Set predominantly in Tulsa, Oklahoma – and opening in flashback to the horrific 1921 race riots – the series seems, two episodes in, to largely want to explore race relations in modern America, wrapping these important themes in yet more conspiracies, which defined the background of the comics.įan service abounds in Watchmen, packed with too-clever nods to the comics and the familiar characters in a desperate attempt to forge a connection. Rather than return to Silk Spectre et al, it focuses on Angela Abar (Regina King), a former police detective turned baker who still fights crime as the deputised vigilante Sister Night.

Yet despite a fantastic cast and sharp writing, it struggles to feel relevant or even connected to its supposed inspiration, largely because there's nothing left to explore.

Developed for television by Lost's Damon Lindeloff, it takes the opposite approach to Before Watchmen, taking place in 2019, more than 30 years after the events of the graphic novel. The lesson was not learned for the new Watchmen TV series. All the pertinent information is already there Before Watchmen added nothing, and so was rendered pointless. Moore's scripts delved back to the 1940s, establishing precursors to the 1980s Watchmen characters, establishing heroic legacies – the Nite Owl of Watchmen is the second to use the name – and deeply exploring connections between the characters. The problem: Watchmen itself is the complete story of these characters and their universe, leaving little ground to explore further 'adventures'. Despite a cavalcade of the comics industry's top talent working on the various series, the titles – each focusing on one of the original series' core characters or important figures – fizzled, and a planned epilogue one-shot issue to close the series was cancelled before publication. The Before Watchmen project was where the troubles with any return to Watchmen really became apparent.

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