We have by that stage learned that the City Watch is the nominal police-force of Ankh-Morpork. BBC America’s version is, by contrast, a drunk who acts like an outsized cartoon character, speaking in an exaggerated whiny voice and constantly contorting his face.ĭormer eventually calms down slightly, at which point The Watch becomes more tolerable. Pratchett’s Vimes was a sort of heightened Inspector Morse (partly modelled on Pete Postlethwaite). And once Richard Dormer (Game of Thrones) modulates an initially hysterical performance as City Watch captain Sam Vimes it settles into serviceable escapism. Nestled at its core is an engagingly hokey mystery involving a missing grimoire, a talking sword and a rampaging dragon. The surprise – and Pratchett diehards may be upset to hear this – is that, as dour and noisy steampunk schlock goes, The Watch isn’t terrible.

What does a Terry Pratchett series look like with all the Terry Pratchett removed? The answer, The Watch suggests, is dour and noisy steampunk schlock. Filmed in South Africa with what appears to be a respectable budget, The Watch takes everything devotees loved about Pratchett: the wryness, the whimsy, the Tolkien-goes-Monty Python setting of Ankh-Morpork. Her disclaimer proves all too accurate as The Watch (BBC iPlayer), a bizarre BBC America retelling of Pratchett’s Discworld novels, finally crosses the Atlantic.

Terry Pratchett fans will have considered themselves forewarned when the late author’s daughter, Rhianna, cautioned last year that the latest adaptation of his work “shared no DNA” with the source material.

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