Watchmen is overrated: Damon Lindelof's HBO drama is more manipulative than meaningful

Los Angeles Times

"Eight episodes into Watchmen, I’m still scratching my head, trying to figure out what exactly this series is about," says Lorraine Ali, who agrees with her fellow Los Angeles Times TV critic Robert Lloyd that the praise for the series by other critics has been overblown. "Vigilante justice meets institutionalized racism meets time travel meets a blue god and the end of the world? It evokes brutal truths, like the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, lynching and police brutality. It makes the obvious point that America has a really ugly past, and it’s not really the past because history keeps repeating itself. But then the heavy subject matter is mixed with outlandish subplots, so it feels like it’s dropped in for effect. Overall, it seems irresponsible and exploitative." Lloyd adds: "The series is built around a a core of vigilante heroes and superheroes, cops who act like vigilantes, and a couple of mad scientists who might as well be called superheroes since they invent impossible things with ease — all of whom seem to be trying to save the world in their cross-purposed way. But it has nothing consistent to say about vigilantism, or even the ambiguous way we as viewers situationally regard it: good when it’s our guys, bad when it’s theirs. And how are we meant to regard the country as a whole, which is fleetingly suggested to have become a liberal nanny state? It’s the beginning of an idea, but it just seems to be there to give the villains something to grouse about."