The Watch

I just watched the two episode debut of The Watch on BBC America and I have to ask why? Why did the BBC decide to go so far away from the source material, Sky did a very reasonable job with Going Postal, hell, even The Hogfather (a Christmas time favourite in our home) and The Colour of Magic where infinitely better executed. I had some hope after hearing Richard Dormer was cast as Vimes, I loved him in Fortitude, but everything here seems wrong. The setting doesn't feel like Discworld, their vision of Ankh-Morpork doesn't fit the theme or style of the books (slowly developed and fleshed out over multiple volumes). The casting is off, not just the removal for key characters (Sgt. Colon and Nobby Nobbs) but the unfortunate idea of casting Lord Vetinari as a completely unthreatening afterthought is baffling, Charle Dance and Jeremy Irons are both still alive and have played the part so much better. There are just too many things wrong with this programme, if you want the real Watch, read the books, if you want to watch Pratchett done well, watch Going Postal.

They somehow took one of the funniest series of books and handed it to a writer and director who don't have a sense of humour. The tone is off. The cast try their best but the pacing and tone are nothing like Pratchett and nothing like his books. So we're left with a series which is an object of interest to fans of Pratchett and fans of comedy sci-fi, but in the end it is a misfire. It fails to even be fun, coherent storytelling.

Watched the pilot, and left conflicted. I've read all the books over the years, so it was nice to see elements brought to life, but why modernise and change things up, when playing it true to the source would have been easier and better? Pratchett isn't a show-writer from the grave, so let his work do the storytelling. It's what he did best, after all

After seeing good Discworld TV productions like Hogfather, The Colour of Magic and Going Postal I actually thought that BBC would be able to make something at least as good ...

This is utter crap ... Discworld in some weird punk style.

Characters not even trying to be the characters we love from the books, and that's not even getting into the whole gender swap mess.

If you are a fan of the books watch the old TV movies I mentioned above and give this garbage a pass.

I had no idea what I was watching and I'm a huge fan of the books. From the very first second it was confusing and horrible. All the characters were botched, storyline botched, script botched, editing botched. I liked the idea that Ankh Morpork was some sort of neo-punk medieval city, but that's all I liked because from the very first second, I was confused about what was happening (and this is from someone who has actually read the books several times).

This is a hard pass for any Pratchett fans as this will only make you angry. And I'm afraid that anyone else will have absolutely no clue what the hell is happening.