Terry Pratchett's "The Watch" - A diverse and inclusive steampunk BBC series inspired by the Discworld Novels

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Detritus, the troll, widely considered to be in the top five most dangerous members of the Watch (I think he's tied with Carrot, who once KO'd him, and only exceeded by Dorfl, who's a fucking golem)... killed by a couple arrows.

What the fuck.
 
RomanesEuntDomus said:
What is even the point of dwarves then? What is the point of carrot? I mean, I never really bothered to think about how a 2m tall genderspecial cocksucker doesn't exactly look dwarvish, but why even bother at that point if you go "Oh, dwarves come in all sizes!".
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That point about the dwarves is probably meant to shoehorn in the postmodern "gender means whatever you want it to mean" take.
 
It'sallabitsillyreally said:
Regarding people asking about Cheery's gender identity I suspect there may be stuff still to come (I'm an episode behind, can't do this to myself on consecutive weeks). There's insinuations about some childhood stuff already and we know there's still the musical stuff on the horizon if it was not in this episode. My money is on daddy issues and a dramatic "fuck you dad" song.
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Nothing like that so far. The song they performed was
Gold gold gold gold...

Cheery taught the rest of the Watch "show The Man the finger!" like in School of Rock, but no Daddy Issues I could see.

It'sallabitsillyreally said:
As for Carrot still being raised a dwarf by actual dwarf height parents don't worry, there was a reason to keep that in.

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I find Carrot's accent a bit hard to understand? Like I know in the books all the Dwarfs are meant to have Northern England type voices, like Billy Elliot's mining family, but Carrot's is a bit mumble-ish for me?
 
Puddleduck said:
I find Carrot's accent a bit hard to understand? Like I know in the books all the Dwarfs are meant to have Northern England type voices, like Billy Elliot's mining family, but Carrot's is a bit mumble-ish for me?
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I'm not going to swear to it since accents are not something I am especially good at but it feels like what the actor is trying for with the accent. Which would be logical since Carrot's from the Copperhead mountain region which is in part of Disworld confirmed to be inspired by North England.

Some of the audio works and computer games have had Carrot with a Welsh accent I believe. Which also works since dwarves from those regions considered the equivalent of Wales on Discworld do exist and both they and humans from the area have notable accents.

There's also dwarves from Uberwald which tends towards stereotypical Transylvanian accents usually.
 
Capsaicin Addict said:
Detritus, the troll, widely considered to be in the top five most dangerous members of the Watch (I think he's tied with Carrot, who once KO'd him, and only exceeded by Dorfl, who's a fucking golem)... killed by a couple arrows.

What the fuck.
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Didn’t the watch use Detritus as a protective wall in Jingo? Like they were being attacked with arrows, so they ducked under the guy made of rock.

Pretty sure they just killed him off to get rid of the expense of a CGI character.
 
neverendingmidi said:
Didn’t the watch use Detritus as a protective wall in Jingo? Like they were being attacked with arrows, so they ducked under the guy made of rock.

Pretty sure they just killed him off to get rid of the expense of a CGI character.
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It was a costume! If anything it was wasting money as they're not getting maximum mileage out of it...
 
Puddleduck said:
It was a costume! If anything it was wasting money as they're not getting maximum mileage out of it...
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Was it a shock death? Or maybe was it them cutting some fat. Maybe they felt Detritus was too silly a character to keep around and their SRS BSNS HIGH ART project could not be weighted down by his presence.
 
RomanesEuntDomus said:
Was it a shock death? Or maybe was it them cutting some fat. Maybe they felt Detritus was too silly a character to keep around and their SRS BSNS HIGH ART project could not be weighted down by his presence.
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not reaaalllyyy, it was basically the first thing that happened in episode 2

Episode 1 had a framing device of Vimes speaking with Death, and the events were flashbacks, cutting back to Vimes and Death throughout. It ended with Carcer firing his crossbow at Vimes (ep 1 cliffhanger) but ep 2 opened on Death being annoyed because his time was wasted, as Detritus shielded him from all of the arrows.
 
Puddleduck said:
not reaaalllyyy, it was basically the first thing that happened in episode 2

Episode 1 had a framing device of Vimes speaking with Death, and the events were flashbacks, cutting back to Vimes and Death throughout. It ended with Carcer firing his crossbow at Vimes (ep 1 cliffhanger) but ep 2 opened on Death being annoyed because his time was wasted, as Detritus shielded him from all of the arrows.
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That sounds like a fucking awful framing device for a pilot episode.
 
A fair few fears I originally had about the show didn't come to pass - the "Angua training Carrot" thing is okay because she just happened to be in the Watch when he joined, it's not presented as a Grrl Power thing. Vimes was otherwise occupied, Cheery was forensics, and Detritus isn't a beat cop trainer.
Cheery's gender isn't mentioned at all apart from when she's introduced.
Lady Sybill isn't always talking down to Vimes like a lot of Empowered Black Womxn Characters do the white men, and she's generally happy to follow his "orders"

Despite being a drunk, Vimes isn't painted as the incompetent white man who needs help with everything. He listens to his team, but generally leads and gets respected. Angua is a pretty book accurate - she's a bit "checked out" and disillusioned, but she has the sense of humor and won't hear a word against her friends.
 
Judge Holden said:
If you want to understand some of the raw horror from fans, I will try to simplify it.

Imagine a fantasy book series that, stories and concepts and whatever aside, went out of its way to offer sympathetic and progressive narratives regarding gender, religion, sexuality, race, and identity, in a time when doing so was neither trendy nor popular in the literature sphere.

Imagine it having done all this without dipping into dumbass proto-SJW dogma and maintaining a constant theme of "everyone is human*, for better and for worse, no matter what they look like and what they identify as" and never putting anyone on a plinth nor damning them as uniquely flawed, thus ensuring the stories never age into cringy irrelevence once such faddy demagoguery comes in and out of fashion.

Now imagine literally all of this unceremoniously thrown in the shredder, with the most generic corporate-woke schlock of currentyear shoved in its place against all logic and sanity, because those involved with the production for all their claimed progressiveness and inclusivity didnt give two shits about anything other than burying everything in wokewashing sludge that serves only to beef up their diversity credentials, and will be forgotten forever within weeks of the show finishing

*for want of a better word
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It's even in the books that Nobby Nobbs, despite "being disqualified from the human race for pushing" and having to carry a card that certifies that he is, indeed, human, found some amount of acceptance, over time.
 
Xerxes IX said:
What the hell is that poster? It doesn't suit a Discworld adaptation. It looks more like the marketing for one of those quirky edgy live action DC things like Suicide Squad, Birds of Prey, and Titans.
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That's not a coincidence; this is clearly an in-name-only "reimagining" of the series meant to chase the buck of the woke-neo-edgelord crowd and try to cash in on the new wave of cyberpunk aesthetics.
 
Does anyone know what the ratings are like for this? I'm refusing to watch it on principle and I'm hoping it fades without a trace.
 
Hopefully the ratings are shit and it won't last more than one season.

Puddleduck said:
A fair few fears I originally had about the show didn't come to pass - the "Angua training Carrot" thing is okay because she just happened to be in the Watch when he joined, it's not presented as a Grrl Power thing. Vimes was otherwise occupied, Cheery was forensics, and Detritus isn't a beat cop trainer.
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Which is funny, because I recall Detritus specifically training troll cops in the books, yelling at them in an absurd parody of Full Metal Jacket.

'Where you from? Copperhead Mountains? Only rocks and... more rocks come from dem mountains!' Good times.
 
Capsaicin Addict said:
Which is funny, because I recall Detritus specifically training troll cops in the books, yelling at them in an absurd parody of Full Metal Jacket.

'Where you from? Copperhead Mountains? Only rocks and... more rocks come from dem mountains!' Good times.
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to be faaaiiiirrr, he never really did train the human(oid) beat cops to do a normal patrol...
 
Here's my idea for a watch show: do every book, one book per season. Change only the things you have to to suit the medium better, like having characters explain things that were said in the narrative in the book. Insert a few sparing cameos from Rincewind and Granny Weatherwax and Death and the like. Why wouldn't this make a great show? Even if it only lasts one season, Guards! Guards! is a strong enough story to make it go down as a classic.
 
Cyclonus said:
Does anyone know what the ratings are like for this? I'm refusing to watch it on principle and I'm hoping it fades without a trace.
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IMDB: 4,5/10 (based on 1,635 user ratings)
Rotten Tomatoes: All critics: 47% (15 critics), Top critics (7 critics): 42%, Audience (60 user ratings): 17%.
Google: 2,7/5 (from 210 people rating it)

Even being the most generous and assuming that no person rated more than once, this would still fall short of 2000 user ratings after 3 episodes.
I found a website called ReviewGraph or something like that, first episode had 230ish votes, second one 150ish and the third one 70. Average score 6,2/10. You can tell the show has viewership numbers dropping harder than the WTC top floor during 911.

This show is getting next to no attention... and still the ratings are, at best, mediocre, too.
It gets what it fucking deserves: nothing. In the most literal sense.

Cyclonus said:
Here's my idea for a watch show: do every book, one book per season. Change only the things you have to to suit the medium better, like having characters explain things that were said in the narrative in the book. Insert a few sparing cameos from Rincewind and Granny Weatherwax and Death and the like. Why wouldn't this make a great show? Even if it only lasts one season, Guards! Guards! is a strong enough story to make it go down as a classic.
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I think, what stings the most, is that with this show, they didn't even try.
 
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