The Watcher

I feel like somebody just ripped me off. I watched all 7 episodes because the cast was amazing and honestly the story DID have potential. The ending was one of the laziest bits of "writing" I've ever seen. It was as if the writer wrote themselves into too many dead ends, and tried too hard to build this huge tapestry that made no sense whatsoever that they decided to just give up on writing a conclusion. Imagine reading a really long novel only to reach the end and find out the final chapter was removed. That's the best analogy I can think of for this mess of a show. Forever hating myself for watching all 7 damn episodes... The brilliant cast did their part though; the acting was great. Not enough to fill the massive holes in the series though.

I'm a huge fan of Ryan Murphy's productions but this was painfully pitiful. A collection of wonderful actors completely misused. Mia Farrow was the only bright spot in this ludicrous story. There were twists for the sake of twists, and inconsistencies for the sake of inconsistencies. Every character was a caricature and left me wondering why the actors chose to do this. However, if it were advertised as a parody then it wouldn't be so bad. Producers seem to be loosely basing their productions on true stories with hopes of connecting to an audience with the most basic primal need of curiosity. The Watcher was ridiculous and an embarrassment. True, I wasn't obligated to watch the entire series but I continued to hold out hope that the magnificent cast would save this show from itself. Didn't happen.

Seems like Ryan Murphy realized after the last, oh, 5 or 6 out of the 10 seasons of "American Horror Story" that people were hip to the title and knew not to bother watching, so he started releasing seasonal "miniseries" without the AHS brand but essentially the same thing: well acted, well-produced, contrived, trashily written garbage, with "twists" you can see coming a mile off and absurd contrived characters whose overwrought behavior stretches the bounds of credulity. I was actually about 5 episodes into this, scratching my head about how something with such a talented cast could be such an unredeemable pile of soap-opera garbage in terms of plot, when I finally noticed Murphy's name in the credits.

Please, Ryan Murphy, go back to calling the new seasons "American Horror Story" so we know from the outset not to bother hoping for better.

I must admit this series did frustrate me at times and also felt like a typical thriller with too many plot twists and turns.

However, what I did find unique embedded in this series is the subject of obsession with materialism and the lengths people will go to to secure and protect those obsessions.

I'm not sure if that was deliberate on the part of the producers to do a series that is part social commentary part thriller but it does work as a suspenseful series that kept this viewer locked in, despite sometimes being frustrated with the obviously dead end twists and turns.

Overall an addictive viewing experience.

So, the backstory on this is pretty underwhelming in my opinion. 3 letters and people that didn't even move in. So, the writers really had a very blank slate to create something amazing. It seemed like they were on track but episode 4 was when all hope was lost for me.

You could see very clearly that they lost their way and didn't know how to close this. 7 episodes was just dragging out a story that was running out of fuel after 3. There is a lot of filler in the first three episodes but you can overlook that with anticipation that something great is just around the corner. Unfortunately when you turn the corner, there is just a bag of meh.

I can think of several ways this could have gone that would have been much better. Some of the stuff is just so far out there is is just insulting to your intelligence. This concept would drive most anyone nuts for sure, but humans are pretty predictable and the characters in this just seem to act in repetitive ways that make the story just annoying.

A real missed opportunity.