window spotting the abandoned Bentley.
The door is kicked open revealing the JOKER: “Honey, I’m Home!!”
Barbara screams not noticing the costumed Harlequin behind her. At the same moment Gordon receives a call from Joker laughing hysterically before telling him where to find his daughter.
Batman fights a phalanx of inmates before encountering Bane himself with Vicky Vale. The prison guards have been killed along with the camera man. Vicky is the last person left alive.
Gordon confronts Joker and Harley Quinn and manages to wing the female henchman before he is overtaken by the crowbar wielding madman. “Bane can’t have all the fun now can he?” Barbara manages to get her father’s service revolver and shoot the Joker a number of times causing him to fall from a window. Gordon recovers to look out the window and find the Joker …gone. He unmasks and cuffs Harlene Quinzel.
“I understand now Barbara. This city needs The Batman.” He cradles his sobbing daughter.
Bane snaps Vicky Vale’s neck enraging the Batman as they begin to fight.
Batman is overwhelmed and defeated as Bane breaks the Dark Knight’s back.
END of Season Cliff Hanger.