8 Things Watchmen TV Show Must Do Differently To Zack Snyder's Film
8. Make It Non-Linear
DC Comics
While yes, there were certain elements in the Watchmen film that involved flashback, the TV show should be looking to use the feature far more emphatically.
There are two ideas that would make a whole lot of sense for a TV show deviating from the source material and adaptions gone by: one is to follow the autobiography of Hollis Mason - Under the Hood; and the other is to follow Rorschach's journal. Both methods entail a non-linear narrative, and again, both offer two very contrasting concepts for a TV show to follow.
The former would very much be rooted in the 1940s, and would follow Mason as he writes his autobiography during the Cold War period the bulk of Moore's text is actually set in. The latter would obviously adhere more directly to the main narrative of Watchmen, but would provide a different way of viewing the story, through the notes of Walter Kovacs' journal.
Although there is a chance that doing so would ruin the ambiguity of Watchmen's ending (the whole point is that we'll never know if his journal gets printed, or even then, if anyone will believe him if it does), it presents a better alternative than to simply follow the original script with only marginal alterations to the material itself.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
