Besides Regina King and Doug Lindelof (sp?), The Watchmen isn't all that similar to The Leftovers to me. The Leftovers delves a bit more into supernatural subject matter than The Watchmen IMO and is more dour and downbeat than The Watchmen as well. FYI, I'm a huge fan of The Leftovers, but I have no interest in trying to convince you to give the show a second chance if you have no interest in it. The same goes with The Watchmen show as well.

I almost wish I didn't have prior knowledge of the graphic novel to see if my interest in this show would be the same because I find it somewhat hard for folks that have zero knowledge of the novel and have never seen the movie to have deep interest in this. A large chunk of the plot points aren't fully spelled out of viewers, so it must be doubly confusing for folks with absolutely no knowledge of the lore. A deep part of my admiration for the show is seeing how well the show runners a developing new stories and characters that diverge so differently from the original material. Folks with zero knowledge of the source material wouldn't have any clue about that, so dunno.

I figured I ask folks their opinions on both shows since they are both anti-hero takes on comic books, but I do agree with you that The Watchmen takes itself much more seriously than The Boys does, at least when you compared the television depictions.