Pennyworth premieres Sunday, July 28th at 9/8c on Epix
Few things define the modern age of media quite like the ongoing trend of milking IPs for all they’re worth. And a mainstay like DC is not different. And it is in that tradition where we find its latest series, in partnership with Epix, Pennyworth.
As the title would imply, Pennyworth follows the early days of the famed Batman butler as he returns to civilian life in London and attempts to start a security enterprise. But, that’s all thrown out the window the day he meets a charismatic individual. An American by the name of Thomas Wayne.
For what it’s worth, Pennyworth isn’t the absolute failure one might expect such a blatant diluting of the Batman IP would be. It has its moments and plays much more like a competent espionage series than a comic book adaptation. But, sadly, that’s all the series is. Competent.
Like so, so many shows it shares the airwaves with, Pennyworth is simply just… okay. The action’s pretty nice, the acting's inoffensive, the plotting's fair and the episodes are reasonably paced (for the most part). But that’s it. It’s not interesting. It’s not cool. It’s just… okay.
At least Gotham (which was produced by the same creative team) was a fascinating miss that a good amount would argue was very interesting and worthy of its five-year run. It swung for the fences and never let up from that even when it probably should of. Pennyworth is not that. Not by a mile.
It would be interesting if Pennyworth swung for the fences the way Gotham did. Then we’d be dealing with a show worth praising one way or the other… even if it did end up being another miss. The show that exists, however, is not a miss. But it’s also not a hit. It’s a walk-off run to first. It gets to where it needs to go but in the least interesting way possible.
Did we need an Alfred Pennyworth origin story? No. But, we have one now. And since we do, the next question is, is it worth watching? Well, that’s a complicated question (as happens when a show is only competent without be interesting). If you liked the absurdity of Gotham, you probably won’t like Pennyworth. If you’re game for a new espionage story, you could do worse… but you could also do better.
In the end, there’s no reason to not recommend Pennyworth… but there’s really no reason to do so either.
Pennyworth premieres Sunday, July 28th at 9/8c on Epix
