SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!!

OK. I finally finished watching the Watchmen series on HBO. Not to sound too Celtic about it, but it’s a big bunch of Yes and No for me. Veidt can catch a bullet in his bar hands and punch a horseshoe into a man’s heart but Wade Till aka Looking Glass can whack him on the head with a wrench? And Laurie Blake can outsmart the smartest man on the planet? Alright. Here’s how I would have ended this show: Doctor Manhattan survives. Why? Well, for sentimental reasons, clearly. His relationship with Angela should be allowed some space to exist. I think the real surprise for an HBO series would be a happy ending.

Beyond that there is the issue of Doctor Manhattan himself being a real problem. The fact that a human being could attain such power is a real kink. I mean that it is a moral hornets’ nest, a giant philosophical wrinkle. For the same reason that I don’t think Dracula should have been killed off like a rabid dog in Bram Stoker’s novel, I think Doctor Manhattan should be almost impossible to kill. The threat of omnipotence should remain. That’s right, I said threat. Gods can’t be dealt with so easily. Humanity can’t create a super being and then just hit reset. Jesus didn’t get rid of Satan. Zeus can’t go against Moira. In the best science fiction, science doesn’t solve all of humanity’s problems. Science creates new, inexorable, ineradicable problems. The goal of technology, of the first tools, is power. Remember the first section of 2001: A Space Odyssey (it wasn’t terribly like Homer’s Odyssey, was it?). The end of power can only be divinity, immortality, omnipotence.

Back to the show. The teaser of whether or not Angela can or cannot walk on water? That’s typical HBO, Sopranos-esque BS. Come on, man. Commit to a narrative!