‘Watchmen’ star Tom Mison hopes HBO “leaves it as it is” after “perfect” first season

"I think its the classiest move I've heard in television for years"

Watchmen star Tom Mison has expressed hopes that the show will be left “as it is” after a “perfect” first season.

The HBO series, which is based off the classic comic series of the same name, premiered last year to acclaim from critics and fans.

Showrunner Damon Lindelof has shown reluctance to get involved in a potential second season, and now Mison – who played the dual roles of the Mr Phillips clones and Game Warden – has said it should stick to just one season while chatting to NME.

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“As far as I know, it’s being left as it is, and I think its the classiest move I’ve heard in television for years, to leave it just as it is,” he said. “After watching the final episode… because I stopped reading the script because I was loving them so much and everything that didn’t have me in it I wanted to watch it fresh.

Watchmen episode 7
Jeremy Irons in ‘Watchmen’ episode seven. Credit: HBO

“So everything that happened towards the end was a complete surprise to me and I thought – perfection. And in the end I turned to my wife when we were watching it, and I said, ‘I’m sorry but I’m going to wish us out of the job’. Because I would love it if they left it at that. I think it’s such a bold move from HBO to do that.

“I know that Damon has said he’s told his Watchmen story and he’s not going to force another one, because then you’ll start making mistakes and it will be second best. So if anyone else wants to tell a story they can do it, but that’s him done. And HBO, classy move, said, ‘cool, fine, we’re great with that’. So they’ve just left it as, I think, a perfect series.”

Asked whether they had any discussion about a second season while making the first, Mison revealed: “It comes up, there’s never anything solid until you’re on set doing another season, or until things are written down on paper. So you can ask the same question several times over a shoot and you’d get completely different answers.

Damon Lindelof attends Premiere Of HBO’s “Watchmen” at The Cinerama Dome on October 14, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. CREDIT: Leon Bennett/WireImage

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“I didn’t know that Dr Manhattan was going to feature in this season, so one question that I did keep asking, every director I tried to trip up, because I knew that they weren’t allowed to say anything about Dr Manhattan – that was the big secret,” he added. “So just in the middle of the conversation when they’re chatting about other things I slipped in, ‘so who’s Dr Manhattan?’ And nearly I’d trip them up, nearly I’d get a response. And they’d always detach themselves and never speak to me again.”

Of course, there is the possibility that Lindelof – who has said he is happy for someone else to take the reins in a second season – does have ideas, especially as he co-created the multi-season Lost.

“I wonder whether in Lost whether they said, ‘you know what, we’ll end it after this season’, whether he would have fought to keep more or whether he would have said, ‘yeah, cool, thanks, I’m exhausted with ideas’,” Mison suggested.

“I don’t know, its a different beast. I don’t know, I don’t think I could answer that. I’m sure he has loads of amazing ideas with what to do with Watchmen, but it takes more than just a cool idea to make something, and the bar has been set so high. It takes more than a cool idea to get something brilliant made.”

As for where his characters could go if more episodes were made, the actor mused: “It would be the question of they’re still on Europa, or whether they managed to escape and an army of butlers come down to Earth to hunt down Ozymandias for leaving them. That’s one idea. Or they just stay on Europa and have a massive orgy until the sun explodes. The amount of times we had no idea how it was going to fit together!”

‘Watchmen’ is available to own on DVD and Blu-ray now from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment.

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