Welcome to Ankh-Morpork…

Terry Pratchett’s sense of humour as found in the Discworld series is hard to define. It is dry, full of puns and witticisms and, generally, entirely without cynicism except towards the powerful and abusive. Pratchett nearly always punched up. All of which has made its whimsy exceptionally hard to capture on screen. Not that the books are unfilmable but that their sensibility is one which is particularly hard to translate – as it’s filled with meta-textual in jokes, narrator’s asides and nods to the idiosyncrasies of a certain type of British culture.

I’ve always been sceptical of the different translations and they’ve been almost entirely without merit (Good Omens being the one notable and non-Discworld, exception). The reasons, although on the surface being many and varied always come down to this – no amount of money or polish or flashy scripting can make up for what gets lost in the translation.

And what is it that gets lost? Well I submit it’s this: Pratchett, like Dickens, wrote scathing social satires whose bite was tamed by the setting in which they were delivered. I’ve not read a single person who focuses on the social issues raised in Discworld as their first point of call. Everyone starts with the characters, the world, death, Rincewind, Carrot or Esme Weatherwax. They talk about the footnotes, Octarine, Great A’Tuin but rarely do they start with the idea of policing, or divinity, or stories, or democracy and the role of technology which Pratchett writes about. I think was by design because Pratchett seemed uncommonly sensitive to the idea the British don’t like being preached to and will only take their medicine when accompanied by a spoonful of sugar.

His satirical bent is at the heart of his absurdist humour and that’s a problem for any would be adaptation. Why? Because if you aren’t committed to this kind of sardonic every-man outlook on the foolishness of those with any kind of power and those that want it then everything Pratchett weaves together is going to unravel (and again, it’s why Good Omens worked – it has exactly that kind of sensibility).

So, with that preamble out the way, we come to Episode 1 of The Watch, the BBC America show (in)famously inspired by characters created by Terry Pratchett.

I have watched this first episode twice and I’ll explain why. The first time I watched it I was left reeling. I could write at length of all the things they’ve gotten wrong – and the list is long.

This first episode tries to include all the background development for Carrot, Angua and Vimes. There’s no sign of Fred nor Nobby and instead of Detritus and Angua coming along later, they’re here right now in episode 1, before Carrot even.

It’s weird because, sure, Pratchett’s writing of women is weak – they’re crone, maiden or ciphers for ‘one of the lads’ and Guards! Guards! the book could, for sure, benefit from more non-male characters but it’s strange to see this mixed up in such a way.

Then we have the fact that the characters don’t appear to know who the Librarian of Unseen University is. Or that rather than a skeleton, Death looks like a giant Jawa with blue eyes with a mid-Atlantic accent.

It’s edited to within an inch of its life, the aesthetic is one of spray everything with neon paints and then light everything with ultra-violet lights. It’s a visual shock that’s the equivalent of a clown sidling up to you at a crossing and slapping you with a rotten halibut when the green man appears before chasing you across the road and kicking you up the backside with their oversized shoes. In other words I couldn’t decide if I should be in fear of my life, ready for a fight or if, possibly, I should just laugh.

The show is clearly under immense pressure to get its jokes in front of you and there are many direct elements from the books which are here turned into actual ‘things people say’. The show is so keen to be faithful to the material it spends its time telling you like a man who’s cornered you in a club and continues shouting into your face after the music’s been turned off and everyone else has gone home.

I could go on – this is a very strange show, delivering something which feels like it was so scared of its origins that rather than respect them it swallowed them whole then shit them out and grabbed you like a proud toddler standing by their potty.

Is it bad? Yes.

Is it irredeemable?

No.

I was in such a state of not knowing what it was I’d just watched after the first run through I gave it a second go. And it was here that the picture cleared a little and I started to see what was going on.

This show needs to get out of its own way. It needs to stop trying to impress us and to take it easier. It needs to be brave enough to have a single scene which lasts more than three minutes and allows characters more than a couple of lines. Pratchett’s characterisations might have been full of absurdity but his mastery meant we could all fill in the depth of what was between the lines and this show needs to allow for the same. It needs to trust itself. Of course, this hope might all be too late because the entire eight episodes are long since finished, but I do hope.

Why? Because I think, actually, possibly, it might turn out that I rather like it. Not because it’s so bad it’s good but because, if it can get out of its own way, there’s a sensibility here which I think is quite Pratchett at heart. It’s punky for sure, it’s a shock to the senses, it’s not like anything else you’ll see this year (or last) and I think all of those things are exactly like how reading Discworld for the first time felt to me – raucous, bonkers, ingredients which shouldn’t quite work but somehow do. It is only in retrospect that Discworld is only comfortable like an old pair of slippers.

Now. With all this painful work done in Ep 1, I am hoping Ep 2 ends up finding its feet.

Unfortunately, I don’t think many people will see past the changes to the characters or the shocking visual palate. They’ll be the equivalent of people who stand in a house and decide not to buy it because the colour of the walls in the lounge is the wrong colour. That is, I think most people’s imaginations simply won’t be able to see anything they weren’t expecting.

Verdict: Should you watch it? I think so. Will you enjoy it? I’m willing to bet you won’t. At least not at first. However, I hope you can take a step back and maybe give it a chance and see how it grows? 6/10

Stewart Hotston