Amazon’s New Bosch Series Gets “Visceral” Story Tease From Titus Welliver Replacement
The star of the next Bosch series, Bosch: Start of Watch, teased what fans of the long-running franchise can expect from the "visceral and exciting" spinoff.
Titus Welliver originated the role of Harry Bosch in the Prime Video show Bosch, which premiered in 2014 and ran for seven seasons. There have been multiple spinoffs, with the latest one being the upcoming prequel, Bosch: Start of Watch, with Cameron Monaghan replacing Welliver as a younger version of the character.
During a panel at Comic-Con Wales (as shared by Basic-Yoghurt6802 on Reddit), Monaghan was asked about Bosch: Start of Watch. The actor described the show as being "really visceral and exciting" because it's set in Los Angeles in the 1990s, a "very turbulent time" for the city.
Not only did Monaghan express how proud he was of the project, but he went so far as to call it "some of the best work of my career."
Since Bosch: Start of Watch is a prequel, Monaghan made it clear that fans don't need to have seen any other Bosch series or read the books to understand his show. "It's completely standalone...I really recommend people check it out because I think it's very good," he added.
"I don’t know if anyone here is familiar with Bosch, but it’s a very long-running book series in the United States about a homicide detective. And we have a new show that’s about this character. He’s a young LAPD detective in the early ‘90s. If you know anything about Los Angeles in the early ‘90s, it was a very, very, very turbulent time. So it’s a really visceral and exciting show. And, frankly, it’s work that I’m really proud of. I think it might be some of the best work of my career. I mean, I guess that’s not really for me to say, but we’re really proud of the show. I think it's excellent. So I can’t wait for people to see that. You don’t need to have seen anything related to Bosch or read anything related to Bosch. It’s completely standalone, and it’ll be on Amazon. So I really recommend people check it out because I think it’s very good."
The franchise is based on author Michael Connelly's bestselling books. The first TV show adapted his Bosch novels City of Bones, Echo Park, The Concrete Blonde, Trunk Music, The Drop, The Last Coyote, The Black Echo, A Darkness More Than Night, Angels Flight, Two Kinds of Truth, The Overlook, Dark Sacred Night and The Burning Room.
Bosch proved to be very popular with critics and audiences alike, earning a nearly perfect score of 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, three Saturn Award nominations and one Emmy nomination.
After the show ended in 2021, Welliver reprised the role for the first spinoff Bosch: Legacy, which ran for three seasons and has a perfect Rotten Tomatoes score from critics.
The same year that Legacy wrapped, Prime Video launched Ballard, a spinoff centering on Maggie Q's character Renée Ballard. Last fall, Ballard season 2 was officially greenlit, and filming took place in the first half of this year.
The franchise isn't stopping there, though, with Prime Video developing Bosch: Start of Watch with Monaghan and Omari Hardwick. Filming ended in June, with a premiere date yet to be announced.
In the upcoming spinoff, Harry Bosch is 26 years old and a rookie police officer in Los Angeles. Civil unrest and gang violence permeated the city back then and will be a major focus on Start of Watch.
Before being cast on Bosch: Start of Watch, Monaghan had appeared in movies like The Giver, Amityville: The Awakening and Tron: Ares, and the TV shows Malcolm in the Middle, Shameless, Gotham and Mercy Street. His performance as Jerome and Jeremiah Valeska on Gotham earned the actor a Teen Choice Award for Choice TV: Villain.