OPEN THREAD: Well, What’d You Think Of WATCHMEN?

Note: This post will contain spoilers for the first episode of Watchmen.

Damon Lindelof's Watchmen premiered on HBO last night, and - as you might expect - it's already generating some passionate reactions. True to his word, Lindelof's take on Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' iconic comic series is not a straight-up adaptation (though it does contain elements that will be familiar to anyone who's read that series), but more of a sequel/remix. 

It also has quite a bit on its mind. Much like the original text, HBO's Watchmen is dealing with a number of heavy issues - racism, police brutality, trauma - and it's doing so through the prism of superheroes (well, masked vigilantes, but you know what I mean). Some viewers were stunned to see the premiere kick off with an extended sequence set within the Tulsa Race Riots of 1921. Some were surprised to see Rorshach's image co-opted by white supremacists. Still others were shocked to see the episode end with the hanging death of Don Johnson's police chief. All in all, this was probably not the Watchmen series many folks were expecting.

But that's a good thing! Thanks to Zack Snyder, we've already got a (generally) faithful Watchmen adaptation we can watch whenever we want, and the comics will always be there. For this series, we wanted something new, something we couldn't predict, something we hadn't seen before, and - from where we're standing - Lindelof's Watchmen is doing all of that and more, right out of the gate. Also that Reznor/Ross score just fucking rips.

But how about you folks? Did you enjoy this as much as we did? Let us know in the comments below, and stay tuned for much more on Watchmen as we work our way through its wild first season.