History Series / TheWatcher

* KickTheSonOfABitch: When the Watcher turns their ire on [[spoiler:Karen]], it's hard not to cheer them on.

* TakeThat: When interrogated by Dean and Nora (who suspect him of being the Watcher), Dr. Kaplan says, "You think I can afford to live in a house like that? I'm a retired public-school teacher."

The series stars Creator/BobbyCannavale, Creator/NaomiWatts, Creator/MargoMartindale, Creator/MiaFarrow, Creator/ChristopherMcDonald, Creator/JenniferCoolidge, and Creator/RichardKind.

* OverprotectiveDad: Dean is frequently criticized for freaking out at the slightest hint of sexuality coming from his 16-year-old daughter.

** See LegacyCharacter.

** See LegacyCharacter.

** See CycleOfRevenge.

* RecurringElement: Fear and revenge.

** In the second episode Dean is upset by Jasper breaking into their house to ride the dumbwaiter (scaring his son in the process) and tells then he’s gonna remove it, infuriating them.

** Also, in response to the above and max at her dad for making her move away from her friends, Ellie posts a video in the internet claiming her dad is racist, a purposeful lie with the intent of “ruining” his life like he did hers. She admits that this is her FatalFlaw and that she regrets it.

** At the end, Dean starts sending watcher letters to all his own letters. Thinking that atleast one of them was the watcher, trying to “get back” at them. He later starts spying on the new family that’s moved into the house, determined to find the person who tormented his family.

* PronounTrouble: No one knows the Watcher's gender, which causes a bit of confusion when talking about the person. Even when a DNA test comes back identifying the person who sealed the envelopes as a woman, Dean still considers it a possibility that the true Watcher has a woman do it for him.

* PronounTrouble: No one knows the Watcher's gender, which causes a bit of confusion when talking about the person.

* NotMeThisTime: Its heavily implied that alot of the things that the Braddocks think are done by the Watcher, such as someone breaking into their home and killing their pet, the appearance of "John Graff" in their house and who looks like his daughter appearing in the Braddocks bed in a video are actually just Pearl and Jasper in their attempts to scare the Braddocks away because they dont like how they are trying to change their house. Though it is still ambiguous if they wrote the first two watcher letters, it is implied that they were responsible for the watcher incident that Karen went through when she moved into the house.

* LegacyCharacter: [[spoiler: It seems at the end that Pearl and Jasper may have taken up the "Watcher" as a method of scarring away unwanted neighbors since the actions "the watcher" took against Karen differ from how they terrorized the Braddocks.]] [[spoiler: Its also heavily implied at the end that the Watcher letters have just been the result of a long line of paranoia and revenge since Dean started writing watcher letters to his former nieghbors in revenge, thinking it was one of them, and has started stalking the new family who moved into the house, determined to find out who terrorized his family.]]

* NothingIsScarier: What scares the Braddocks most about the Watcher is that they have no idea who they are, why they were writing such creepy letters to them or how they knew their childrens names.

* AdaptationalNameChange: Based off a real-life story, [[VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory albeit very loosely]], the series does change many of the names involved in the story, including the main characters. However, though [[spoiler:John Graff is a fictional character invented for the show, his in-series background is based off the life of infamous family annihilator John List - whose wife (Helen) and daughter (Patricia)'s names are used for Graff's own wife and daughter's names, thus making this an odd aversion]].

* KilledOffScreen: [[spoiler:Mitch]] is revealed to have died of am embolism during a TimeSkip.

''The Watcher'' is a 2022 mystery/horror miniseries created by Creator/RyanMurphy and Ian Brennan. It is loosely based on real events first publicized in the article "The Haunting of a Dream House," written by Reeves Wiedeman in ''The Cut''.

The series focuses on the Braddocks, an upper-middle class New York City family who buy their dream home in the suburbs of Westfield only to begin receiving strange and threatening letters from a self-styled "Watcher" who is obsessed with their house.

* BadCopIncompetentCop: The Braddocks can't tell if Chamberland is involved in the conspiracy in some way or just a bad cop.

* TheConspiracy: The Braddocks neighbors Jasper and Pearl, who run the "preservation society," are determined to keep old things in town from changing, even protesting against the Braddocks renovating their own home after they buy it. Throughout the series, they are willing to go to extreme lengths, including vandalism, to keep things from changing. It is also revealed that they sent John Graff/Bill Webster, the society's vice president, to the Braddocks' home to pose as an inspector. It is also revealed that there is a tunnel under their home that connects to the Braddocks so they can access secretly their home. It isn't clear whether they are connected to the Watcher, however.
* ConsummateLiar: When Dean meets with Andrew Pierce, a previous owner of the house who also received Watcher letters, he talks about how his son witnessed Mitch and Mo being part of a blood cult. However, Theadora later tells Dean that Pierce is a chronic liar who once told the police that his son was sexually harassed by a teacher on a fiend trip that his son didn’t even go on. And the police chief later tells Dean that if Pierce received Watcher letters, he never went to them about it, another thing Pierce claimed he did. Later, Dean finds out that he’s an actor, which puts a lot of what he claimed into question.
* CrankyNeighbor: Both sets of the Braddocks' neighbors become almost instantly antagonistic toward them for various reasons, making them prime suspects.

* EveryoneIsASuspect: Virtually everyone the Braddocks meet becomes a suspect for one reason or another.
* EvilIsPetty: When The Braddocks accuse [[WithFriendsLikeThese Karen]] and [[BadCopIncompetentCop Chamberland]] of being the watcher when they discover they are a couple, due to Karen constantly trying to coerce Nora into selling the house (which will benefit her most) and Chamberland in general being unhelpful; Karen is so offended that she posts an article that prevents the Braddocks from being able to sell the house when they finally do decide to move. When Nora confronts her and asks her why she would do that when they were finally moving, and when Karen knows that they put all their savings into the house, Karen says that she feels the Braddocks deserve to [[RichesToRags "loose their shirts"]] [[DisproportionateRetribution for getting her country club membership suspended with her outburst]].
* FailedASpotCheck: Dakota is supposed to be watching the Braddocks' doors all night but takes a break to watch videos on his phone, causing him to miss Ellie sneaking out of her room and scaring him.

* HatesRichPeople: The Braddocks get some disdain from others for their wealth, especially when they start getting paranoid and accusing people of being the watcher.

* MistakenForRacist: Ellie accuses her father of being racist for tossing her black boyfriend out of the house. It's really because [[JailbaitTaboo she's only 16]]. The accusation gets the Braddocks in deep trouble.
* NosyNeighbor: Mitch and Mo as well as the Winslows immediately start interfering in the Braddocks' lives, making them prime suspects.

** Very few people that the Braddocks know understand how scared and desperate they are when they start getting the water letters and tend to react negatively to them when they start accusing others.

** The Westfield police are so useless in helping the Braddocks that they quickly begin to suspect that Chamberland is the culprit or part of a coverup. When the Braddocks accuse Chamberland in public, he is so [[RefuseToRescueTheDisliked offended that he not only decides to stop helping them further]] but he also tells them [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections he will use his connections to make sure the FBI doesn’t help either]].

* RevengeBeforeReason: Ellie posts a video painting her parents, her dad specifically, as racist as revenge for them scaring away Dakota and making her move away from her friends. It affects the whole family, including her. The next episode, she deeply regrets it and [[FatalFlaw acknowledges that when she’s mad she just wants to do whatever she can to hurt that person even if she knows she’ll regret it later.]]

* TakeThat: When interrogated by Dean and Nora (who suspect him of being the Watcher), Dr. Kaplan says, "You think I can afford to live in a house like that? I'm a retired public school teacher."

* ThatOneCase: Theadora can't get the unsolved Watcher case out of her mind, just like the Braddocks.
* UnholyMatrimony: Mitch and Mo are very aggressive jerks who back each other up completely when feuding with the Braddocks.

* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: The story is based off a real-life incident where a couple and their family were harassed by an unknown person calling themselves The Watcher, but there are many changes to the story that diverted away from original account. Additionally, John Graff’s story takes inspiration from the story of John List, who went on the run for nearly two decades after killing his entire family in the early 1970s - though List’s story has nothing to do with the real-life family aside from the fact that both incidents took place in the same town.

* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: The story is based off a real-life incident where a couple and their family were harassed by an unknown person calling themselves The Watcher, but there are many changes to the story that diverted away from original account. Additionally, John Graff’s story takes inspiration from the story of John List, who went on the run for nearly three decades after killing his entire family in the early 1970s - though List’s story has nothing to do with the real-life family aside from the fact that both incidents took place in the same town.

* NoSympathy: Very few people that the Braddocks know understand how scared and desperate they are when they start getting the water letters and tend to react negatively to them when they start accusing others.

** Karen in particular describes their situation as "not even scary" and dismisses the fact that someone killed their pet (and broke into their house to do so). This turns out to be a FatalFlaw when SHE decides to move into the house herself. [[LaserGuidedKarma It doesnt work out well for her.]]

* EvilIsPetty: When The Braddocks accuse [[WithFriendsLikeThese Karen]] and [[BadCopIncompetentCop Chamberland]] of being the watcher when they discover they are a couple, due to Karen constantly trying to coerce Nora into selling the house (which will benefit her most) and Chamberland in general being unhelpful; Karen is so offended that she posts an article that prevents the Braddocks from being able to sell the house when they finally do decide to move. When Nora confronts her and asks her why she would do that when they were FINALLY moving, and when Karen knows that they put ALL their savings into the house, Karen says that she feels the Braddocks deserve to [[RichesToRags "loose their shirts"]] [[DisproportionateRetribution for getting her country club membership suspended with her outburst]].

** The Westfield police are so useless in helping the Braddocks that they quickly begin to suspect that Chamberland is the culprit or part of a coverup. When the Braddocks accuse Chamberland in public, he is so [[JerkassBall offended that he not only decides to stop helping them further]] but he also tells them [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections he will use his connections to make sure the FBI doesn’t help either]].
** Then when Karen breaks up with Chamberland, he [[EvilIsPetty refuses to help her]] too even when she calls him about someone breaking into her home]]

* ConsummateLiar: When Dean meets with Andrew Pierce, a previous owner of the house who also received watcher letters, he talks about how his son witnessed Mitch and Mo being part of a blood cult. However, Theadora later tells Dean that Pierce is a chronic liar who once told the police that his son was sexually harassed by a teacher on a fiend trip, that his son didn’t even go on. And the police chief later tells Dean that IF Pierce received watcher letters he NEVER went to them about it, another thing Pierce claimed he did. Later Dean finds out that he’s an actor which puts a lot of what he claimed into question.

* GenderBlenderName: "Dakota" is usually a girl's name, and "Murray" is usually a man's name.

* RiddleForTheAges: Like the real-life mystery, the mystery remains unsolved. Is it Pearl and Jasper using a tactic to scare away neighbors? Is it Roger Kapan? Is it just an old student who decided to make a sick joke out of his Ode to a House assignment? Are there many copy-cat watchers or just one person? Who knows.
** Is Bill Webster really John Graff or was he just pretending to be as a means of manipulating Dean? Roger Kaplan recognizes him from somewhere and Pearl (one of the only two people who would recognize John Graff) seems defensive of him but that wouldn’t explain his current motivations.