HBO’s Watchmen series managed to finish its story in only nine epiaoses. But, originally, it was planned to have one more. Damon Lindelof, the showrunner of the series, recently had a chance to speak with Collider about why he decided to cut an episode from the season.
“The original plan was to do ten,” explained Lindelof. “And, then, I think around the time that we had written the scripts for four and five, and understanding what episode six was going to be — and six needed to happen exactly when it happened in the season, in our opinion — that we felt like once six ended, that we were closer to the ending than we were to the beginning,”
During the sixth episode, Angela Abar (Regina King) experienced the memories of her grandfather, Will Reeves. That was also the episode that dealt with Hooded Justice’s origin.
“Six didn’t feel like a midpoint,” continued Lindelof. “It felt like, we now know everything that we need to know to move into the endgame. And, every way that we looked at it, it felt like if we were going to do seven, eight, nine and ten, one of those episodes was going to be filler. And I was like, ‘We’re just not doing the filler episode. We know exactly what we need to do in our endgame. It’s time to start doing it. I don’t want to stall.’”
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Lindelof also noted that an “odd” nine episode count was a better fit for the show. He went on to talk about one of the big things that was cut from the season: an interesting backstory for Hong Chau’s Lady Trieu.
“If there are any regrets, it’s that we didn’t get to dimensionalize Lady Trieu as much as we did in the writer’s room, on the screen,” said Lindelof. “Especially given, in my opinion, the magnitude of Hong’s performance. I just thought she was fantastic. It was one of those things where we got into the endgame of the season, and it felt like we were moving back too much, between episode seven and eight. We talked about Lady Trieu’s childhood, how she became who she was. But, a lot of her backstory got shorthanded between what Bian is saying to Angela and Lady Trieu is saying to Angela, in episode seven.”
Should Watchmen have stuck with its original ten episode season? Let us know in the comments below!
Recommended Reading: Watchmen by Alan Moroe & Dave Gibbons
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