Rorschach Maxiseries announced: Tom King and Jorge Fornes.

[mathew101281]

Ah, Watchmen.
An enjoyable stand alone mini series that has become the DC Comics version of 'Weekend at Bernie's'

I have NO interest in this at all, and having King attached made it an even harder pass for me.
His Heroes In Crisis has forever tainted him for me. Just... no.

I know right? It would be interesting if the stories were good, or revolutionary or something, but most of this stuff sucks. Note to DC, Not everything is franchisable.

[achilles]

Ah, Watchmen.
An enjoyable stand alone mini series that has become the DC Comics version of 'Weekend at Bernie's'

I have NO interest in this at all, and having King attached made it an even harder pass for me.
His Heroes In Crisis has forever tainted him for me. Just... no.

Ah then, King IS the one who always goes on about having been a killer CIA spy whenever he speaks to anyone, much like those annoying types who went to Harvard and then work that into any conversation they have.

[kurenai24]

I see that there are people who actually believe and spread that nonsense about HBO Watchmen not having good ratings, how people can say it so confidently not knowing where the source of it came from will always be ...a choice.

[Badou]

I see that there are people who actually believe and spread that nonsense about HBO Watchmen not having good ratings, how people can say it so confidently not knowing where the source of it came from will always be ...a choice.

I mean we have the actual ratings. There isn't really any debate about it. The series didn't flop or bomb, but it didn't have the ratings that would make it a success either. If the series was a big success there is no way HBO wouldn't be fast tracking another season given how starved they are for a new hit.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

I was hoping for a Looking Glass story. I wouldn't mind a prequel to the show, set in the years between White Night and the events of the show.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

I mean we have the actual ratings. There isn't really any debate about it. The series didn't flop or bomb, but it didn't have the ratings that would make it a success either. If the series was a big success there is no way HBO wouldn't be fast tracking another season given how starved they are for a new hit.

Ratings matter in tv in the context of advertisers look at ratings and pay to broadcast commercials based on viewership and demographics. HBO doesn’t have that model. It subscription based so it’s really more about whether they saw favorable subscription numbers from Watchmen whether it be increased or people who didn’t cancel who typically would have because they caught it.

All we know about Watchmen’s ratings is that the first three episodes averaged around 1.4 million viewers. For reference Veep units last season averaged far less than that. By comparison the first few eps of Game of Thrones were roughly half a million more before it picked up an audience. HBO also put out a press release that by the end Watchmen was averaging 7 million viewers and was one of their most successful debut series in recent memory.

I think you are reading way too much into this. HBO let Game of Thrones end when they wanted it to keep going for many more years. It constantly rose in the ratings every season and was the most water cooler since freakin Friends. There is no other show in the world that a network had the incentive to keep going and they bowed to the creators to end it. HBO just has that history of doing right by the creators. The fact is nobody has even said they wouldn’t continue it at some point but they now don’t have a story and a vision. Lindelof ended his story pretty concisely and you would need a whole new plot to continue.

[skyvolt2000]

I mean we have the actual ratings. There isn't really any debate about it. The series didn't flop or bomb, but it didn't have the ratings that would make it a success either. If the series was a big success there is no way HBO wouldn't be fast tracking another season given how starved they are for a new hit.

It did have ratings to be considered a success however in terms of cost-HBO might not have gotten what tbhey wanted. However that is the price you pay for being a network that requires folks to pay extra for.

The creator told the story HE wanted to tell despite what some expecailly those who threw fits over the inclusion of Black Wall Street in the series would think.

You don't see seaosn 2 because no one has come up with a NEW idea for a season 2.

Season 1 ended and all this Covid-19 stuff started up. So why would HBO be concerned with a new season when they have other things to worry about like the filming of already established showes who have a plot line already.


Anyway it's this thread suppose to be about this new book-that no one asked for?

[Denkota]

I don't doubt it will be full of random facts and tidbits of knowledge thrown in to make it provide intellectual simulation to readers with puddlers and face of God thrown in for the pure reading pleasure they provide.

[ross61]

The Watchmen show I think fell below HBO's expectations. I think they were hoping it would be a bigger hit, but the ratings weren't there. Had it gotten better ratings I don't think there would be any question there would be more seasons in the works even if Lindelof wanted to move on. They would have just brought on another show runner. These networks are desperate to have hit series, especially HBO after GoT ended and Westworld hasn't been doing that great, so no way would they drop a hit show after one season if it got good ratings.

I don’t know if you have HBO or not, but acclaim means more to HBO than ratings. This isn’t network television, this is premium subscription service. The only series to be a juggernaut was Game of Thrones, and they’re more worried about hours of interaction in total/subscribers than individual ratings. They haven’t had a hit like GOT ever and they are more than fine without it.

[Badou]

Ratings matter in tv in the context of advertisers look at ratings and pay to broadcast commercials based on viewership and demographics. HBO doesn’t have that model. It subscription based so it’s really more about whether they saw favorable subscription numbers from Watchmen whether it be increased or people who didn’t cancel who typically would have because they caught it.

All we know about Watchmen’s ratings is that the first three episodes averaged around 1.4 million viewers. For reference Veep units last season averaged far less than that. By comparison the first few eps of Game of Thrones were roughly half a million more before it picked up an audience. HBO also put out a press release that by the end Watchmen was averaging 7 million viewers and was one of their most successful debut series in recent memory.

I think you are reading way too much into this. HBO let Game of Thrones end when they wanted it to keep going for many more years. It constantly rose in the ratings every season and was the most water cooler since freakin Friends. There is no other show in the world that a network had the incentive to keep going and they bowed to the creators to end it. HBO just has that history of doing right by the creators. The fact is nobody has even said they wouldn’t continue it at some point but they now don’t have a story and a vision. Lindelof ended his story pretty concisely and you would need a whole new plot to continue.

The ratings I was referring to were the ratings for the amount of people that watched the broadcast live. Those can be tracked and then measured with HBO's other shows when they had their live broadcast. Sure it doesn't measure how many watched each episode in total for the whole week, but it can be used to compare HBO shows to each other and gauge how strong the HBO subscribers interest was in wanting to watch it live and see how it changed over time. So it gives you a good baseline for comparison.

Those are the only ratings that can be measured by a outside source. Things like HBO putting out a press release about how Watchmen was averaging 7 million viewers total across all platforms or something can't be tracked or measured. Since only HBO has those numbers and they obviously would never release anything that hurt their own programming. So while it might look nice it isn't great for measuring since it isn't broken down further.

And if you look at the live broadcast numbers Watchmen fell behind Big Little Lies and Westworld in terms of their first seasons, but ahead of things like Succession and Euphoria. So it wasn't a flop, but it didn't quite reach that next level of getting a million plus live viewers. I mean no one was expecting it to get GoT numbers, but I think HBO was hoping for it to at least crack a million live viewers given how much they marketed the show, how well known the property is, and also how expensive the show was to make compared to shows like Succession.

Also HBO tends to milk shows. They will throw money at creators to try and expend shows that do well. Some of the longer running ones don't feel the need to do more, like a GoT that was already on for a long time, but HBO always tries to keep successful shows going as much as they can. I mean they had 3 different GoT related projects in the works to try and extend the life of GoT.

It did have ratings to be considered a success however in terms of cost-HBO might not have gotten what tbhey wanted. However that is the price you pay for being a network that requires folks to pay extra for.

The creator told the story HE wanted to tell despite what some expecailly those who threw fits over the inclusion of Black Wall Street in the series would think.

You don't see seaosn 2 because no one has come up with a NEW idea for a season 2.

Season 1 ended and all this Covid-19 stuff started up. So why would HBO be concerned with a new season when they have other things to worry about like the filming of already established showes who have a plot line already.

If the show was a bigger success I think we would have heard about them looking for a new show runner and something like they are excited to tell more stories in the Watchmen universe. I agree that this doesn't mean there won't be another season down the line even if Lindelof isn't involved, but it isn't like Watchmen was this long running series like a Sopranos where it wouldn't make sense to bring in new people to tell more Sopranos stories. This was an already existing property that was only one season long and told a complete story in the Watchmen universe. So nothing really prevents HBO from wanting to tell more self contained stories in that universe, especially after they already invested in the property a fair amount. Business wise it would make sense to tell more stories if it was a major success for them.

I don’t know if you have HBO or not, but acclaim means more to HBO than ratings. This isn’t network television, this is premium subscription service. The only series to be a juggernaut was Game of Thrones, and they’re more worried about hours of interaction in total/subscribers than individual ratings. They haven’t had a hit like GOT ever and they are more than fine without it.

I've had HBO for a long time. Sopranos was a major hit before GoT and it ended 2 years before GoT started. It wasn't as big as GoT, but it did extremely well. So there was a small gap between these big shows for them. Those two shows were probably HBO's most successful ones and they had others sprinkled in as those were airing of course, but HBO since the late 90s tended to have that marquee show that always lead their network. They don't have that right now, and with so many other premium subscription services out there making content HBO has a lot more competition for those subscribers.

Also if Watchmen starts to win some big awards I could see them trying to make more seasons. Maybe that is what they are waiting for before they invest more money into it with a new set of creators. Dunno.

[Anthony W]

I see that there are people who actually believe and spread that nonsense about HBO Watchmen not having good ratings, how people can say it so confidently not knowing where the source of it came from will always be ...a choice.

Take it up with CBR, it's their article.

[Korath]

I'm really not interested in King's take on the Watchmen Universe. Sure, it may be suited for his forte, but all he seems to know is to craft stories where the main character is deconstructed so deeply that he becomes unlovable (hello Batman and Heroes in Crisis) with hamfisted attempts at some deeper meaning.

So far he's got one true success, Mister Miracle, and even that end in a non-ending cliffhanger which makes the whole story kind of pointless. But his Batman is an horrible asshole, so is his Catwoman, and the less talked about HiC the better. Even his Adam Strange, one of the most optimistic heroes out there, as far as I know, is depicting him as a kind of terribly shady guy. Because Flash Gordon-esque characters and setting can't be modernized without being vilified, I guess...

So, hard pass for me, I won't ever buy anything written by King ever again. Nor read it for free on pirate sites.

[Noodle]

I'm really not interested in King's take on the Watchmen Universe. Sure, it may be suited for his forte, but all he seems to know is to craft stories where the main character is deconstructed so deeply that he becomes unlovable (hello Batman and Heroes in Crisis) with hamfisted attempts at some deeper meaning.

The Vision wasn't like that. Nor was Omega Men, or Grayson.

So far he's got one true success, Mister Miracle, and even that end in a non-ending cliffhanger which makes the whole story kind of pointless. But his Batman is an horrible asshole, so is his Catwoman, and the less talked about HiC the better. Even his Adam Strange, one of the most optimistic heroes out there, as far as I know, is depicting him as a kind of terribly shady guy. Because Flash Gordon-esque characters and setting can't be modernized without being vilified, I guess...

The Vision was much larger of a success than Mister Miracle.

Also Strange Adventures is a murder mystery. If you know Strange is good there's no mystery.

[J. D. Guy]

The Vision wasn't like that. Nor was Omega Men, or Grayson.



The Vision was much larger of a success than Mister Miracle.

Also Strange Adventures is a murder mystery. If you know Strange is good there's no mystery.

I can kinda understand Korath's frustrations, though. Any goodwill gained from The Vision, Omega Men, and/or Grayson (and how much of Grayson's positive influences were King's or Tynion's has been questioned before) has likely been thoroughly squandered and lost with Batman and Heroes in Crisis.

[Korath]

I can kinda understand Korath's frustrations, though. Any good will gained from The Vision, Omega Men, and/or Grayson (and how much of Grayson's positive influences were King's or Tynion's has been questioned before) has likely been thoroughly squandered and lost with Batman and Heroes in Crisis.

Especially since I didn't read the first two.

But it was Seeley with King on Grayson if I'm not mistaken ? And from his Nightwing run, I feel like most of the positive outlook in this series came from him.