The Watch (2021)

This may be the most crazily enjoyable series I've seen since AMC's Preacher ended in 2019. [18-31 Jan 2021, p.11]

“The Watch” can’t be taken as seriously as that erstwhile Sunday night staple, “Game of Thrones.” On the upside, it’s a lot more fun.

The Watch is currently in a category of show I would describe as Whovian-with-a-dash-of-2010s-Syfy-flavor. It has some interesting ideas and gives a fresh spin on an old sci-fi formula, but it doesn’t come together the way it really needs to in order to become recommended viewing. It’s difficult to suggest waiting around for a show to get “better” when “better” is such a nebulous idea, but essentially, if you find yourself cautiously intrigued by the premiere, consider spending a little more time with these lovable rogues.

Sometimes punk-rock anarchy is indistinguishable from simple, tuneless thrashing, and that’s a pitfall The Watch falls into more often than not. It’s worth a watch, if only to see if you’re the person BBC America has made it for. But don’t be surprised if it doesn’t turn out to be the watch for you.

The Watch is a mostly newbie-friendly initiation into the Discworld universe, but other than its supernatural larks, it fails to convey the magic that’s kept audiences coming back for decades.

The show’s generic worldbuilding, one-dimensional characterizations and lack of consistent wit will disappoint the kind of niche audience it’s trying to attract.

It’s not that The Watch is a complete mess; some elements of the first episode gave us hope that the show will settle down. But the first episode was so jumbled and so proud of how witty it was, it forgot to establish anything about most of the characters we’ll be seeing for the entire season.

It's not connected to Pratchett books soul. But it's fresh and entertaining. Have a great music and characters. Tarkovsky's Stalker is not really connected to Strugatskie's book. And Fallout 3 is not a Fallout 1,2 continuation. But it's not a problem, they still great.

Entertaining, and great aesthetic and an interesting interpretation. Take it as it is, an adaptation. I think it is impossible to please everyone, or capture what they interpreted in their readings. The changes and tweaks made from the source make for an interesting interpretation, but it still has some of the original whimsy and humour. I am hoping for a season 2 to see how the plot and characters develop. The more gritty, punk modern/ fantasy aesthetic is visually cool and I personally love it. The diverse cast/ characters also brilliant, adding a representation of our own world. Coupled with the more aesthetically mish mash setting make Ankh Morpork feel like a huge cosmopolitan metropolis that has a history and plenty more stories to tell.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

As a lover of Terry Pratchett stories, this proved a very hard series to watch, the butchering of core characters alone should be a criminal offence to literature. The few positives? - Fantastic production values in place, Ankh-Morpork (the city the series is set in) is very well realised. Terry Pratchett stories are inherently difficult to develop into visual media such as TV. Generally there is far to much going on and the stories themselves consist of intelligent and often subversive themes deceptively simply laid on often familiar frameworks - Pratchett went through a phase of creating his stories on some of Shakespeare's plays for example,and still managed to develop uniquely original stories. Unfortunately all of this was clearly well above the heads of those who developed the Watch, they had absolutely no concept of what the stories are about so they didn't try to find out. So this series offers a difficult viewing experience to any of Pratchett's fans, while being fairly incomprehensible to those unfamiliar tot he original stories. This series is a classic example of why American productions of British humour, rarely, if ever, work. In simplfying the story for the US audience, most of what makes the origin stories great is lost. The Watch is the conglomeration of a number of Pratchett's novels about the titular Night Watch, a ragtag bunch of losers in the first story, who evolve into a extremely competent and potent law agency over a series of novels (in simplest terms)and who are deeply embedded into the latter world-building of Pratchett's 'Discworld' series. Ignore the series, read the books.

Someone will burn in hell for this. The watch deserved better. A hundred times better. This is simply disgusting. If you read the books, do NOT watch this. If you did not read the books, do NOT watch this either. Nobody should watch this.