Comic book fans we are living in an age we're living in an age where every comic book is getting some sort of adaptation. Now HBO is throwing there hat in the ring with an adaptation / sequel to a classic Alan Moore comic book and knowing how much of an a*shole that guy is it really wouldn't surprise me if he hates this version and so ladies and gents here is my review of the debut episode of Watchmen.
The plot of the episode is a little hard to describe but i'm going to try and do me best basically police officers have been getting killed by a white supremacist group. Yeah that's really all the plot I got out of it and that's also why it's so hard to describe what the plot of the episode is because there barely is any plot to speak of but given that this is the first episode I can kind of forgive it for not really having a story but that said the rest of the episodes better have a plot to them.
Starring in the episode is Regina King as Det. Angela Abar / Sister Night , Don Johnson as Chief Judd Crawford , Tim Blake Nelson as Wade / Looking Glass , Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Cal Abar Sara Vickers as Ms. Crookshanks , Dylan Schombing as Topher Abar , Jacob Ming-Trent as Panda , Frances Fisher as Jane Crawford , Louis Gossett Jr. as Will Reeves and Jeremy Irons as ?????????????.
The acting in this episode for a pilot is actually really good which shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone given who's in the show. That said they do run into the same problems that you have with pilot episode and that's the fact that the actors are still trying to find their characters and are still developing chemistry with each other but both of those things will continue to develop over the course of the show.
This show does act as a sequel to the comic book while at the same time trying to be an adaptation of the film. As a sequel it does a good job establishing itself as it's own thing while at the same time catching up with a certain character while also referencing others but as an adaptation of the film (yes this was billed as an adaptation) it fails because it has nothing to do with the film outside of the name Watchmen so basically you could see this show without seeing the film and still understand what's going on.
If you want to know what it is that makes this a sequel it's that it takes place in an alternate 2019 so it's set nearly forty years after the original and a character from both the film and comic book does appear in this episode with I believe at least one more due to appear. I can't really say if this has anymore connections to the book since i've not read it and no i'm not going to either just because both the book and the show should be able to stand on their own.
I will fully admit to forgetting that this show was even coming on but tho that was also because there was a lot of films and other shows coming out. However I was excited for this show when the first trailer and teaser dropped just because I liked the movie and so getting a chance to revisit that world but now in a weekly show was more then enough to get me excited but I do wish there was more going on in this pilot tho.
Now i shouldn't really do this since both of these shows are different beasts entirely but I want to take a second to compare this show to the recently debuted Batwoman show. In my opinion while Batwoman had the better pilot because that pilot actually told a story I feel that this will be the better show overall and I feel that way because Batwoman is your typical Batman show with nothing new to add to is.
Where as Watchmen while being set in the world of the both the film and I assume the comics is telling it's own story. Which in the longer run is going to allow them to kill of major characters and thus add more drama which is something your not going to get in Batwoman because that show is a prequel and so we now that Kate is going to make it at the end of each episode which isn't the case here because alot of the main characters aren't from the comic book and so they could die in any given episode.
This is a show that I can honestly see Alan Moore hating because if you've noticed he hates anything that's good and this is a good episode. So therefor logic dictates that he'd hate this show as well and i'd be really surprised if he didn't hate the show or if he didn't do something that made him look like even more of a*shole then he already is and incase you don't know this show is based on the comic book he helped create which was published by DC Comics.
Overall while this will turn out to be better then Batwoman in my opinion the pilot wasn't that good and while it does set up a possible storyline for the show it's going to have to rebound from this episode. Since this is a pilot and I hate to give those ratings i'm not going to give this pilot a rating and i've tried to keep this as spoiler free as possible because I want you guys to go and check the show out and make up your own minds.