Ryan Murphy’s Netflix collaboration has been given a boost with The Watcher getting a season 2 order, and his Dahmer-based drama Monster getting a further two seasons as an anthology series. Ryan Murphy has a solid relationship with the streamer, and with both shows drawing a lot of attention, it is not surprising to see Netflix jumping for more of the same.
The Watcher debuted on Netflix on October 13th and is based on the true story of a family who moves into their dream home but soon finds things turning into a nightmare when they receive mysterious letters from “The Watcher.” Led by Naomi Watts and Bobby Cannavale, the series has delivered the usual Murphy-style jump scares and eerie building tension that has been at the core of his American Horror Story series. While no detailed viewing figures have been released, the watchers watching The Watcher have clearly been enough for Netflix to seek out another season.
When it comes to Monster – Dahmer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, it seemed like a self-contained one-shot series, but Netflix has found an easy way around that technicality by turning the series into the first of an anthology that will turn its attention to two more “monsters” of society and how their crimes have impacted the lives of their victims' families.
“Audiences can’t take their eyes off Monster and The Watcher,” said Bela Bajaria, Netflix’s head of global TV. “The creative team of Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan on ‘Monster’ along with Eric Newman on ‘The Watcher’ are masterful storytellers who captivated audiences all over the world. The back-to-back force of these two series is due to Ryan’s distinct original voice which created cultural sensations and we are thrilled to continue telling stories in the Monster and Watcher universes.”
Why Has Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story Been So Controversial?
Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story has pulled in a huge amount of viewers, becoming the second most-watched English language series on the platform, behind only the behemoth that is Stranger Things 4. However, that success has also led to a huge number of complaints from its use of the LGTBQ tag and for dramatizing Dahmer’s crimes and opening old wounds for the families of his victims. With at least two more prolific killers coming in the next seasons, there will likely be plenty more complaints coming, but almost guaranteed massive viewer numbers.
It is unclear how long it will be before the next installment of Monster arrives on Netflix, as Murphy previously hinted at a long production of Dahmer’s story when he discussed the research that went into the series. He said:
"It’s something that we researched for a very long time. And we, over the course of the three, three and a half years when we were really writing it, working on it, we reached out to 20, around 20 of the victims’ families and friends trying to get input, trying to talk to people and not a single person responded to us in that process. So we relied very, very heavily on our incredible group of researchers who… I don’t even know how they found a lot of this stuff. But it was just like a night and day effort to us trying to uncover the truth of these people."