The original post: /r/television by /u/confusing_roundabout on 2026-04-09 22:58:38+00:00.
I’m a huge fan of the Watchmen comics. I tried to watch the show back when it came out but at the time I was too much of a comics purist and couldn’t look past the new characters so I didn’t even finish the first episode.
Now that I’m a bit older and more of a general TV/movie fan rather than specific media, I gave it another go and I’m loving it. It’s such a great show expanding on the world of the comic and its consequences while telling a new story about race in America.
But having said that, I think it works so well for me because I know the comic inside out and pick up on all the references, plot implications etc.
Is this show at all comprehensible to anyone who hasn’t read the comic? Does the squid attack confuse people? Does seeing Doctor Manhattan’s origin recreated in play format by an isolated Adrian Veidt mean anything to people?
It’s bizarre because the show is so closely committed to being a sequel to the comic and expecting you to know the lore of it. Why does this exist? It would almost make more sense as a comic and not a TV show, and yet it does. I expected it to use the Dr Manhattan ending from the movie but it doesn’t even do that.
I think I just find it crazy because it’s not often you get a sequel to a piece of media in a different medium that just expects you to be familiar with the original work. Normally you might get a straight forward adaptation followed by a sequel to that adaptation.
Did they just assume that audiences knew the movie and could Google the squid and other differences?