ERIC LIEBOWITZ/NETFLIX
The Watcher is a delirious, uh, watch. As is Ryan Murphy’s way, the new Netflix drama is a show operating on the highest frequency at all times. Maybe that’s necessary, considering the ripped-from-the-headlines premise is tantalizing, if threadbare: After moving into an expensive suburban Jersey home, a family starts receiving letters from an anonymous stranger. The letters become increasingly specific and creepy. The family sets about finding out who their stalker—a.k.a. “The Watcher”—is. Chaos ensues. (Parts of the series are rooted in the New York magazine investigation into a similar case, though Murphy and co. run amok fictionalizing much of it.)
(Warning: Spoilers ahead for The Watcher.)
The Watcher veers on being “too much” at all times. Every action, reaction, and inaction is ratcheted up to an outrageous level: The family’s teen daughter has a crush on a boy that ends with her destroying her father’s reputation on TikTok. The annoying husband-and-wife pair next door keep gardening on the family’s yard, then they turn up dead, but actually they’re alive, but then one of them dies anyway. The local police chief somehow has the power to tell the entire FBI to ignore the family’s distress calls.