As unlikely as it is, I'd rather see a Batman show on a higher quality network like AMC, FX, or even HBO or Showtime.
This is what I'd do:
Six Season Layout
SEASON 1: (as unlikely as this sounds, I wrote this out BEFORE the news of Arkham Origins hit. so it would have to be changed I suppose.)
It's been three years since Bruce Wayne returned to Gotham City from a decade-long journey around the world. During that three years, the Batman has gained a foothold in the fight to rid Gotham of deep seeded corruption and organized crime. In the pilot episode, we are introduced to Bruce/Batman and his allies, Alfred Pennyworth, Police Lieutenant James Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent. We are also introduced to Roman Sionis, who will go through the season as the main villain, Black Mask. Other important, ongoing characters introduced include television journalist, Vicki Vale, wealthy businessman Norman Madison and his law-student daughter Julie, gun runner and club owner Oswald “Penguin” Cobblepot and socialite/jewel thief Selina Kyle.
Sionis works as a dark mirror to Wayne, a billionaire playboy with a dangerous secret identity. Black Mask represents the escalation of Batman's activity in Gotham, a new breed of gangster that embraces the “freaks” that have begun to appear in the city, even employing the likes of Waylon “Killer Croc” Jones as personal hired muscle and professional arsonist Garfield Linds (aka Firefly). Black Mask fills the vacuum left by Batman, Dent, and Gordon's assault on the mob in Gotham. As the action of the season ramps up, Black Mask creates a “contest” to eliminate The Batman and solidify his strangle-hold on the city. He puts up a $20 million reward to the man or men who can kill the Caped Crusader, and we are introduced to professional killers (each in their own episode) Deadshot (a master assassin who's in it for the sport as much as the money), Mr. Freeze (a former scientist who takes on hits to pay for his terminal wife's treatments) and David Caine (a former rival from Bruce's past, this episode would be composed of flashbacks to Bruce's training). Bruce must deal with the onslaught of attacks on Batman while also attempting to discover the identity of this new threat to Gotham.
The elevating criminal activity takes it's toll on the 3 men throughout the season. One season-long B story is the slow eating away at Harvey Dent until he becomes Two Face in the two-part season finale. Other season arcs include Bruce's relationship with love interest Julie Madison and her father, a legitimate businessman who inadvertently finds himself in bed with Roman Sionis.
SEASON 2:
The foundation of the second season is a question Bruce asks of himself: Am I changing anything? The season premiere introduces us to our new Big Bad, pop psychologist Hugo Strange who is making a name for himself on the talk show circuit discussing The Batman. He posits that Batman is sick and power mad, and that he is more responsible than anything else for the monsters that are flooding Gotham. Bruce finds himself wondering if Strange may be partially right, and is even more unsure of his effect on Gotham after an interview with Vicki Vale (who becomes Bruce's love interest for the season). The premiere also introduces us to Dick Grayson an acrobat and member of The Flying Graysons. Bruce is present at a charity circus where sabotaged ropes cause the deaths of Dick's parents. Bruce petitions to house the boy while a suitable foster family is found, as he knows the boy is considered a witness by the criminals responsible for the sabotage. Through the season, 15-year-old Dick develops a persona (based on the Erol Flynn Robin Hood movie he and his father enjoyed watching together) to investigate his parents' murder. The arc culminates during the two-part finale, where Bruce accepts that he can have a positive effect on Dick's life (and by extension Gotham as a whole) by helping him and training him. Dick officially becomes Robin.
Over the course of the season, Hugo Strange is slowly revealed to be darkly, even sexually obsessed with Batman. He is fond of talking to a female mannequin dressed in lingerie while he wears a homemade Batman costume. This is, of course, unknown to most and Strange is made a consultant on the GCPD's anti-Batman task force, to which Gordon is also appointed, to his chagrin. There's a lot of suspense in the concept, with Gordon trying his best to slow the investigation and withholding information while Strange gets closer and closer to the truth. In the finale, Strange causes a massive break out at Arkham Asylum. A wounded Batman takes on a small army of his rogues gallery within the walls of Arkham while Robin helps from the outside.
SEASON 3:
Someone knows Bruce Wayne is Batman. A mysterious criminal with an insane intellect is leading Batman and Robin through a series of strange crimes, each time leaving a puzzle who's answer will lead to the next crime. The third season revolves around this deadly game of cat and mouse between the newly formed team and the Riddler. We also explore how the Batman and Robin team works, with Robin functioning as a messenger and bag man, only allowed to engage in combat with Batman's express order. In the finale, Bruce's detective skills prove superior, and he confronts Edward Nygma, out thinking the mad genius and freeing a group of hostages from a brownstone-sized deathtrap. In the end, what defeats Nygma is the simple truth that a riddle everyone knows the answer to is useless, and so he must keep the truth of Batman's identity a secret. This season we are also introduced to former actor, Basil Karlo, a shape-shifter who engages in freelance espionage and sabotage under the alias Clayface, and has been employed by Nygma as part of his master plan.
The B story picks up The Joker in Arkham after appearances in the first and second seasons. Young psychologist Dr. Harleen Quinzel sees the Joker as her ticket to fame and fortune, but he has other plans. We see him toy with and ultimately destroy her mind over the course of the season, until she becomes Harley Quinn. She breaks him out during the finale.
SEASON 4:
The Joker is back on the streets of Gotham and out to spread a little anarchy. He appears in a few episodes throughout the series, but his final plan plays out in the finale, which roughly adapts The Killing Joke, in which the Joker kidnaps and tortures Gordon to prove that anyone can be driven mad. This is foreshadowed earlier in the season when the Joker abducts GCPD officer Max Cort (a tough guy with an inferiority complex and a serious case of Bat-envy) and psychologically tortures him until he breaks and becomes a hyper violent vigilante called The Night Scourge that Batman has to contend with.
Season four also develops Bruce's relationship with Selina Kyle, which has been building since season one, and Batman's with Catwoman. Meanwhile Dick begins dating Gordon's daughter Barbara.
SEASON 5:
The two-part season premiere is an adaptation of the comic story “Demon's Quest” in which Ra's al Ghul is introduced, kidnapping Dick Grayson and forcing Bruce to undergo a globe-trotting search. This is all in attempt to determine whether Bruce is a suitable heir to Ra's for control of his world manipulating League of Assassins and as a mate for his daughter, Talia. She and Bruce actually become close.
We learn more about Ra's through the season. That he is actually six hundred years old, and is kept young through the use of archaic, mystical pools called Lazarus pits.
The season sees Dick begin to pull away from Bruce, wanting to be his own man and thinking Bruce is too controlling. By season's end, we see the birth of Nightwing.
In the season finale, Batman finds Ra's and challenges him to control of the LOA by trial through combat. Bruce wins, and disbands the league, having to leave Talia behind.
The events of the Season 4 finale also lead Barbara Gordon to develop the Batgirl persona throughout this season.
SEASON 6:
“Beware the Court of Owls, that watches all time. Ruling Gotham from shadowed perch, behind granite and lime. They watch you at your hearth, they watch you in your bed. Speak not a whispered word of them, or they'll send the Talon for your head.”
Season six opens with a mysterious murder that leads the Dark Knight to slowly through the season unravel a conspiracy that has worked behind the scenes of Gotham City since it's founding. Adapting the “Court of Owls” storyline from the comics, Bruce, who thinks he knows everything there is to know about Gotham, is forced to reckon with the city's biggest secret, one which is intertwined with his very family history. Believed by many (including Bruce) to be a folktale and urban legend, the Court of Owls is a secret society that has been pulling Gotham's strings for hundreds of years, silencing any dissent with an impeccably trained, nearly invincible assassin known as the Talon.
This storyline provides flashbacks to Bruce's childhood before and immediately after the death of his parents and displays his early knack for detective work. We will also use this season to introduce Tim Drake, the new Robin. Drake, unlike Dick Grayson, actively seeks out Batman, discovering his secret identity through his impressive acumen. Bruce is resistant, but by the last few episodes of the season concedes to Tim's assertion that “Batman needs a Robin.”
The season finale (Night of the Owls) would see the Court of Owls releasing all their Talons (which have been revealed at this point to be numbering in the dozens, kept on ice and used one at a time, some over 100 years old) for a full on assault on Batman, ending in a massive climactic battle in the Batcave with Batman, Nightwing, Robin, Batgirl, and a shotgun-toting Alfred taking on the Talons.
By the final moments of the finale, Bruce is able to destroy the Court of Owls, revealing their existence and identities, and proving that the Batman is the true legend of Gotham City.
