Get Ready: The New ‘Watchmen’ Series Is Getting Fantastic Reviews

Watchmen might be one of the most insightful and powerful comic books in the history of the medium. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it was always written in stone that a new attempt to adapt it for television would be a success.

After all, Alan Moore, the Watchmen scribe, has always been utterly adamant that he wrote the story as a comic book first, and has rejected the idea that it could ever be successfully adapted for another medium.

Add to that the fact that the person doing the adapting was Damon Lindelof — the man who thoroughly trashed the Alien franchise with Prometheus, one of the worst blockbusters of the last 50 years — and diehard fans of the property had good reason to be nervous.

Oh, and that’s not even to mention Lindelof’s claims that the new series was going to be a ‘remix’ rather than an adaptation; an attempt to bring the source text into the modern day. Which only meant one thing: that it was going to reference Trump, either obliquely or directly. Which was a depressing thought.

But hey, turns out that being cynical might have been somewhat premature. The reviews for Lindelof’s new take are in.

And they’re really, really good.

The Modern Take Works

The takes on the new show vary widely, but one common thread unites them: almost every critic agrees that updating the show for the modern era has been a success.

Opening with a re-staging of a real-life, racially-charged massacre in Tulsa, the show traces an uneasy alliance between police officers and masked vigilantes, following in the steps of the heroes of Moore’s comic book. It’s a big swing, but every critic agrees that it’s one that pays off.

“Looking beyond the veils people share with the world, Watchmen finds fundamental truths about an America divided by a lack of faith in itself, its people, and its institutions,” writes Ben Travers of IndieWire. 

Haleigh Foutch of Collider agrees. “The new HBO‌ series may not be what diehard fans are expecting, but it’s a vital update and doting love letter to the original that marries the spectacle of a high-profile cable budget with gripping philosophical storytelling, awards-worthy performances, and first-rate technical accomplishment across the board,” she writes, noting that the show will attract both new viewers and old Moore-heads alike.

Fans Of The Comic Will Be Happy

When news broke that Lindelof was going for a “remix”, he wrote a long, somewhat confusing letter to fans in which he assured them that Moore’s work meant the world to him and that he would try and communicate the essence of the tale in a way that stayed true to the original vision. And hey, it sounds like Lindelof has done exactly that.

In particular, critics have singled out the way that Lindelof successfully hits the same storytelling beats as Moore, while also telling a totally different one.

“He’s sidestepped adaptation altogether and created a sequel set in the same universe as the comic, that is faithful to the events of that story but only features a few characters from it,” writes Alan Sepinwall of Rolling Stone. “Lindelof’s disruptive approach [to the story] comes far closer than you might expect at first, given how many departures he’s taken from where the comic book left off.”

This was about Watchmen, my favorite new show of the fall season and, honestly, maybe any tv season. https://t.co/jkH4LwRsUw

— Emily VanDerWerff (@tvoti) October 15, 2019

Britt Hayes of Birthmoviesdeath agrees, noting that it’s the fascist vigilante Rorschach whose shadow hangs heaviest over the new property. “It’s the concept of Rorschach that gives Watchmen its narrative and thematic weight; he is the spectre that haunts both sides of an increasingly volatile civil war,” she writes.

Hayes, in fact, might be the most enthusiastic critic of them all, calling the show “exceptional” and timely.

“Lindelof calls his Watchmen a remix, but it might be more accurate to refer to it as a re-contextualization; a funhouse mirror in which the uncanny reflection is disturbingly familiar.”

Get extremely hyped.