Watchmen

HBO Original TV Series Review: “Watchmen”.

Critics gave it an 96% users a 64%.

Rated: TV-MA with Series 1 having nine 1hr episodes and an IMDb of 8.0/10

Cast: Regina King, Don Johnson, Tim Blake Nelson, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Andrew Howard, Jacob Ming-Trent, Tom Mison, Sara Vickers, Dylan Schombing, Louis Gossett Jr., Jeremy Irons, Jean Smart, and Hong Chau.

Based on the celebrated graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, the exciting and dark "Watchmen" takes place in Tulsa, Okla., 34 years after the original story. After a white supremacist attack on the local police department, which leaves only two surviving cops on the beat, laws are passed that allow the cops to hide their identities behind masks.

Watchmen is an American superhero drama television series that continues the 1987 DC Comics series Watchmen, created by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. The TV series was created by Damon Lindelof for HBO, with Lindelof as executive producer and writer.

Lindelof likened the television series to a "remix" of the original comic series. While the series is technically a sequel, which takes place 34 years after the events of the comics within the same alternate reality, Lindelof wanted to introduce new characters and conflicts that create a new story within the Watchmen continuity, rather than creating a reboot. The first season of series premiered on October 20, 2019, consisting of nine episodes, before concluding on December 15.

Let me say right up front this is very politically charged. The original graphic novel was, as well. They did tone it down for DC comics to publish it, however Moore and Gibbons created it as a backlash to politics of the time.

They used an alternate universe setting to make it more palatable for the viewers and in my opinion, this series embraces the spirit of the original graphic novel's commentary on current power struggles in America. Just as the original was set in the time period it was published, this is set in a mirror of our current time period, extrapolating how the previous world would have evolved.

It's okay not to like it. People who are easily triggered by racial politics will definitely not like it. But if you enjoyed the bleak brutality of the graphic series, and are not afraid to see a different view of what America could be in a completely fictional and hypothetical alternate universe, then this is a well crafted example of world building.

I’m not going to lie….it’s one weird, strange and in some cases very hard to understand the series. However for that very reason it kept me coming back to see what’s next and where this was going. I was very glad that I stuck with it!!