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Thread: Watchmen (TV series)

  1. #1
    Webmaster Neil's Avatar
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    Watchmen (TV series)

    I loved the film... So if the TV can match that? Great!

    http://www.salon.com/2017/06/21/watc...-release-date/
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    through another dimension bassman's Avatar
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    I will no doubt give it a fair chance, but the film was already a damn near perfect adaptation for the "unfilmable" graphic novels.

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    Zombie Flesh Eater EvilNed's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by bassman View Post
    I will no doubt give it a fair chance, but the film was already a damn near perfect adaptation for the "unfilmable" graphic novels.
    Agree with this. I doubt the TV-series can top the film, which was... ace.

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    Team Rick MinionZombie's Avatar
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    So ... anyone watching this?

    There's not an awful lot in this that properly 'feels' like Watchmen, to be honest. A couple of nods or winks here and there so far, really. In some ways it might as well be something entirely different as the primary focus (perhaps even sole focus) seems to be white vs black/black vs white racism, which is often tackled in a heavy handed manner. On the one hand it has flagged up the Tulsa massacre, which I was never aware of (indeed, it is a dreadful part of history), so that's a good thing, but on the other hand it feels like an odd fit for Watchmen, which was surely talking about a wider collection of problems and doing so in a far more ambiguous kind of way. You've got this ghastly face of racism (in the show it seemingly boils down to white trash wearing Rorshach masks instead of KKK hoods), clearly inspired by recent events in America post-2016, but then you've got people roaming around in silly masks ... it can make for a very odd mix that sways wildly. It can at times feel a bit 'one note', and it's a note that any and all reasonably-minded folks already agree with (i.e. that racism is a hideous stain on humanity).

    The production is all solid stuff, of course, but again it's just doesn't really feel enough like Watchmen. Thus far it's okay, but I've not really been pulled in by any one character. There's some quite interesting bits, such as the police officer having to request permission to have his gun released from an electronic holster, which turns into a darkly comic stab at bureaucracy, and there's some solid performances, but it can often feel a bit too coy and aloof in its storytelling. I'll see how it progresses from here.

    A better 'Watchmen' TV series, really, is "The Boys".
    Last edited by MinionZombie; 29-Oct-2019 at 11:52 AM.

  5. #5
    through another dimension bassman's Avatar
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    I’m a little late to the party, but I ADORED this season. Fantastic television all around! I honestly wasn’t expecting much, but from the opening scenes of the Tulsa massacre, I was hooked. Like MZ, I was at first concerned that it was something completely different, but as the episodes progressed and the connections to Moore’s comic became more clear, I was entirely on board with Lindelof’s sequel series.

    AMAZING television and an amazing “sequel”. I highly encourage everyone to give it it’s own shot and ride it out till the end.

  6. #6
    Team Rick MinionZombie's Avatar
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    There was a lot of division in the response to this show from critics and audience - critics breathlessly lavishing it with five star reviews, while audience members slamming it with one star reviews - IMHO neither were accurate. It was a 3/5 sort of a show for me.

    Some episodes were excellent, but others weren't by any means with others being kinda middling. My main problem was the structure of the storytelling: each chunk felt to discreet from the other chunks, so you'd focus very heavily on one particular character who'd then pretty much disappear for a few episodes (e.g. Looking Glass), while other plotlines remain in total stasis for two to four weeks at a time.

    Indeed, this even affected the tone and the outlook of the show at times. It started off so heavy handed with the racial stuff, like really heavy handed, only for them to ease off the accelerator and then go off in totally different directions. For me that made the show feel at times rather blunt and mostly quite disjointed ... it didn't have a strong enough sense of flow (in my opinion at least). The tone was a bit strange at times, even a bit irritating - sometimes the show/characters could be incredibly aloof to a grating degree and kinda feel like 'writing that is trying to be clever'.

    I wasn't keen on...
     
    Killing off Dr Manhattan, although it was a bold move. I saw the 'cut to black just before the foot touches the water' final shot coming from a mile off ... but on the other hand I did really enjoy the episode in which we explored Dr Manhattan and Angela's relationship, and I did find the moment when Dr Manhattan says that he is living all of their moments together simultaneously just before he's destroyed really touching.


    However, some of the quite disconnected elements did start to pull together more towards the end, and the links to the source material emerged much more after the first two or three episodes (which kinda felt frustratingly untethered from Alan Moore's world - indeed, I was on the brink of giving up on it, and then episode 3 came along. I think the show could have really used a continuing 'segment' in each episode (or maybe even a dedicated episode) to tell the story of how Rorshach's Journal was misinterpreted and misappropriated by the Frontiersmen. They throw in this grenade in the first couple of episodes and then just leave it without really explaining it well enough (which no doubt led to some of the aggro from some viewers). There was a really interesting story just waiting there ripe for picking and they just ignored it pretty much, which was a shame.

    For me, episodes 3, 5, and 8 were the best by far, then 9 and 6, and then the rest I wasn't all that keen on.

  7. #7
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    First 2 episodes done and i'm really liking what i've seen so far.
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