Netflix’s ‘The Watcher’ Is Not Worth Your Time

Netflix has a new #1 show, and once again I’m here to say I watched it so you don’t have to. If there’s something up there worth recommending, I’ll recommend it. But if not, I’m going to save you the trouble, and that’s certainly the case with The Watcher, which is currently underwhelming both critics and audiences, despite viewership high enough to unseat Dahmer after weeks atop Netflix’s most-viewed lists.

The Watcher is based on a genuinely fascinating true story that was the subject of a New York Magazine article back in 2018. But what started as a curious mystery about a homeowner receiving threatening letters and sparring with their neighbors has been “Ryan Murphy-fied” into a thriller that simply uses bits and pieces of the truth while heavily, heavily fictionalizing large chunks of it. And not doing it in a way that makes it more interesting or compelling.

This is a stellar cast that includes Bobby Cannavale, Naomi Watts and Margo Martindale, and yet the script itself is horrible. The most compelling writing in the seven episode miniseries are the letters The Watcher writes, and those are usually taken almost verbatim from the real letters the original couple from the story got. So no credit to Murphy or his team there.

The Watcher’s main problem lies in the tone of the script, in which it feels like the series is trying to be a “lite” version of Murphy’s American Horror series without the gore and mayhem, but with the over-the-top characters like a loopy, vengeful real estate broker or a mysterious English PI dying of cancer. And while Cannavale is meant to be channeling a real guy who went a bit nuts attempting to track down whoever was threatening his family (and a common theory was that the couple was writing the letters to themselves), the portrayal is often so over the top that none of this reads as plausible.

As the show went on, I kept thinking “this is based on a true story? Seriously?” It turns out while the foundation of the story is true, so much absurdity is layered on top of it to make it into this drama, that it loses everything that originally made the story genuinely interesting.

And I will get into spoiler territory a bit here, but since I’m telling you not to watch it, I have to warn you about the ending.

If the show was going to fictionalize itself as much as it did, it also could have orchestrated an actual, fun twist reveal for who The Watcher actually was. Instead, the show does a bizarre fakeout ending where the PI they hired says she’s behind it all, a story that doesn’t even make sense even as she’s telling it, and is immediately disproven after her death. Instead, the show ends how the real tale ended, with the mystery of who The Watcher was remaining unsolved, which might be okay for a more serious approach to the story, but not in this goofy, fictionalized version. So it’s a not-fun journey to reach a completely unsatisfying conclusion. They added nothing of value to the story with the extra characters and drama, but kept the true story’s original lack of a conclusion. It’s maddening.

Don’t bother with The Watcher. While I had my issues with Dahmer, another Ryan Murphy production, that show was infinitely better than this one, and this is not worth 6+ hours of your time to see the mystery through.

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