Did You Watch, Man?

So the first (and perhaps only) season of HBO's Watchmen just ended.  Overall, quite good, though it had a few significant flaws.  Let's discuss them first.

Above all, there's the lunkheaded decision to make white nationalists central to the plot. I would guess that series creator Damon Lindelof thought he had something to say on race today. (The series is set, for the most part, in the present.)  Instead, he offers us a vision, even in an alternate universe, that doesn't ring true, that cheats, featuring crude caricatures and tone-deaf dialogue.  Occasionally the show hinted at something deeper, but in the end this part of the plot didn't work, getting in the way of Watchmen's many positive aspects.

The other problem, more minor, was central character Angela Abar/Sister Night.  Though Regina King is a fine actress, Abar was maybe the least interesting of the main characters.  In the finale (spoiler, I guess), we got all of them in one place--Abar, Doctor Manhattan, Adrian Veidt, Laurie Blake, Looking Glass and Lady Trieu, and I realized that though all the action revolves around Abar, I prefer the parts where others get more attention.

But even with all that, the show is fun.  It features great dialogue, surprising characters and intriguing plots--the kind of stuff Lindelof is know for at his best (not to give him all the credit--he did write the show with a staff).  It also cheated a bit, if you want to call it that--much of the fun was how the facts were slowly revealed, even though the characters were well aware of most things from the start (another thing Lindelof is known for).

Also, it didn't ruin the memory of the original, as I worried it was doing at first.  Instead of a weird take on Watchmen using some of the original characters and some new ones, it was a continuation of the story decades later.  There are plenty of references to what happened earlier, as explained in the comic, and so a lot of the fun is seeing how that world got to be where it is in 2019.

I guess I'd like to see another season, though the way it ended, with a big reveal regarding Sister Night, didn't look that promising.  Still, it'd be better than more Westworld.