We love ourselves a great whodunit story. The guessing game, the mystery, and the mind games ensure that in each step and in each scene, there's never a dull moment. But what separates great experiences from the rest of the pack is how well the setup and the eventual revelations turn out to be. For "The Watcher", it delivers none on both. While it was able to provide a sustained sense of thrill and mystery in each episode, these moments were mostly fleeting, shallow, and lacked any kind of sense.
The Brannock family thought that when they moved to the suburbs and into a beautiful mansion that their lives will become easier. But soon as they arrived, their neighbors turn out to be hostile towards them. Worse, they start to get threatening letters from a mysterious individual calling himself "The Watcher". As the letters get more personal and creepier as each day passes, the Brannock's dream home is turning out to be their worst nightmare.
Proudly proclaiming itself to be based on a true story, there are a lot of elements in "The Watcher" that will make you doubt that claim. And a little research proves that "based" here was a very loose term to use. The fiction here was obviously fiction with much of its story and surprises coming off as too silly to be real. And this hold true even in its logical inconsistencies. There are a lot of story elements here that will come off as forced and nonsensical. As an example, a lot of the mystery here could have been easily solved if the Brannocks simply thought off installing a camera directly pointed at their mailbox. It also doesn't help that there was no clear conclusion here on who "The Watcher" was. We have our own theories but the series ends like in real-life - as real Watcher was never really caught. The series provides a lot of interesting insights and curve balls per episode but these are contained and mostly forgotten as soon as the next episode. While the series was interesting, it never really develops into anything but a missed opportunity.
The Watcher Series Review: Messy Whodunit
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