GOTHAM Will Include Older Harvey Dent and Hugo Strange
We can now add a couple more characters to the list of villains that we will see in Gotham. So far we have Catwoman, Penguin, Riddler, Poison Ivy, and Joker making appearances, but now it looks like Doctor Hugo Strange will be included along with an older version of Harvey Dent.
IGN had an opportunity to talk to show runner Bruno Heller about the series, and this is what he had to say regarding Strange and Arkham:
"Hugo Strange is going to pop up because we're going to start dealing with how Arkham was created and why Arkham was created in the way that it was so, yeah, absolutely. It's a Season One thing because in our telling of it the way Arkham was created and the why and how is one of the causes of the particular criminal climate in Gotham that allowed Batman to happen. The revolving door of Arkham is both a brilliant narrative device because it allows you to -- you don't have to kill people off, you can just put them in cold storage -- but if you're telling the story from the start you kind of have to explain, 'What the f***? Why don't you make that place a place people don't escape from?' We're going to explain why it is the way it is and Hugo Strange is a big part of that."
Strange is a great character, and I'm really excited that he is going to play a decent sized role in the series. I'm curious to see how they are going to handle this whole aspect of the world of Gotham. As far as Dent goes, he explains:
"We're playing Harvey Dent slightly older. He's more Gordon's age in this telling. One of the things to avoid in order not to tell a high school story -- which would be great, but it's a different show on a different network at a different time that I would not be a part of. But he will go back to school and villains will be part of that world."
I think that's a smart way to handle the character. I like that most of the villains are older in the series. It means they have a lot of years on Bruce Wayne and he has a long way to go before he can take them on as the Caped Crusader.