HBO’s ‘Watchmen’ series is worth watching — but closely
HBO’s “Watchmen” (9 p.m. Sunday), a sequel of sorts to the 1986-87 comic book series, certainly seems big and bold at the outset — and indeed, its ideas and storytelling are successfully ambitious and complex — but by the third episode “Watchmen” pauses a bit to become more intimate, more focused and largely a two-hander with the arrival of Jean Smart (“Legion”) to complement series lead Regina King (“Southland”).
It’s a wondrous, often funny, engaging sight to behold, two pros at the top of their game — two women over 40 taking the reins in what could be reductively called a “comic book show.”
It takes some effort on the part of viewers to piece together what’s happening in the first two episodes, but “Watchmen” is worth it. Just don’t try folding laundry or texting while watching if you want to follow what’s happening or engage with the salient cultural questions the show asks.
For curious viewers who have never read the comic book series “Watchmen” is based on, don’t worry: Newcomers can, with some patience in the early episodes, figure it out — and then, if they need more background, just consult Wikipedia (although ultimately this iteration of “Watchmen” is its own thing, and knowledge of the comic book proves unnecessary).
HBO made six “Watchmen” episodes available for review, and it’s safe to say, even if viewers are confused — why did the show just cut from 2019 Tulsa, Okla., to Jeremy Irons in what appears to be a European castle? — subsequent episodes fairly quickly fill in the blanks.
Picking up from events in the Alan Moore-written “Watchmen” comics, “Lost” co-showrunner Damon Lindelof (“The Leftovers”) uses the “Lost” format of flashbacks to fill in the backgrounds of myriad “Watchmen” characters and the events and relationships that brought them to the present. There’s also a show-within-theshow, “American Hero Story: Minutemen,” that offers a whitewashed history of the superheroes in the “Watchmen” universe.
“Watchmen” begins in Tulsa during an actual 1921 race riot when white people rampaged through a wealthy black neighborhood, killing residents and burning and looting shops. It’s a scene that sets the stage for a story set in an alternative present — America won the Vietnam War; Robert Redford is the U.S. president — that pits a masked Tulsa police force against the Seventh Kalvary, seemingly a latter-day Ku Klux Klan.
The primary focus is on Angela Abar (King), who secretly still works as a cop using the cover name Sister Night — her strut set to a propulsive music track may empower some viewers by osmosis — but Angela runs a bakery as her cover story.
Tulsa police chief Judd Crawford (Don Johnson, “Miami Vice”) has helped keep the peace for three years, but that’s shattered when a Seventh Kalvary member shoots a cop. Then it starts raining squid.
“Watchmen” does not lay all its cards on the table at once, but it does turn its cards over at a quick clip. Early on “Watchmen” begins to suggest not all the seemingly good guys are entirely good, and it ultimately raises questions about the motivations of some of the Seventh Kalvary villains.
Jean Smart enters the series in episode three as Laurie Blake, an FBI agent who used to be Silk Spectre, lover of the much-remarked upon Dr. Manhattan, a superhero who now resides on Mars.
“Know how you can tell the difference between a masked cop and a vigilante?” Blake asks Abar. “No,” Abar says.
“Me either,” Blake replies. While race relations and how they intersect with policing are the most prominent themes in “Watchmen,” the series also dabbles in notions involving legacy, identity, conspiracy, vigilantism, media narratives and the scourge of citizens declaring news they don’t like to be fake or untrustworthy. And the show asks, as one character does, “Is anything true?”
With “Watchmen,” Lindelof creates a layered universe of connected events and characters, but it would be a mistake to consider this a “superhero show.” It’s certainly nothing like the superhero programs on The CW, instead opting for a dense, character-driven saga that blends social observation with some sci-fi trappings, particularly around the experiments of the Jeremy Irons character.
The further along “Watchmen” gets, the episodes are more likely to do a deep dive into characters’ backstories, which offers opportunities for excellent performances, particularly from the alwaysreliable King, Smart and Tim Blake Nelson but also from newcomers. These stories explain how a Tulsa detective chose his alter ego of Looking Glass (Nelson) and why the history of one of Angela’s ancestors reverberates in the present.
After the way “Lost” ended, some trepidation toward Lindelof’s work is understandable but following the critical success of “The Leftovers,” Lindelof is working at the top of his writing and plotting game in “Watchmen,” which will tell a single story over its nine-episode first season and may or may not continue beyond that. “Watchmen” is not as fun as HBO’s “Succession” — “Watchmen” is more serious — but HBO’s newest offering proves itself a significant and entertaining series that’s resonant and relevant in our fractured America.
Kept/canceled/revived
ABC renewed mini-golf competition “Holey Moley” for a second season.
The CW is developing a “Walker, Texas Ranger” reboot to star Jared Padalekci (“Supernatural”).
A long-gestating follow-up to “Band of Brothers” and “The Pacific,” the nine-episode “Masters of the Air” has moved from HBO to Apple TV + with an order for the limited series about the men of the Eighth Air Force in World War II.
Forthcoming streamer HBO Max ordered a 1950s-set “Grease” musical spinoff series, “Grease: Rydell High.”
NBC’s “Sunnyside” became the first new series of the 2019-20 TV season effectively canceled. After this week’s episode “Sunnyside” episodes will be burned off at NBC.com as “Will & Grace” replaces it in the 9:30 p.m. Thursday time slot Oct. 24.
CBS All Access renewed “Why Women Kill” for a second season.
Channel surfing
This weekend CBS’s “60 Minutes” (8 p.m. Sunday, KDKA-TV) visits Pittsburgh as Lesley Stahl reports on support for Tree of Life synagogue on the one-year anniversary of the shooting there that killed 11 . ... National Geographic Channel reveals the results of its efforts to find evidence of Amelia Earhart’s crashed plane in “Expedition Amelia” (8 p.m. Sunday), helmed by explorer Robert Ballard, who found the Titanic wreckage in 1985. … The Hollywood Reporter says Viacom mogul Shari Redstone, when not busy with the CBS-Viacom merger, is exploring launching a conservative news channel to rival Fox News Channel, possibly with former Fox News personality Megyn Kelly involved. … WQED-TV will rebroadcast “Tree of Life: A Concert for Peace and Unity,” taped in November 2018 after the shooting at Tree of Life synagogue in Squirrel Hill. The one-hour national version re-airs at 8 p.m. Oct. 24 and 7 p.m. Oct. 27 with the 90-minute version airing at noon Oct. 27. …The Hollywood Reporter says reruns of “The West Wing” will migrate from Netflix to HBO Max next year . ... Amid an escalating carriage renewal dispute, Comcast says it will drop 17 Starz channels Dec. 10. In addition to movies, Starz carries the series “Power,” “Outlander” and “Vida.”
Tuned In online
Today’s TV Q&A column responds to questions about “Chicago P.D.,” “Last Man Standing” and a former WPXI anchor. This week’s Tuned In Journal includes posts on Netflix’s “Living With Yourself.” Read onlineonly TV content at http://communityvoices.post-gazette.com/arts-entertainment-living/tuned-in.