For some strange reason in the late 2010's and early 2020's Warner Bros thought that it was a good idea to produce live action shows that are in the world of Batman but not feature Batman in them at all. With the first one to come out being the show that i;m going to be talking about today as this show does also have the honor of being the only non Batman Batman show to also be set within the world of the Arrowverse and so then join me as I review the episode gives us a lame reason for not having Batman in it with the episode in question being called simply just "Pilot" enjoy.
The plot of this episode is when her ex-girlfriend goes missing Kate Kane returns to Gotham City to try ad find her and to try and find her missing long lost sister. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in al honesty personally thought / felt that the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty not that bad but that's also the issue as the plot for this episode wasn't all that good ether with the plot of the episode being what can only be described as thin at best as while the plot does indeed get going right away it's also not a strong enough plot for the first episode of a new TV show as the plot of the episode just comes and goes whenever it wants and the characters spending alot of time not even advancing the plot of the episode with the plot of the episode also being really rather entertaining and as well as being really rather engaging as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
Starring in this episode is Ruby Rose as Kate Kane / Batwoman , Rachel Skarsten as Alice and Meagan Tandy as Sophie Moore. Also starring in this episode is Nicole Kang as Mary Hamilton , Camrus Johnson as Luke Fox , Elizabeth Anweis as Catherine Hamilton-Kane , Dougray Scott as Jacob Kane , Greyston Holt as Tyler , Brendon Zub as Dodgson , Rachel Maddow as The Voice Of Vesper Fairchild , Chris Shields as Mayor Akins and Sandy Robson as Captain.
Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual acting thats actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty not that bad. However the acting in this episode was all that good either which is kind of the thing for a show on The CW it is something that is still worth pointing out as bad acting will always be bad acting and alot of that does come down to the episodes director who quote clearly doesn't know how to get a good performance this is despite the actors in this episode turning in some good performances in other projects with the acting in this episode not really being helped by the fact that this episodes script just isn't all that good as it gives none of the episodes cast nothing to work with interms of what it is that there characters personalities are even meant to be in the first place which is something that really does effect the overall quality of the acting that's in this episode.
Doing the CGI for this episode is Encore VFX and the legends and the greats that are currently over at Splice. Now the interms of what I personally thought / felt abut the actual CGI that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual CGI that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty laughably bad. Even for a show on The CW this shows CGI in this episode really was really bad with them using an obviously CGI grappling hook for one scene when they could have done it practically and the shows projection was bad even for the small budget that all of the The CW shows have this episode had some laughably bad CGI in it and granted when you think of Batman you don't usually think of CGI which does make it all the odd that they decided to us CGI in this episode let alone CGI that looks really bad.
For some strange reason both this episode and Gotham Knights seem to think that what we want in a live action Batman TV show is for Batman to not only not appear in the show at the all but in the case of this episode have him act out of character when he does appear in the episode. As Batman would never ever leave Gotham let alone leave it undefended he would ask someone like Nightwing or Batgirl for example to defend Gotham while he's gone but nope in this episode he just disappears for no reason and while Gotham Knights does give a more understandable reason for the character not appearing in the show it still doesn't excuse the fact there trying to do a Batman TV show without Batman and in the case of this episode they have him act out of character as well as Batman would never work in the day he would only operate in the night so then that way people can't work out that he's Bruce Wayne and yet here in his appearance in this episode they have him trying to save Young Kate , Young Alice and there mother in broad daylight.
To this episodes credit it does try to do someone thing new with the episodes main villain by having be reveled to be the long lost sister of our main heroine. The issue is tho is that the show makes this reveal in the first episode when it would have been better of as something that was reveled in the first season finale of the show as by then we the audience would have had more of a chance to form a connection with these characters and want to see the hero succeed in bringing the villain down and it would therefor thus make it all the more shocking when it's reveled that the villain is also the same person that the hero has been trying to find for decades at this point in time and yet by doing it in the first episode we the audience are now ahead of what the characters know when we should be on a level playing field with them finding out these pieces of information at the same time as the characters are and not finding all of this stuff out before the characters are this just goes to show you that writer Caroline Dries has no idea how to write for these characters.
The episode and series villain Alice was a really interesting villain altho her constantly quoting Alice's Adventures In Wonderland did get very grating. As while it's fun at first and it makes her more of a quirky villain it's also something that gets old really fast and while she is rightfully insane and his an interesting backstory she doesn't have a plan in this episode which could be argued is the point as the character is meant to be a the very least partially insane think of her as like the female version of The Joker but at the same time tho even The Joker does have plans at times that match up with his goals and here since she's such a strong villain that could very easily push our main hero to her limits it makes all of the episodes other villains seem weak when infact it should be the other way with her instead being the final villain of this shows first season with her appearing only in select episodes in order to build up just how much of a threat that she really is instead of just having her appear in the shows first ever episode.
Now then this episode has / had an exact grand total running time of exactly forty two minuets and twenty three seconds. Which is pretty much the bogstanderd running time for these Arrowverse shows to have and to this episodes credit it really does make the most of this running time as given that this show does indeed take place in the Arrowverse it really doesn't need to spend alot of time setting up the world of the show but alot more time should have been spent on developing the shows main characters instead of just having them appear as being very note characters and the episode really should have spent alot more time in developing it's plot alot more as the episode really does have more then enough plot there to really cover that amount of running time and yet due to the fact that the episodes plot really does keep on coming and going it feels like it's a really underdeveloped plot as the shows plot does feel like it was really underdeveloped but I really will admit that this episode really does have some really good pacing to it tho.
So now the as this is an action show that means that I have to actually talk about the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in al honesty personally thought / felt that the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty not that bad. As we do get to see Kate in some really cool action scenes all of which give us the chance to see just how good of a fighter that she is and it gives us a chance to see all of the fighting that she's learned while she was a away from Gotham but at the same time tho alot of this episodes action just felt exactly the same with there being nothing new added to them to make them standout and feel unique and different which granted there's only so much that you can do when it's just two people punching each other but there still needs to be something new added in to make them feel unique , new and different in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
Overall this shows pilot episode was so much worse then the pilot for Supergirl as at the very least the pilot episode for Supergirl was a fun episode that respected not only Superman but also Supergirl as well where it's the opposite that's true for this episode as this episode wasn't all that fun to watch and it doesn't respect Batman nor does it respect the character of Batwoman as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now then i've talked abut all of the good and as well as all of the bad thing that are in this very episode in this very review and as such that really does mean that this very episode really does earn itself a grand old score of exactly a 4.5 out of 10 from me.
Now then as for where I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review well then boys and girls and as well as ladies and gentlemen I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review from the official Batman , the official Arrowverse fandom wiki page and Google Images. With my personally preferred website to use to get the images from this very episode that I used in this very review being the great the official Arrowverse fandom wiki page simply just due to the fact that really alot of if not really all of the images that are all really from this very episode and are really of course on the official Arrowverse fandom wiki page are really all fairly high in quality and as well as them all being really fairly freaking high in definition.