The Watch - What did I just watch?

[Ben Brown]

My wife and I discovered The Watch on Amazon last week. All I can say is, have the creators of this show been thrown onto the River Ankh for this mess? It seemed like they just took a generic fantasy show and named the characters after Discworld citizens to draw an audience. A Discworld series about the Watch could have had so much potential. They could have done it with Pratchett's characters as he had actually written them and had a CSI: Ankh Morpork type of series. I did find the band somewhat entertaining. 

 

Ben 

[Pete in Lincs]

Oh dear. Thanks for the warning, Ben. I'll not bother then.

Some of my favourite Discworld Characters are in the watch. 

Vimes, Carrot, Angua etc. Can these TV people actually translate anything from the book to the screen without messing it up?

Apparently Cheery is no longer a Dwarf and Vetinari is a Woman? What are they smoking?

Political correctness gets in the way of a series that could have had so many more fans and run for ages. Poor show.

[John_W]

This series has been generating a lot of negative posting on the fan sites and Facebook pages.

I was hoping for a Faithfull rendition,  when I saw the first publicity stills and the cast list I decided not to bother.

Vimes is one of my favourite Pratchett characters this series does not serve him well.

[Rumblestripe]

I saw the trailer some months ago and that was enough for me.

 

It's nothing to do with "Political Correctness" as Sir Terry had some terrific "empowered" female characters. I could even have lived with the gender swap of Vetinari. There is no compelling reason why "The Patrician" could not be female. But the transformation of Lady Sybil from a formidable battleaxe to a slip of a thing and giving it a trendy steam punk vibe. Just no! Vimes "flipping the bird" at Vetinari was the final straw. It is important to note that the Pratchett estate and his daughter Rhianna in particular have been at pains to distance themselves from it.

 

[RobL]

I saw The Watch advertised and also wondered what had been smoked!

 

Fear not the Pratchett estate have been rumoured to be in the process of getting some proper Discworld stuff made again.

 

https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/discworld-terry-pratchett-new-tv-series/

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/apr/28/terry-pratchett-novels-faithful-tv-adaptation-discworld

 

 

In the meantime, if you can find them, there's always The Colour of Magic, Hogfather, and Going Postal, made by The Mob, for Sky, to console yourself with.  Think they're all on Amazon.  There's even Cosgrove Hall's Wyrd Sisters and Soul Music if you can find them.

[Pete in Lincs]

3 hours ago, Rumblestripe said:

Vimes "flipping the bird" at Vetinari was the final straw.

OMG! And I am so glad the Pratchett estate are having nothing to do with it. 

I would have loved to see Studio Ghibli have a go at a book or three. But they take about five years for each film.

[Rumblestripe]

2 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

would have loved to see Studio Ghibli have a go at a book or three. But they take about five years for each film.

But it would have been so so beautiful. 

[Ben Brown]

I ended up trying to mentally replace the names of the characters with non-Discworld names, so it was no longer a Discworld show. Then it had some mildly entertaining moments. I did the same thing with the Klingons in Star Trek Discovery. Made Season 1 much more bearable. 😀
 

I didn’t like what they did with Lady Ramkin, either. Aungua’s and Detritus’ characters weren’t too bad, but they really missed with Vimes, Carrot, and Dibbler. And what was up with the tall dwarves? After just finishing The Mandalorian, The Watch seemed like it was put together by a high school drama class who had only skimmed the Discworld Wikipedia page an hour before class. I’ll be surprised if the show gets a second season.

I hope someone does eventually make more shows like The Colour of Magic and Hogfather. Those were great!

 

Ben