‘Watchmen’: Master of Pace
Watchmen, HBO’s hit TV show, recently concluded its first season. It’s safe to say that Damon Lindelof’s masterpiece is surely one of the best things on television right now. And there are a lot of great things on television right now.
This article takes a bird’s view into the entirety of the first season of Watchmen. This is not focused on any specific episode, or any specific moment, but rather the whole season as one coherent story.
Watchmen does a lot of things well, but it does one thing better than almost any narrative story out there.
This show is patient.
And there is a reason the root of the word ‘patience’ is ‘pace’.
Throughout the first few episodes of Watchmen, the viewer wonders. They wonder a lot, they look for any connection, anything that resolves the constant mysteries that the beautiful characters of Watchmen continuously sink themselves in. And much like our beloved Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, everything is, indeed, connect.
But Damon Lindelof is smart. He is patient and does not reveal these connection for a while. He waits; he waits for the appropriate moment to let the audience know of something, the perfect moment for them to make the connection and stay even more engaged in the story. Lindelof consistently makes Watchmen more and more complicated only to unleash a hellfire of information and reveals in the last few episodes.
And that is amazing television. That is television that doesn’t resolve to cheap tricks or easy cliffhangers. It is television that builds itself through the story and through the art piece that the story is.
Watchmen is great because that is exactly its main goal – to be great.
And if being great comes with complicated subplots and endless information, then that’s okay. Because it’s worth it. It’s worth it because in the end, it pays off. Watchmen‘s goal isn’t to hit ratings or to setup a new season or to send a message. No, Lindelof wants to make a great piece of art. He does that slowly and patiently and extremely self-consistently. He know what he’s doing.
That is the beauty of Watchmen. Through a great story and through pacing that great story really well, it becomes a wonderful show. A different one. It becomes art.
We’ve said ‘if something is really, really good, it will be successful’. Unfortunately, that isn’t always the case. But fortunately, it is for Watchmen. And we can’t wait to see what this show has in store for us next.
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Thoughts on Chernobyl here.
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