I was late to getting started on viewing HBO’s Watchmen (and I’m still behind, I just finished episode 7 this weekend, but hope to get caught up in the next couple of days). I was skeptical of the whole idea of the show from the start. For the same reason I’ve never read any of the comic book sequels or prequels; the graphic novel is pretty perfect and self contained. It doesn’t need a sequel, or a prequel, or anything else. The format of the book (all those nine panel grids and such) is also pretty intrinsic to making the whole thing work so well that I’ve always been skeptical of attempts to translate it into other formats. I’m not saying it can’t be done, but the movie version, which with a few exceptions was a pretty straight ahead beat for beat remake of the book, ended up feeling fairly flat. I think it felt that way in part because it was just trying to ape what happened in the book, but the book is so tied up with comics that that just doesn’t work well in movie form. At least not without some reinterpreting for the medium (though that opening credit sequence that gave the history of the world was pretty brilliantly done).

Anyway, all of that being said… This show is sensational. If you’ve been avoiding the show for any of the reasons I’ve mentioned, do yourself a favor and watch the first couple of episodes. I think you’ll be hooked. This show, a sequel to the comic book (and not the movie), is REALLY good. It might be the best show I’m watching right now and I’m watching a lot of shows I really like these days!

I just can’t say enough good things about the show. It extrapolates what our modern world might be like if the events of the Watchmen comics had happened as they did in the graphic novel. The show doesn’t rely too heavily one just giving you more of what was in the comics, or just leaning on the same characters, (in fact it almost goes out of it’s way, especially early on, to not do that).

The show embraces it’s format format as a TV show (if not with quite the same vigor and experimentation as the comics did their own format) far more than the movie did. The show does a great job of actually having episodes feel like episodes, not just one long movie that happens to have been broken up into roughly one hour segments, but it is still very much serialized (in much the same way that the comic book issues feel like issues of an ongoing story and not just one story that’s been broken up into issues by page count).

The acting, writing, set design, costume design, and everything else about the show are top notch. I can’t really complain about any aspect of the shows production.

I can’t complain at all about its writing either. (And I’m not just saying that because I went to college with, and was a vague acquaintance of, one of the writers.) It’s clever and interesting, and I have yet to feel like someone is doing something just because the plot needs them to, rather than because their motivations as a character would lead them to do it. These people are all interesting and well fleshed out, and they act consistently with their character even when faced with strange situations.

The only caution I have in recommending the show to everyone is it’s fairly graphic violence and somewhat nihilistic tone. Lately I’ve been less and less interested in grim and dark tv shows and movies. The world is rough enough as it is. But Watchmen, which concerns itself very much with the racism of the present in the real world, does a good job with it. Things are grim and dark and tense, but it doesn’t feel excessive and it doesn’t just make me feel worse about the world. There’s a purpose to it, and it feels natural and interesting. Not like it’s just grim and dark because “that’s what makes things cool.”

Anyway, I just can’t say enough good things about this show. Unless it really falls apart in the next two episodes that I have yet to watch (and the snippets of reviews I’ve seen for the finale don’t lead me to think that will happen) it will go down as one of the best seasons of any TV show I’ve watched.

I’m really looking forward to this summer’s return of Agent’s of SHIELD. Marvel recently put out the Season Six trailer and I’m pretty excited.

I think it’s really unfortunate that the show had such a rocky start, because it has really turned into a very fun show. I didn’t expect the show to get another season, but I’m very glad it did. This one won’t come out until this summer, and it’s going to be shorter than previous seasons (I think something like 13 episodes), but I actually think that might do the show some good. As much as I’ve enjoyed the previous seasons, I think they sometimes felt like they were treading water from time to time. Though I will miss the way the longer seasons often let them have a couple of sub-story arcs within the bigger season long story arc. Still a shorter more focused season will probably be for the best. I expect this will be the last season of the show, but somewhere in the back of my mind I hope that maybe a shorter season and being on in the summer will give the show a bit more leeway rating’s wise and maybe give the show a shot at continuing after this season.

I may go back before this summer and revisit some favorite episodes and/or seasons to get ready. Unfortunately, the show hasn’t been released on DVD/Blu-Ray in the US for the past several seasons. I’ve managed to buy some imported UK Blu-Rays (that are thankfully region-free so they work on US players) of most of the seasons, though there was a long time where Season 4 and Season 5 weren’t available even outside the US. The show is also currently available to watch on Netflix, and of course you can buy the seasons digitally on iTunes, Amazon, etc.

Note: This post contains some affiliate links to Amazon.com. If you purchase anything through those links I’ll get a small commission from Amazon.

(The Season 5 Poster, since we dont’ seem to have a Season 6 poster yet.) 📺

Just a quick comic book recommendation. I recently downloaded and read the first (and for the moment only) issue of These Savage Shores on the recommendation of the guys from House to Astonish. Boy I’m glad I did! The art (by Sumit Kumar) is REALLY gorgeous, and the story (by Ram V) was great (and looks to be going in interesting directions). I’ve already set up a subscription to it.

The issue opens with a vampire in London in 1766 being banished by the other vampires for being too indiscreet. He’s sent to India. He arrives with a fairly arrogant attitude about what his place in this new society is going to be. He quickly learns that India has its own monsters. I won’t say anything more as I don’t want to spoil it (if you want to hear more before buying listen to the above linked episode of House to Astonish they do a great job of discussing it without any real spoilers). It’s very much worth reading. I’ll leave you with a couple of beautiful images from the comic. 📚