Cameron Monaghan Pictured As The Joker On 'Gotham' Set

"How else do you tell a story of Bruce's journey to becoming Batman without actually dropping clues here and there of what's to come?"

You make the series shorter and get straight to the point. People already know what's to come and all the show is doing for fillers is adding new characters or messing with the source material. It should have been something like...

Series 1 - 8-10 episodes. Gordon's story and establishing Gotham and it's crime. Bruces parents die in the end

Series 2 - Time jump, Bruce comes back from training all over the world. Switches between Gordon and Bruce. At the end he gets the concept for Batman

Series 3 - Tries to make his concept for Batman real, more villain references are dropped, leading up to the first big guy Bruce will take down as Batman. He becomes Batman at the end of the series

and so on

No really. Have you even read what their original plan was for this show.

They were scared it wasn't going to work so instead of doing what they wanted they littered the show full of younger villains. So they just assume every person who will become a villain for Batman is already a villain now in some way.

Most of the villains and references are just forced. I mean "Ivy Pepper"...come on.