Review for The Watch

Introduction

I wasn’t going to buy The Watch, but when they put a steelbook on sale for £5, it’s hard to say no. I also wasn’t going to watch The Watch (God! It’s almost as bad a name for a show as Saw), but it was a sentence at the head of each episode that made me give the show a chance.


I love, adore Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels, and I’m constantly re-reading them. But for me, it’s a world that exists solely within the pages of the books. I’ve given adaptations a chance, a videogame here, an animation there, a live action drama on Sky Three once, and never did I find anything that matched the worlds those books painted in my imagination. But it was COVID, the world was locked down, and I was ready to watch anything that would let me escape from that particular hell for an hour or so. The previews for The Watch didn’t entice me though, presenting a world that was further from that which lived in my imagination than anything that had come before. But then the first episode began with the following disclaimer, “Somewhere in a distant secondhand dimension”, and that was enough to give me permission to enjoy the show.


Sam Vimes joined The Watch for all the wrong reasons, but when push came to shove, he chose duty over loyalty to his friend Carcer Dun. But that was a turning point in the history of Ankh Morpork, as crime became so prevalent, that the only way to deal with it was to legalise and regulate it in the form of guilds. The Watch became a shadow of its former self, left chasing dogs and shooting innocent pigeons. But now, 20 years later, Carcer Dun is back, appearing not to have aged a single day, and there is a mythical Noble Dragon loose in the city.


The Watch has been reduced to Sam Vimes, the troll Detritus, the dwarf Cheery, and the werewolf Angua. The human Carrot was adopted and raised by dwarfs, but he’s been sent to the city so the Watch can make a man of him, and he’s under the misapprehension that he’ll be fighting crime. Meanwhile the Patrician Lord Vetinari has called Vimes in to give him an important mission, to find a missing library book. Vimes can’t even do that without being captured by Lady Sybil Ramkin, intent on reforming all the criminals in the city despite the guild system. The alcoholic Sam Vimes certainly looks like he needs redemption.


Eight episodes of The Watch are presented across two Blu-rays as follows.

Disc 1
1. A Near Vimes Experience
2. Ook
3. The What?
4. Twilight Canyons
5. Not On My Watch

Disc 2
6. The Dark in the Dark
7. Nowhere in the Multiverse
8. Better to Light a Candle

Picture

The Watch gets a 1.78:1 widescreen 1080i transfer on these discs, and given that it’s a UK TV show, that will be at 50Hz. The image is clear and sharp, colours are rich and consistent, but despite the high production values, you do get the soap opera effect of a television production as opposed to the cinematic sense that many modern television shows have. Compression is good, with no signs of artefacting or any serious banding. The South Africa sets and locations make for a very appealing world design, mixing real world with digital extensions to create a Discworld which is unlike that depicted in the novels, but possessing a consistency and style that works very well. You can also see the production value in the costume designs, make-up and effects work.

Sound

You get a DTS-HD MA 5.1 Surround English track with optional English subtitles. The audio is fine with this release; the show gets an immersive sound design, with some decent music; including some interesting pop music choices. The dialogue is mostly clear, although as with most modern television and film, I am grateful for the presence of the subtitles from time to time. There are plenty of action and effects moments to occasionally bury the dialogue.

Extras

You get two discs in a very artful steelbook case, which slides into a snug thin card blurb case. With the discs, you’ll find 4 double-sided character cards.

The discs boot to animated menus.

Disc 1

There is an audio commentary with episode 1


Disc 2

Here you’ll find the rest of the extras...

Making of The Watch (45:59)
Intro to The Watch (3:14)
Meet the Makers (3:09)
Magical Creatures of The Watch (3:34)
The Watch Reimagined (5:25)
Heroes of The Watch (10:35)
The Look (7:38)

Conclusion

I really enjoyed The Watch, both when it was transmitted, and now re-watching it on Blu-ray, although given the audience reaction to the show, I expect I’m in the minority. Given that I got the Steelbook so cheaply, that’s more a certainty than a guess. You wouldn’t think that I’d be a fan of the show, given how often I read and re-read the Discworld novels, and I have to admit that I had to go through quite a few contortions of thought before I could really get into the show, but once I realised that this had as much in common with Terry Pratchett’s creation as West Side Story has with Romeo and Juliet, I really became able to enjoy it on its own merits.


You know how it is, you get invested in your favourite novels, the words painting mental images of the worlds, the characters, the events that unfold, and naturally those images colour your expectations of any visual adaptations. For me, Discworld was mish-mash of various eras, a kind of pre-industrial world that’s on the verge of an industrial revolution, albeit a magical one. The novels that relate tales of The Watch are particular favourites, and I know full well what Sam Vimes, Nobby Nobbs, Colon, Carrot, Angua, Detritus, Cheery, Sybil Ramkin and the rest all look like. The Watch TV adaptation looks absolutely nothing like that.


For one thing, this Discworld is a lot more modern, a magical satirical reflection of our own world rather than anything historical. The show also takes a direction with its casting that will have the usual suspects frothing at the teeth and gnashing their mouths, but actually makes a fair bit of sense with some of the story elements. The story too re-writes the character dynamics, moving it even further away from the novels. Sam Vimes as presented here has a level of mange garnishing his idiosyncratic style that takes him into Jack Sparrow territory. Detritus, his Sergeant is the most recognisable from the novels, although the friendship between them takes the place of the friendship and trust that you’d see with Nobby and Colon in the novels, who are absent in the TV series.


Angua is already in The Watch at this point as a Corporal, which switches the dynamic when Carrot shows up as a new recruit and she has to take him in hand. Angua is the littlest werewolf around, and lacks the golden locks of the novels. Carrot is the eager young cadet, in over his head, but the heroic rightness of character is toned down. And Cheery is an even taller dwarf than Carrot. The same kind of switches and fakeouts have been made with the other characters in this story-verse, and there came a point, thankfully early on, where I began looking forward to the surprises as they re-imagine people like Vetinari, Dibbler, Cruces, and The Librarian.


The show does lean heavily on The Watch novels, and some other Discworld material for its story, with a big chunk of Guards, Guards blended with Night Watch. From Guards, Guards, we get the storyline of the stolen library book, and the conjured noble dragon terrorising the city. From Night Watch we get the Vimes’ back-story, here with him initially joining the Watch to help free his imprisoned gang-mates. But he winds up finding a new home in the Watch, betraying leader Carcer Dun in the process. The tragic events that follow lead to Carcer Dun falling off the Unseen University Tower. And then Carcer Dun shows up again, 20 years later, apparently not having aged a single day. Naturally Carcer Dun and the rampaging dragon are connected.


The overarching story unfolds over the eight episodes, but after the first couple of episodes set the story up, each subsequent episode manages to tell a satisfying tale too in its runtime. There is a strong undercurrent of inclusiveness in the story, which is understandable given both the source material, and the idea here that The Watch is where all the oddballs in society end up. The story is engaging, and I like the way the relationships are developed, especially the pairing of Vimes and Sybil Ramkin, who here is a youthful and idealist firebrand with a heavy chip on her shoulder regarding The Watch, and especially the system of guilds and regulated crime that now exists in the city.


It’s not the Discworld of the novels. It’s a Discworld a few dimensions down, with bizarro versions of beloved characters. As soon as I had accepted that, I fell in love with this show. There are really only two things that I didn’t like about this version of The Watch, the Librarian wasn’t orang-utan enough, and it annoyingly ends on an open-ended cliff-hanger that demands the second season that this show unfortunately will never get. It’s a pity, because I’m that one person who would have liked to have seen more