I've never read the comic (shame on me), I've seen the movie and I decided to watch this based on the critic reviews and award nominations. Like many of the negative reviews, I wanted to give up after the first episode. It seemed to go against the rule of having a first episode be engaging and informative as far as setting up the series; I found it very dry and containing nothing to sell me on watching the entire season. I only continued to watch the season as a result of reading multiple reviews stating that the first 3-4 episodes are confusing and slow and are tied together in the second half of the season. I had the same desire to jump ship after every episode up until the fifth or sixth, which is a long time to stick with something that just isn't selling me on it, that's 4-5 hours of time to get me interested and failing. The casting of the lead character, Angela/Sister Night seemed very odd. For a super hero and the main character, a middle-aged, homely-looking woman with zero charisma didn't make a lot of sense to me. Such a character, in my opinion should be played by someone physically attractive, believable as a superhero or with a lot of charisma (ideally all three). King met none of this criteria. An example of good casting in a similar role would be Vivica A. Fox in Kill Bill. King would have worked as a nanny, cleaning lady, receptionist, any number of bit parts. This choice of casting grew more and more jarring with each episode, particularly when you come to realise that a key factor in the entire series is that Doctor Manhattan, a being who has transcended mortality and become a builder of worlds, a god, returns to Earth and falls in love with this woman, apparently after walking into a bar and seeing her from behind? I don't really understand, I'm aware that he experiences time differently and that this might not be "love at first sight", despite that being exactly what it seems, but still. This is a sturdily built, rather unattractive, sour-faced woman with a foul mouth; most of her sentences are littered with profanity. Doctor Manhattan, if going by the movie. loved a woman before the accident and remained with her as she grew old, before outgrowing humans as a whole and leaving the planet. The idea that he would return to Earth, have his memory wiped in order to live a normal life with this woman just doesn't gel. Yet this is effectively the key to the events that unfold, across TIME, changing the past. The actor that plays the "new" version of Doctor Manhattan is another odd choice (as a child he is Caucasian, but he changes himself physically in order to please his "dream girl"). He seems like the caliber of actor who could play a small role, yet he is tasked with giving fairly long soliliquys as a virtual god that just come across as very flat. The fact that I harped on the casting of King shows how much of a distraction it was, every time she appeared on screen I was confused and taken out of the story. Casting of main characters is key, especially in this case, and it just doesn't work. A lot of the negative reviews take issue with the politics. It didn't bother me enough to stop watching; I just found it a little trite and fairly typical of the times (for a loooong time now in the US), the White Man as the bad guy trying to keep the Black Man down, very ho-hum. Some of the positive reviews laud this as "timely" and "clever", with Trump references, yet the US just had 8 years of Obama as a black president, so for me it didn't carry any particular weight, meaning or relevance. Many negative reviews from people outside of the US also seemed tired of this particular "political bent". The series was watchable, I got through it - the second half of the season didn't really justify the meandering, disconnected first half though. The scenes with Veidt and his clones were just entertaining enough to somewhat counter slogging through the Sister Night parts and the actress who played Agent Blake had some screen presence and charisma, which was much needed after Don Johnson's early exit. There were very few characters of interest, the other "superheroes" consisting of a hillbilly in a reflective mask, a "pirate" woman and a guy in a red and yellow 80's-style tracksuit and ratty balaclava with a Russian accent. Fortunately only the hillbilly character had an "origin" episode; it seemed unnecessary as there really isn't much to him - he can tell when someone is lying and is paranoid enough to always wear the equivalent of a tinfoil hat. Enough said. Maybe you need to be a fan of the comics or just more enamoured with the black/white spin put on this particular take of the comic, or just enjoy the injection of black characters into traditionally white roles in tv and movies. I hear Idris Elba is going to be the next Bond and I'm sure that will gain a new audience as desired. I just didn't find this show all that interesting as a whole, merely entertaining enough in parts. Or maybe I'm just not smart enough - negative reviews are typically soundly dismissed by the fans of the show as "not getting it". There really didn't seem much to "get". I doubt I'll check in for a second season if it continues on in the same vein, with the dumpy woman probably now being able to walk on water while she frowns, curses and looks homely. But again it wasn't terrible, it wasn't great, it was just something I got through relatively painlessly.
Review of Watchmen
