Have You Ever Been Watched?

Warning: Spoilers ahead!

Alexandra Kouropteva, Staff Writer

   When a picture-perfect family leaves the electric city of New York for a beautiful and rich suburb of Westfield, their lives are bound to change, but at what cost? The Watcher is a thrilling and exciting TV series where the Brannock family moves to a mansion in Westfield, but their neighbors don’t seem to be delighted with their new companions. What seems to be a wonderful and new beginning starts turning into a nightmare straight from hell. This series contains chilling events of a true story, forbidden romance, twisted theories, family affairs, and more.

   The Watcher starts with the Brannock family: father Dean, mother Nora, and siblings Ellie and Carter. They move into a ravishing old mansion, and after a few days and arguments, they meet their neighbors who seem normal at first, but become rather eerie. As they finish moving in, they receive a letter from “The Watcher” welcoming them into the neighborhood and writing that they are going to be watching the house. This is definitely one of the pluses in the series since they don’t drag along the family’s background and the conflict gets straight to the point. Nora and Dean become skeptical of this letter as it also mentions their children, and they decide to tell authorities out of concern for their safety. The police believe it’s just a prank and send them home, but…of course, this wouldn’t be the end.

   Throughout the series, Nora and Dean keep getting these creepy letters, and not only do they get more personal each time, but they also get more threatening. This is one of the downsides of the series, as the letters do get repetitive, losing their menacing feel. The supposed “watcher” ends up in the house many times, truly torturing this family. At this point, Nora and Dean consider everybody a suspect, even the guy who installed their cameras and security system. These suspicious characters make the series even more thrilling as it also allows the viewers to create their own theories on who is behind all of this. Nora and Dean are left with no choice but to handle the problem themselves, so they hire a private investigator.

   The Brannock family starts to lose hope in finding out who is behind this nightmare, pushing their own relationships with each other to the edge. All this chaos was quite frustrating since the dad slowly destroys his connection with his family.

   In general, The Watcher was not executed well. One of the biggest setbacks was how they ended it, leaving viewers frustrated over scenes. A few of the parts were confusing and did not fit into the story, leaving many holes in the scenes. But if the script were to be extended and more thought out, then maybe the series could have been better. Although The Watcher was not the best, the actors pulled off amazing performances.