Two Popular DC TV Shows Turn 10 This Year But Which One Has Aged Better?

The 2010s marked a significant decade for DC’s live-action superheroes on television, and as Gotham and The Flash reach the decade milestone since their premiere, it’s worth revisiting their legacies. While the preceding decade offered a plethora of DC Animated Universe classics, only the Superman prequel series, Smallville, dominated the live-action representation of DC comics on TV. The 2010s marked a watershed moment with the DC Extended Universe movies releasing in cinemas and the Stephen Amell-led Arrow kickstarting its own DC universe for CW-distributed titles like Black Lightning, Supergirl, Batwoman, and Legends of Tomorrow, among others.

In this context of the Arrowverse and other parallel DC shows (such as Titans, Doom Patrol, and more), 2014 was a significant year. Following the footsteps of Smallville, audiences got to witness a darker and grittier prequel for one of the most iconic heroes of the DC pantheon. Elsewhere, as the DCEU movies took their time to establish another iconic DC stalwart, the CW anchored an uplifting origin story for him with a Glee actor getting the best-known role of his career. While both DC shows have ended their multi-season run now, their influence still lasts for better or worse.

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Gotham Explored Bruce Wayne’s Origins

The Batman Prequel Series Ran For Five Seasons

Chronicling the decay of the titular metropolis from the eyes of a young Jim Gordon and a younger Bruce Wayne, Gotham is much more than just a Batman origin story. Gotham lives up to its title, following the struggles of the city’s morally gray police officers and criminals. Gotham ran for a total of 100 episodes spread across five seasons on Fox. The debut season took off from the murder of Wayne’s parents but was primarily focused on Ben McKenzie’s Gotham City Police Department detective Gordon.

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While David Mazouz played an emotionally conflicted Wayne, Gordon’s role in the storye turned Gotham into an effective neo-noir. Foreshadowing the Dark Knight’s moral compass, season 1 explored notions of criminal justice with the ever-righteous Gordan and his corrupt partner Harvey Bullock investigating the rampant crime and chaos in their ill-fated city. Subverting familiar superhero origin tropes, showrunner Bruno Heller also ensured to offer a more character-driven background for the greatest villains in Batman’s rogues gallery. With subsequent DC movies like The Batman and Joker taking a similarly introspective route, Gotham endures as a predecessor to such contemporary reimaginings.

The Flash Introduced The Speedster In The Arrowverse

The CW Show Had A Nine Season Run

“My name is Barry Allen. I am the fastest man alive.” For nine years, CW audiences heard these opening lines with Grant Gustin sprinting as DC’s scarlet speedster. The Flash first premiered in October 2014 and kept on running until 2023. As the Arrowverse’s sophomore show, The Flash stood out of Arrow’s grittier shadow with an uplifting origin story. Most episodes focused on Gustin’s Barry Allen discovering his superspeed powers and taking on new villains. But the overarching mystery is what added emotional depth to The Flash’s debut season, with the titular hero seeking to find who killed his mother.

Out of all the six Arrowverse shows, The Flash emerged as the franchise’s biggest success due to the combination of a great cast, memorable villains like Reverse-Flash and Zoom, and a generally light tone. These show adapted storylines like Crisis on Infinite Earths and the eventual genesis of Legends of Tomorrow, the adventure-comedy initially led by many of The Flash’s original heroes and villains. While The Flash encountered multiple speedsters like him, The Flash season 1 also established the presence of numerous other metahumans, increasing the stakes and scope of the world that Arrow birthed two years earlier.

Which DC Show Has Aged Well?

The Flash Offered Fan Service But Gotham Wrapped Up Its Story Better

While both The Flash and Gotham managed to earn a solid following, Barry Allen’s adventures didn’t quite stick the landing. The longest-running Arrowverse show, The Flash was ultimately bogged down by its ambitions. What started with a few tech experts helping Barry Allen gave way to a super-team of metahuman accomplices. Focusing too much on the subplots of such supporting characters made the narrative seem overstuffed in later seasons. The final season was particularly notorious for offering some of the weirdest Flash storylines and also suffered increasingly disappointing special effects.

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Gotham, in comparison, was far less convoluted in its narrative and didn’t feel stretched when it ended after five seasons. The stakes increased over time with Bruce Wayne turning into a masked vigilante and Gordon restoring order in Gotham by foiling Nyssa al Ghul’s plans. Robin Lord Taylor’s character evolution as Penguin and Cameron Monaghan’s recurring role as the Joker-influenced Valeska twins kept the show emotionally gripping. Gotham did occasionally dwindle in quality in later seasons with too much happening at once, but by limiting its storyline to only the city, Gotham still didn’t get as over-the-top as The Flash.