With news that DC and the CW will be foisting “The Graysons” on unsuspecting audience, I decided to bring back a list of my ideas for what would be actually cool Batman shows.  In the past, I’ve come up with a number of ideas for Batman on television and you can read about that here.

I want to talk about one of the ideas I had in that article and expand on it, just a little bit.

I still think that “Gotham Central” is the strongest idea for a Batman television show that could cross demographics better than any other show on television.  Done right, it could certainly mop the floor with ill-conceived dreck like “The Graysons.”

What I wrote about it before:

It seems that just about every show on television is either Law and Order, a Law and Order spin-off or some type of Crime Scene Investigation. Well, Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka’s real-world take is that entire sort of thing only better and with the Bat. Imagine a show where cops are running down leads, and trying to get their job done and well, only to have the villains wrapped in a bow by Batman. This only serves to annoy and demoralize them. And really, who watches over the city during the day when Batman sleeps? This is that story and it would quickly become must-see TV. Killing Joke would be great to see from this perspective as well.

There is a rich tapestry of characters inside the department already in place, led by the always compelling Jim Gordon, so that’s one thing you have going for it.  You also have the interplay between the DA’s office and the cops and we all know about the DA’s office these days.

Set this in a Gotham plagued by mobsters (probably including a real-world version of the penguin, not the exploding umbrella version) and you’ve got a great set of standard, powerless villains.  Add Catwoman and the hookers on the east end into the mix, perhaps the Black Mask and a few other of the mob-centric villains and you’ve got an impressive slate of interconnected characters.

Then you’ve got the Batman.  Imagine how much the image of Batman could be elevated by seeing it through the eyes of the cops who begrudgingly work in his shadow day after day.  All you really have to do to imagine the show is think about how some of the Law and Order spin-offs work and throw a crazy but bad ass and well supplied vigilante into the mix.

Then occasionally, every five or six episodes, a major Bat universe villain enters the scene.  One of the best instances of this in the comics was the launching story of the Gotham Central book.  Cops are running down leads, knocking on doors and they happen to knock on the wrong door.  By coincidence, they come across Mr. Freeze in the waning hours of the night.  Freeze kills one of the cops and they know they have to take him down to get revenge for the murder of one of their own.

The problem is, they know that if they don’t catch him in that single day by night fall, Batman will finish the job for them and that’s simply unacceptable.

It’s a great concept for a show and I doubt anyone on Earth would argue that they would honestly rather see “The Graysons” than this.

So, there’s my advice to the CW and DC.  For what it’s worth.