Review: The Watch (2021). Punk Rock Pratchett?

Tv Review: The Watch (2021)

by Ben Jeffries (4/1/2021)

Season 1 Episode 1 - A Near Vimes Experience (1/1/2021)

Duration: 47 Minutes

Genre: Fantasy, Comedy, Action,

Availability: Releasing Weekly on STAN

An interesting aesthetic revamp eliminates some of the original magical patina.

It’s difficult to tell who The Watch is for. On the one hand, it seems to have been created with little thought for fans of the original novel. On the other hand, it’s still so freighted with the originals baggage that it seems hard for newcomers to digest. Produced by the BBC for BBC America, (available in Australia via STAN), this fantasy cop show is based on a collection of novels from Terry Pratchett’s best selling Discworld series. The City Watch novels follow, unsurprisingly, the adventures of the City Watch under the command of Samuel Vimes (played in this adaptation by Richard Dormer). The Watch are the metropolitan police force of the Discworld’s most tumultuous city, Ankh-Morporkh. As they struggle to keep the streets if not clean, then at least not so full of kicked out teeth, the Watch have to navigate a treacherous landscape of crushing bureaucracy, legalised crime, a citizenry that thinks they’re a joke, and dragons. In this tv adaptation, which might better be called a re-imagining, Pratchett’s original fantasy gumshoe satire is gone, replaced by what the producers have called a “punk rock thriller”. In the first of the series’ eight episodes, The Watch attempts to juggle jump starting a complex multi-threaded narrative, introducing the audience into this grungy punk fantasy setting, and presenting the core cast of characters. There are moments of the original texts that shine through, the title of the episode "A Near Vimes Experience" is a direct quote from Pratchett's novels, but they often bump up against the reworked parts of the production in a way that disrupts both. The confusing result is hard to engage with and, sadly, decidedly un-magical.

I’ve read the novels this show is based on. They’re a personal favourite. I’m very familiar with the material. As such you might think I’d have an easier time acclimating to this rough and wild on-screen Ankh-Morporkh and it’s denizens. I did not. Outside of some core cast, I spent a lot of the episodes run time trying to puzzle out who the characters were supposed to be, often only to be confused about the changes that had been made to them in the adaptation. Characters origins, genders, even entire personalities have been altered or altogether re-written in a way that begs the question: why use the familiar names then?

When I wasn’t trying to figure who everyone was, I was trying to figure out what they were doing. The plot for this series appears to have been constructed by placing every City Watch novel into a tumble drier and running it on high until they were all thoroughly shuffled together, then stapling the pile together and using that mass as a template. Antagonists from later stories are prominent villains here, woven into the narrative of earlier mysteries for some reason, though in reality their characters share only the name of the original. Story lines from multiple novels are jumbled together in a way that leaves old fans confused about what came from where, but also adds to the level of difficulty when it comes to new viewers being able to grasp what’s going on. The series main antagonist, one Carcer Dun (Samuel Adewunmi, Born a King), is drawn from a later novel in the series, where he is a cold blooded psycopath that Vimes does battle with in a time travel story. Here he is presented as a spectre of guilty conscience from Vimes’ complicated past, where they were friends and gang members.

As the story threads stumble over each other we’re left with flat, scene cluttering, exposition trying to paper over the cracks where separate stories have been combined. On the whole, as it gets pulled between the triple duties of building the world, the characters, and several narrative mystery boxes in this one episode, the writing tends to fall flat.

The direction is stretched equally thin between trying to imbue each scene with the new punk rock sensibilities the show has taken on, leverage the grungy setting to the fullest, and tell the story of the episode in an interesting way. It’s a lot to attempt and while there are some successful sequences, the overall result is shallow and unclear, hampered by a semi-non-linear timeline that is under developed and some choppy editing which is more jarring than interesting.

There are things to like about The Watch. Richard Dormer (Game of Thrones, Cobra) is pretty magnetic in the lead role of Captain Sam Vimes. The series amps up Vimes’ rock-bottom, boozed up, loser personality traits, giving him a manic Jack Sparrow-esque edge to fit with the new heavy eye-liner and spiky hair aesthetic. Dormer brings an intense energy to the role as he strides the streets with an eye rolling thousand yard stare and a well chomped a cigar, and he employs the incredible deep chesty growl he calls a voice to full effect. Other than that though, there’s not a lot to hold onto when it comes to the character other than “drunk” and “sad”. Lady Sybil Ramkin (Lara Rossi, I May Destroy You) has been transformed from a stiff-upper-lip type aristocrat with a fixation on magical wildlife conservation into a cool, calm, social subversive who carries a dragon in her pocket and isn’t afraid to let it loose in order to get what she wants. It’s a good foil to Vimes’ growling street monster of a cop as the two pair up to solve crime and the change brings some gender equity to the originally masculine dominated narrative.

One character who seems lifted almost whole cloth from Pratchett’s page is Constable Carrot Ironfounderson (Adam Hugill 1917). Carrot is a human who identifies as a dwarf (the magic kind with the beards and the mining) having been adopted by them as a baby, and the newest recruit of the Watch. Hailing from a mine in the countryside, he brings an intense sense of right and wrong to his work as a cop which is a problem in a city where theft, drug dealing, and assassination have all been made into key areas of legal employment and enterprise. His character is a key driving force in the original novels and it’s a pleasant spot of familiarity to see his brawny naivete relatively unscarred by the adaptation.

The adaptation is most successful when it comes to realising Ank-Morporkh on screen, which it does through the high level of attention paid to the production design. The sets of the Watch House all look especially intricate, decorated and designed in a kind of gothic industrial motif. The costuming and makeup fits the shows mid 80’s industrial punk meets sword and sandals fantasy aesthetic, though the heavy eyeliner and dark clothing ironically feel like something Pratchett himself would have made fun of. The effects work which renders the Watch’s Trollish officer, Sgt Detritus, is particularly detailed, and the small touches of CGI throughout the episode are, for the most part, successful. The problem is that there’s no one moment where it all gels into a cohesive whole, one moment the aesthetics of the show are being pushed forward, the next the audience is being dragged along on an expository walk and talk that even the episodes narrator feels inclined to lampshade, but style and substance never quite coalesce.

I don’t believe in being precious about things I’m a fan of. Fandom is not ownership. I try to approach adaptations or re-imaginings with an open mind for what the author is trying to do, and as a long time Pratchett fan I’m always keen to see his stories rendered on screen, but this adaptation is flawed and doesn’t really work. At least yet. There’s a vibe to the proceedings of this episode that’s enticing. It’s chainmail in a leather jacket. Ghosts wanting a dwarf to join their band. Scene kid eyeliner and Pixies needle drops and brewing socialism in the disgruntled goblin workforce. There’s fun to be had here, but at the moment it’s just the itch, not yet the scratch. Given that potential, I intend to keep watching in hopes that The Watch finds its feet and can generate a little more magic.

4.5/10

The Watch Stars: Richard Dormer, Craig Macrae, Wendell Pierce, Samuel Adewunmi, Adam Hugill, Ralph Ineson, Marama Corlett, Joe Eaton-Kent, and Lara Rossi

Created by: Simon Allen (inspired by characters created by Terry Pratchett)

Written by: Simon Allen

Directed by: Craig Viveiros

a Production from: BBC Studios, Narrativia

Distributed by: BBC America, Available in Australia