Batwoman = Gotham-Lite

This new superhero series is dark, confusing, and excessively violent. Three years after Batman’s disappearance, Gotham City lives in fear. When her former lover Sophie is kidnapped by a supervillain, adventuress and martial-arts expert Kate Kane returns to Gotham. Exploring her missing cousin Bruce Wayne’s office, Kate finds her way to Wayne’s hidden Batcave, and decides to use her fighting skills and her cousin’s equipment to strike new fear into criminals, and bring new hope to Gotham City, as Batwoman. The latest addition to the CW’s list of comic book-based TV shows inappropriate for children, the first episode of Batwoman lurches between Kate’s elaborate and convoluted backstory (including a murdered mother, an estranged father, a disappeared sister, and a lover who betrayed and deserted her to marry a man), and moments of extreme violence. Multiple brutal fight scenes included people being shot, stabbed, choked, beaten with a variety of weapons (from baseball bats and steel pipes to frying pans), and Kate being bound and tortured. In violence and tone, Batwoman is a slightly less violent version of Fox’s Gotham. The show’s violence, use of profanity (including multiple uses of “ass” and “bitch”), and frequent and intrusive references to Kate and Sophie’s past affair make Batwoman a series unsafe for children. Batwoman premieres Sunday, October 6 on the CW.