The Watch

In some way I have to blame the British as a whole, as they are funding this, not because they want to mind you they are forced to support it. And that is the problem, the show knows it never has to worry about money, or be able to sell the show in other countries, so they can go the low effort way instead. This seems to be made by people who was told about DW in passing, and just filled in the blanks with fan fiction from twitter. It's sad to see people defending the show, because "Hey, look they gender swap a character, how funny", when said thing because a mockery of the original story and are just done to hide the failure of all involved in understanding the source material. I now see why the estate of Terry Pratchett and his daughter have washed their hands of this project, and said it shares nothing with the stories he made, other that the theft of the names of those involved. In a time with so much pain and hopelessness I don't see why we have to add more into it, the original stories where fun, innovating and self critic in a way, this this is just sad really. In short all things you loved from the books are gone, change or dumbed down. If you want to see DW in moving picture from, look up the movies and animations, even though the budget was smaller and they are older they are still light years ahead from even the goal of this series.

Get the rights for the Disc world books about the Watch , then decide that Terry Pratchett's version was rubbish and you could do it better !! Why ?? Take the names and storylines from various books , completely change the personalities & background stories and get Richard Dormer to Chanel his Alex Higgins as Vimes !! Avoid !!

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.

Nothing of this show is remotely true to the original work of Terry Pratchett. Well, maybe Carrot's hair colour, but even his character gets a bad treatment of getting a changed background and impact.

It is really sad to see what happened to this. Its like the creators only read the summaries, usually find at the back of the books, and mangled them into a story. Nothing fits to the true work, as characters appearing later in the watch series are not only present at the start, but with their character arcs completed.

It also is not funny, or humorous, or insightful, or sarcatic, or ironic, or satire. Its just bland, bad and poor. Every Terry Pratchett fan should save themself from exposure to this and stay as far away from it as possiple.

PS You may think about comments about race- and genderchanging of characters. Yes. That happens. It does neither add nor detract on how awful the show is. Dont even think about "wokeness" when the base concept is just disgusting. Even the acting is sub-par, but the worst is just the writing.