You'll Need A Few Episodes To Get Into 'Watchmen', Then You Won't Want To Stop Watching

Not every production bearing the HBO logo is a winner, but I gotta say it: the pay-TV network’s hit rate is pretty damn solid. They snap up high-end properties or develop them from scratch in-house; they sign high-end talent on both sides of the camera to bring them to fruition; they’re very savvy with their PR and social media strategies in getting the word out and keeping the conversation going (get on Twitter the minute an episode of Succession ends and you will be inundated with gifs and memes).

And when it comes to what you might call genre material, HBO takes some big swings, aiming to create a production one could convincingly argue sets the small screen gold standard (or at least an incredibly high benchmark): The Sopranos for the organised crime saga, Deadwood for the western, Game Of Thrones for ye olde fantasy epic.

Having said that, there’s traditionally been room for imagination and innovation in the network’s programming – even with productions on a large scale, they’re hardly ever playing it safe. Sometimes it pays off, sometimes it’s Here & Now, Alan Ball’s idiosyncratic but ultimately unsatisfying family drama with a metaphysical twist that was shitcanned after a single season.

It certainly paid off with The Leftovers, in which showrunner Damon Lindelof took author Tom Perrotta’s novel about the people left behind to carry on after a rapture-esque event results in the disappearance of millions worldwide and wove it into an existential journey that was both emotionally gruelling and spiritually enriching.

For a while there, Lindelof was a bit of a fan folk whipping boy for various reasons – Lost, which he co-created, dropped the ball with its finale; Prometheus, which he co-scripted, was fraught with inconsistencies and incoherence; Cowboys & Aliens, where he was one of a cadre of screenwriters, was…well, it was Cowboys & Aliens. But The Leftovers, with its ambitious gambits that it tended to pull off, seemed to win him respect and earn him some credibility.

So what does someone with a penchant for ambitious gambits do with this kind of cachet? Oh, only attach themselves to a TV adaptation of Watchmen, one of the most respected and revered comic books in the history of the medium. And by adaptation, we actually mean a reimagining, a reinterpretation or even the term Lindelof himself employed – a remix.

Let’s be honest, though, we didn’t need a straight adaptation of Watchmen – we always have one, more or less. A decade or so ago, Zack Snyder (speaking of whipping boys, amirite?) used his post-300 clout to rescue the acclaimed superhero deconstruction graphic novel from development hell (where it had languished since the ‘80s) and finally bring it to the screen. The trailer? Straight up brilliant.

The movie itself? I guess… solid? Some head-scratching decisions (scoring a sex scene to Leonard Cohen’s Halleujah sounds good in theory. In theory); some inspired choices (the perfect casting of Jackie Earle Haley as the reactionary, antisocial vigilante Rorschach); some distinctly Snyder stylistic flourishes that soon become distinctly Snyder clichés (remember when speed-ramping was the 'in' thing?). Generally, though, a straightforward – maybe even simplistic – interpretation of a sprawling text.

It would have been redundant to go through the Watchmen motions again, even if Snyder’s movie didn’t dig as deeply as the source material deserved. So what Lindelof and his crew have done with this first nine-episode season (which Lindelof teased may be a stand-alone: “We want to deliver nine episodes that deliver a complete and total amazing story,” he recently told a New York Comic Con audience. “We want to see how it's received by you guys”) is use that material as backstory, inspiration and a launch pad for a story that feels like Watchmen but isn’t Watchmen.

And I’ll admit it took a while for me to get into it. It’s sometimes that way when someone is assembling something dense and multi-layered but also accessible – it’s a high-wire act that probably shouldn’t be rushed. But for the first couple of episodes (I’ve seen six), Watchmen felt like the work of an artist whose respect for the text they were adapting was evident, but who was also unable to synch their themes and ideas with their storytelling.

Still, it’s a strong, resonant beginning, with a visceral recreation of the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot (in which white marauders attacked and murdered black citizens in what has been dubbed “the single worst incident of racial violence in American history”) setting the stage for an alternate version of 2019 America in which descendants of those victimised during the riot have been paid reparations, and a resurgent white-nationalist movement, drawing its look and philosophy from the afore-mentioned Rorschach, is none too happy about the societal and economic imbalance that has resulted.

Setting Watchmen primarily in Tulsa, Oklahoma – which could be regarded lovingly as the American heartland or dismissively as flyover country – rather than a major and more recognisable American metropolis is a deft stroke, one that grounds the story literally and figuratively. There’s more of a sense of how the actions and legends of superheroes and superhumans have trickled down and settled in; life is both extraordinary and ordinary.

After a violent assault on Tulsa’s police force by the white-nationalist Seventh Kavalry militia, the cops are now masked to ensure their anonymity, and they have backup in the form of masked vigilantes like Sister Night (Regina King, a powerhouse) and Looking Glass (Tim Blake Nelson, who soon tones down the mannerisms to deliver a terrific, understated performance). But while the situation appears black and white, it gradually becomes evident that maintaining not just law and order but keeping society from tearing itself asunder is not so clear-cut a task.

This is all compelling stuff, but for mine it didn’t really start to take shape as a potent narrative until a few episodes in, when the various strands start to form into something not only cohesive but compelling, the tricky chronology that’s such a Watchmen motif working as both history lesson and story driver. Explanations, either blatant or oblique, add shading and dimension (the devastating, city-destroying denouement of the comic, which now seems so prescient in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks, is reconfigured here as leaving a literal scar on the national psyche); the introduction of new characters like trillionaire industrialist Lady Trieu (Hong Chau, not so much a scene-stealer as a show-stealer) hint at intriguing possibilities and generate interest. (Oh, and the score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is as atmospheric and, dare I say, bangin’, as you might imagine.)

After the first three episodes of Watchmen, I was unsure about sticking with it. After watching the three episodes after that, I now can’t wait for the final three. This is a gripping, provocative, intelligent and incendiary show.

Watchmen premieres 12pm Monday October 21 on FOX SHOWCASE, through Foxtel, and also streams on Foxtel Now.