2 out of 5

Created by: Ryan Murphy, Ian Brennan

covers season 1

I’m not one who normally has much interest in “based on a true story” shows or movies, at least in terms of needing to see that story presented accurately – movies are movies, tv is tv, real life is real life – but I’ll admit that The Watcher’s source inspiration was already so chilling that I was eager to see it fictionalized, setting aside the moral quandary of making entertainment out of an event that surely had a negative emotional (and financial) impact on those directly involved.

But it turned out that the stuff that was fictionalized rather tanked the show, causing it to spin its wheels behind frustratingly obvious red herrings and TV-dumb characterizations, spinning and spinning up through an obnoxious double / triple / etc. take of an ending that you start to suspect is likely to lead to a cop out.

Where we start is solid, though, and retains the chill of the reality: when the Brannock family moves into a mansion beyond their means in a presumably quiet neighborhood, their hopes of escaping the bustle and locked-door fears of their New York City apartment are dashed pretty quickly, be it due to overly nosy neighbors (Margo Martindale, Richard Kind), or the aggressive leader of a local preservation society (Mia Farrow), bemoaning the changes the Brannocks are making to the house, but most of all due to the un-postmarked letter they find in their mail: a detailed, stalkerish, obsessive ode to their home, signed by The Watcher.

The note’s an oddity, until they get another, with even more specific, more concerning details. Someone is very clearly watching the home. This unnerving idea is stacked on top of money troubles, and perhaps an undercurrent of communication issues; the Brannocks start to fracture. The police won’t do much investigating regarding the letters, and an alarm system they install just stretches the budget. The neighborhood oddballs say strange and veiled things; vague threats – is one of them The Watcher?

Wife Nora (Naomi Watts) has her paranoia stoked by a real estate friend, Karen (Jennifer Coolidge, certainly playing up that memeable name), who’s also maybe trying to get her to flip the house. Husband Dean (Bobby Cannavale) has his conspiracy theories egged on by a private investigator (Noma Dumezweni), while the distraction impacts his job, and he’s passed up for a promotion that would’ve helped pay the bills.

All from some letters! It’s a tense, grounded setup.

…And then we get, like, five straight episodes of wheel spinning: the PI turns up a lead, Dean immediately goes apeshit and accuses so and so without evidence (and much logic behind the accusation), and then some casually Duh detail is mentioned, negating the lead. While this is, top down, how most mysteries work, structurally, it helps when the clues and deductions don’t rely on a complete abandonment of character or consistency – it’s hard to parse if the writers were using the former to comment on gender roles or communication breakdowns in general or if it was just lowest common denominator writing (i.e. how can we stretch this minor concept out into a whole episode of drama), and with the latter, swinging between supernatural solutions and mashing in other true-life crimes creates a hodge podge tone that’s never as fun, frightening, or thrilling as it might’ve been when things were a bit more grounded.

But Cannavale does unhinged well, even if that can’t quite imbue his character’s irateness with believability, and Naomi Watts’ reserved and put upon housewife is written just to be a counter to that, and not a full character on her own, again despite the actress’ great strengths.

Once we’ve cycled through the obviously ridiculous options, the show is able to find a character drama here and there that works, and even winds to what could’ve been an interesting conclusion… but decides to keep spinning plates for another episode of red herrings, because why not let’s make a second season.

To wrap back around, positing that truth is stranger than fiction is boring to me – let a storytelling medium play to its strengths. But The Watcher’s reality was, if not stranger, then more compelling; the TV version slops on way too many pointless – and not particularly believable – runarounds, dismantling the tensions of a strong opening couple of episodes.