Critic’s journal. October 20th, 2019:

Watchmen aired this evening, Alan Moore groans. Fans are perplexed. I have seen its pilot. Blood runs down the streets of Tulsa and deep Watchmen-lore coats the cable that runs into our television set. The subreddits are extended gutters and the gutters are full of theories and when the forums finally scab over, all their expectations will drown. The accumulated filth of all their doubts and complaints will foam up about their waists as all the comic book nerds and television fiends alike will look up and shout “Review it”… and I will whisper… “No.”

HBO’s Watchmen is almost impossible to recommend to anyone, rendering any review I may spew out onto this little site quite pointless. It has been four weeks now since the show first aired, and I still find myself scratching my head at the ridiculous, genius nature of a programme that would not have, in any other climate, been green-lit. Sure, it has been proven that creating televised adaptations of popular comic book properties captures a market of pre-existing fans, delivering them to a network in a nice, neat little package. Also, it has been proven that, even if original author Alan Moore disapproves of more Watchmen, fans want to consume it, with DC releasing marketable prequel comics despite vocal resistance from the original’s creator. Heck, it is hard to call Watchmen in itself a niche property—it is one of the highest-selling comic paperback trade of all time, and one of the only graphic novels to be listed as one of Time Magazine’s 100 Greatest Novels of all Time.

Oddly, the difficulty in recommending HBO’s Watchmen sequel lies in its absolute fidelity to the comic. The 2009 film version of the comic is hailed as an almost perfect adaptation of the source material, with some scenes being visualised panel-for-panel from the text. Heck, the adaptation was so memorable, we completed a Deep/Dive on the subject. However, there was one aspect that even the hyper-respectful film adaptation decided was far too bonkers for the regular film-going audience: the giant Squid. Even I, a huge fan of everything Alan Moore, understood the move to something a little more… refined for the final act. However, in the pilot episode of HBO’s sequel, tiny squids rain down from the sky like it is a regular occurrence, with little to no explanation or context given for a general audience.

Really, HBO’s Watchmen doesn’t give a single shit about a ‘general audience,’ and that is one of the reasons I love it. HBO is well-known for its high-quality content that does not shy away from controversial, adult themes; Game of Thrones was laden with murder, nudity and incest, and still managed to become one of the most popular shows of all time. While Watchmen is not as traditionally graphic as the usual HBO staple (although there are a few splatters of blood throughout the first four episodes), it is incredibly surreal. The people who stopped watching The Umbrella Academy because it had a talking monkey in it would probably not last a single minute in Watchmen‘s intricately constructed ‘darkest timeline’ universe. Despite the strange, dream-like edge to a lot of its scenes, the subject matter and emotional brevity of the piece holds a contradictory realism that I can’t quite put my finger on.

It is well-known that Alan Moore, creator of some of the most well-revered comic stories of all time, hates people touching his stuff. After the worst luck possible, Moore was confronted by a series of terrible adaptations of his work. From Hell, an in-depth, psychological study of a serial killer’s mind was bastardised into a standard police procedural, and League of Extraordinary Gentleman was so bad it caused Sean Connery to quit acting. These experiences have left him extremely bitter, as he now believes “nothing good can come of almost any adaptation,” stating in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, “there’s nothing that could get me interested in Hollywood.” Really, his hatred for adaptations of his work has resulted in a bombardment of questions like “are you sure you’re not going to watch this one?” Alan Moore can clearly empathise with people who just had no interest in watching Game of Thrones, yet had to deal with his friends constantly saying “But I promise you… you’ll like it!”

Of all of his works, Alan Moore has been most vocal about his disagreement with DC’s use of his beloved Watchmen. In an interview with Wired magazine nearly a decade ago, Moore discusses his fractured relationship with DC Comics:

“They offered me the rights to Watchmen back, if I would agree to some dopey prequels and sequels. […] I don’t even have a copy of Watchmen in the house anymore. […] But these days I don’t want Watchmen back. Certainly, I don’t want it back under those kinds of terms. […]The comics world has lots of unpleasant connections, when I think back over it, many of them to do with Watchmen .”

So, if the author does not condone additions to his work, should we accept them? Usually, I am a purist, and refuse to accept anything that may ruin the legacy of my beloved properties. When Before Watchmen released, I refused to read it; I was not going to input cash into DC’s grabby-hands. This series, though? It intrigued me. After watching the pilot episode, it is clear that not only does the series give zero shits about a general audience, it also doesn’t care about Alan Moore. In particular, show-runner Damon Lindelof has been quite clear about his informed disregard for the author’s feelings:

“I do feel like the spirit of Alan Moore is a punk rock spirit, a rebellious spirit, and that if you would tell Alan Moore, a teenage Moore in ’85 or ’86, ‘You’re not allowed to do this because Superman’s creator or Swamp Thing’s creator doesn’t want you to do it,’ he would say, ‘F— you, I’m doing it anyway.’ So I’m channelling the spirit of Alan Moore to tell Alan Moore, ‘F— you, I’m doing it anyway.’”

Here, Damon Lindelof does not merely profess the ‘death of the author’ excuse that fanfiction sites worldwide cling onto to justify their homoerotic headcanons. Instead, he shotguns the author in the face, strings up the dead carcass, and shows no remorse for his actions. On the back of my trade paperback edition of the original comic, Lindelof has the final quote—calling Watchmen “The greatest piece of popular fiction ever produced.” Obviously, he adored the comic, felt like he had more to add, and decided it was in the spirit of the thing to do it anyway. Is this high-budget fanfiction? Perhaps, but thousands of people worldwide like to ignore J.K. Rowling’s tweets, so it’s not unreasonable for Lindelof to ignore the original author’s wishes.

Watchmen is the definition of punk-rock television. It should not have worked, but it did. This is a show that will foster the most rabid of fan-bases, with entire rooms dedicated to a labyrinth of strings and images connected to various plot theories. People are going to have a more intricate understanding of alternative histories, the geography of Mars, and the biology of squids. What has fostered this love? The fact that the series does whatever the hell it wants to do with incredible confidence. Lindelof’s past in the mystery-box storytelling of Lost, alongside the uniquely cerebral The Leftovers, has concocted the perfect mixture for obsessive fan theory. This is a show that is probably smarter than you or, at least, it makes you feel like it is.

So, in an effort to contradict myself and review the unreviewable, I suppose I should give my final thoughts on what, exactly, Watchmen brings to television as a medium. Really, it seems that the reason Alan Moore hates Hollywood adaptations with such ferocity is the ‘pointlessness’ of them all. Is HBO’s sequel pointless? No, I don’t think it is. It is a show that has a lot to say and doesn’t wish to mince its words. It has things to say about race, sexuality, law, justice, trauma and belief—just to name a few—and does so in an incredibly unique manner. I wish I could spend another one thousand words recapping Episode 3’s pure structural brilliance, but alas, my brain is already too tired trying to find adjectives to describe this erratic, wacky, and bombastic series.

Watchmen was not made for the typical broadcast audience and is better for it. Show-runner Damon Lindelof has created a narrative with roots so firmly implanted in the original text, the lore has become fertilised with incredible fecundity. Yes, Jeremy Irons as an ageing eccentric would have been enough alone to make me come back for the second episode, but thankfully there was a lot more to stay tuned for. With its odd subject matter, distanced original creator, and reliance on lore, it was almost a thermodynamic miracle that anyone watched it at all. In truth, I believe Watchmen is one of the greatest television ventures of recent years. The reason for this? It has balls as big as Dr Manhattan’s.