HBO’s Watchmen was one of the best shows of 2019 – nay, the decade. But cherish that first season, as it was likely the last.
As a follow-up to the original graphic novel – rather than Zack Snyder’s 2009 film – it breathed contemporary, polemic life into a legendary story of politics, racism and patriotism.
In just nine episodes, the first season explored the fallout of Ozymandias’s alien massacre, the posthumous uprising of the Seventh Cavalry and, of course, Dr Manhattan. But the show’s creator, Damon Lindelof, says he’s told the story he wanted to tell.
Ordinarily, studios would employ a new showrunner to take over and continue the show. HBO chiefs, however, can’t see another season going ahead without Lindelof as, much like his previous shows Lost and The Leftovers, Watchmen arrived as a singular piece of work.
HBO programming chief Casey Bloys told USA Today:
It’s really in Damon’s thinking about what he wants to do. If there’s an idea that excited him about another season, another instalment, maybe like a Fargo, True Detective [anthology] take on it, or if he wants to do something different altogether. We’re very proud of Watchmen, but what I’m most interested in what Damon wants to do.
Lindelof has given his blessing should HBO wish to hire another writer-producer, but Bloys said: ‘It would be hard to imagine doing it without Damon involved in some way.’
More than a few threads were left hanging following the first season’s barnstorming finale. What will happen to Angela Abar? Will Adrian Veidt really be punished for his crimes against humanity? These questions may need to be left to the imagination – although, don’t lose all hope.
Lindelof told Entertainment Weekly shortly after wrapping production on the first season:
If I was going to do another season of Watchmen, I would need to have a really cool idea and a justification for doing it. I don’t have either of those things right now. It doesn’t mean that they won’t come at some future point.
In its daring nine-episode debut, Watchmen took a classic superhero story to essential, illuminating places – acting both as a thrilling drama and blistering indictment of the US’s tumultuous culture.
TIME‘s Judy Berman wrote: ‘A lavish, transfixing epic, a potent but rarely heavy-handed metaphor for race relations in America and a showcase for one of the greatest actors of her generation, Lindelof’s Watchmen is also a shrewd encapsulation of the perils that might await a society obsessed with superheroes.’
With earth-shattering twists and turns and a flair for dynamic storytelling, Watchmen‘s first season was a triumph – check it out if you can.
If you have a story you want to tell, send it to UNILAD via story@unilad.com
After graduating from Glasgow Caledonian University with an NCTJ and BCTJ-accredited Multimedia Journalism degree, Cameron ventured into the world of print journalism at The National, while also working as a freelance film journalist on the side, becoming an accredited Rotten Tomatoes critic in the process. He’s now left his Scottish homelands and took up residence at UNILAD as a journalist.