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

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RomanesEuntDomus said:
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.


I think, what stings the most, is that with this show, they didn't even try.
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You have to remember, too: those 40s are probably after the usual payola and pandering that afflicts the critical world, so knock 20 points off to adjust. You literally cannot pay anyone but the most whorish critics to say something nice about this.
 
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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Here's the shitty viewership numbers if you were after those and not critic scores.

E1
On Sunday, BBC America’s new fantasy series The Watch had its debut but posted only a 0.05 rating based on same-day viewing for the 18-49 demographic with 274K total viewers. Those are not disastrous numbers for that cable net, but definitely on the low side. It did premiere on a particularly competitive night, and perhaps it will do better when it is not running against NFL games. I’ll keep an eye on how this one tracks over the coming weeks.

E2
The Watch slipped a tick to a 0.04 rating with 248K total viewers, making this yet another cable entry that is not off to a good start this January. Sundays are particularly competitive right now, especially with NFL playoff games, but I have a hard time believing this one will improve much over the coming weeks, even after football is out of Prime Time.

E3
The Watch remained low at a 0.04 rating with 242K total viewers

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Isn't it amazing? You take a series that is much beloved all over the world, shit on it and call it a show, say to the fans of the series, "We don't care if you don't like our shit on your beloved series and refuse to watch it, we'll put it on television anyway," and low and behold, no one watches it. It's almost like saying, "Fuck you," and alienating the vast numbers of people who would of been your primary audience is a really bad idea or something. Who would have thought it?
 
I'm pretty certain, had they made a faithful and respectful adaptation of the source material, they would have pulled in at least twice the number of viewers of all episodes this far combined. It would have garnered international attention from across the globe. It's not GoT or Star Wars, but enough fans of the original would have loved to see precisely these characters in a decent adaptation. The work wouldn't have had to be genius, it just would have had to be a labour of love, not one of arrogance and spite.
Maybe I'll one day subjugate myself to interviews by the cocksucker who made it, just to find out what he's saying in detail about Pratchett. I have a feeling that he has not the slightest clue what made Discworld so successful in the first place and fixate on utterly retarded aspects.
 
Unless you "get" British comedy (or lack there of), this show wont be for everyone. Certainly not American audiences. Maybe Canadian as back in the day the country used to get a lot of British shows depending on who your cable provider was. It's certainly no Farscape, one of the best shows to cross the pond.
 
I am a massive Pratchett fan. My dad introduced me to his novels when I was around 11 and I’ve started reading the Tiffany Aching series to my own daughter.

I’m not watching this out of principal. I want it to sink like a stone and never be mentioned again. The trailer was bad enough.

For contrast, check out this crowd-funded short film, adapting one of Pterry’s short stories “Trollbridge”. It’s not perfect, and might not appeal to people who aren’t fans, but it’s done with a lot of love and it looks and feels like it’s set on the Disc:

Cohen the Barbarian
 
I literally come here just suffer, this is worse than even the Moviebob thread.

Bird In Flight said:
For contrast, check out this crowd-funded short film, adapting one of Pterry’s short stories “Trollbridge”. It’s not perfect, and might not appeal to people who aren’t fans, but it’s done with a lot of love and it looks and feels like it’s set on the Disc:
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I think that's the major difference between this and other Discworld adaptions. The ones I've seen are all mediocre at best, but they tried to be good and failed. This one just feels spiteful.
 
Cyclonus said:

The genderless thing gives an interview about the show. Of course what excited it the most about this project was that "The writers were willing to put on screen people that we don’t often see". Not anything trivial like bringing Terry's wonderful stories to life or anything foolish like that.
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Something else we don't often see on screen nowadays is decent fucking entertainment by people who do not hate the fandom of the work that they are butchering.
 
Sorry for asking here but this the only thread I found about Discworld, i have a question about Equal Rites: Does it handle well it's subject matter? After years of terribly written female main characters i have been left me cautious of fiction with that kind of character if I haven't heard of it beforehand. I guess yes but I want to be sure
 
GodsofPegana said:
Sorry for asking here but this the only thread I found about Discworld, i have a question about Equal Rites: Does it handle well it's subject matter? After years of terribly written female main characters i have been left me cautious of fiction with that kind of character if I haven't heard of it beforehand. I guess yes but I want to be sure
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It's a very early Pratchett novel, so in terms of Discworld setting, it's a little rough around the edges.
Other than that, with Pratchett, female characters are handled very well. If you're afraid that it's some MUH FEMALE EMPOWERMENT stuff, you can rest assured, Pratchett doesn't do that. Ever.
 
RomanesEuntDomus said:
It's a very early Pratchett novel, so in terms of Discworld setting, it's a little rough around the edges.
Other than that, with Pratchett, female characters are handled very well. If you're afraid that it's some MUH FEMALE EMPOWERMENT stuff, you can rest assured, Pratchett doesn't do that. Ever.
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Well, it is *literally* a story that has a focus on female empowerment and gender differences/discrepancies/discrimination as a key plot point. Also autism, if I remember correctly.

I mean, it's handled well enough (and would probably be head and shoulders better than some of the popular tripe these days) and is pretty entertaining from the standpoint of lampooning longstanding fantasy conventions (as well as generally being as OK a read as most of the other really early Discworld Novels), but I can't really agree that female empowerment isn't a core element of the story. It's not particularly preachy per se, though I believe it is a little heavy handed here and there, though that's more due to Granny Weatherwax being stony and blunt with her words more than anything.

TBH, I actually remember it being ultimately more of a "men are different than women but that doesn't mean better" kind of deal than outright female empowerment but either way that is still an element of it.

Fun unrelated fact: It was the first discworld novel I owned, as the school library had the first couple of novels, plus a bunch after this one, but not Equal Rites itself. Thinking back on it, I did go to a catholic school and this was close to 20 years ago, so I wonder if the name/plot had anything to do with it being absent.
 
ddlloo said:
Well, it is *literally* a story that has a focus on female empowerment and gender differences/discrepancies/discrimination as a key plot point. Also autism, if I remember correctly.
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There's a difference between female empowerment and "MUH FEMALE EMPOWERMENT" I'd say. Female empowerment isn't bad in itself, what makes it bad is how many modern writers treat it.
Compare The Expanse's strong female characters like Chrisjen Avasarala and Bobby to Holdo and Rey* from Star Wars. The Expanse handles that trope very well, Star Wars doesn't.

The point is that Pratchett handles it very well and doesn't fall for "Current Year +5"-style traps like making the female characters blameless, angelic saviors of humanity while all men are braindead lumbering buffoons, out only for themselves and their base desires to rape, pillage and murder.
The whole premise of the book is that a woman wants to become a wizard, which is inherently impossible in Discworld's setting, cause usually, only the 8th son of an 8th son even has the ability to use magic - and it only works in case of Eskarina, cause an old wizard messes up and accidentally transfers his powers to her on her birth. That whole premise for the book is significantly more witty than what we usually see from the usual suspects and highlights Pratchett's style to handle such topics. Of course he plays around with gender stereotypes and political aspects of the story and its characters, Pratchett's writing is very political, but the important thing to keep in mind: It's never one-sided or hamfisted.
Being one-sided and hamfisted is the hallmark of pretentious garbage like Star Wars nowadays.

*I nearly typed out that name with Skywalker attached to it and it made me nearly throw up a little in my mouth.
 
Equal Rites is fine for early Pratchett- it introduces Granny Weatherwax, who’s an excellent character. My personal favourite of the Witches series of books is Witches Abroad, particularly the caper in an überwald village involving a vampire and Nanny Ogg’s horrible tomcat.
 
Bird In Flight said:
Equal Rites is fine for early Pratchett- it introduces Granny Weatherwax, who’s an excellent character. My personal favourite of the Witches series of books is Witches Abroad, particularly the caper in an überwald village involving a vampire and Nanny Ogg’s horrible tomcat.
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So far I've been 50/50 on the Witch focused stories, but I agree, Witches Abroad was superb. In fact it's probably one of my favorites(currently up to Small Gods in listening to in release order)
 
Like people have said Equal Rites is decent. I do place it in the early Discworld category where I feel Pratchett has not nailed what manner he wants to write in but it's reasonably solid despite that.

Back in "The Watch" though things continue badly. There's things to like, I'd be lying if I did not admit bits of it got a chuckle out of me. but it's still not good. It feels like they desperately wanted to do their own urban fantasy series and I'd honestly be more on board with that but so much of what's in the show is lifted directly from Pratchett I am not certain if they could come up with their own series.
 
RomanesEuntDomus said:
There's a difference between female empowerment and "MUH FEMALE EMPOWERMENT" I'd say. Female empowerment isn't bad in itself, what makes it bad is how many modern writers treat it.
Compare The Expanse's strong female characters like Chrisjen Avasarala and Bobby to Holdo and Rey* from Star Wars. The Expanse handles that trope very well, Star Wars doesn't.

The point is that Pratchett handles it very well and doesn't fall for "Current Year +5"-style traps like making the female characters blameless, angelic saviors of humanity while all men are braindead lumbering buffoons, out only for themselves and their base desires to rape, pillage and murder.
The whole premise of the book is that a woman wants to become a wizard, which is inherently impossible in Discworld's setting, cause usually, only the 8th son of an 8th son even has the ability to use magic - and it only works in case of Eskarina, cause an old wizard messes up and accidentally transfers his powers to her on her birth. That whole premise for the book is significantly more witty than what we usually see from the usual suspects and highlights Pratchett's style to handle such topics. Of course he plays around with gender stereotypes and political aspects of the story and its characters, Pratchett's writing is very political, but the important thing to keep in mind: It's never one-sided or hamfisted.
Being one-sided and hamfisted is the hallmark of pretentious garbage like Star Wars nowadays.

*I nearly typed out that name with Skywalker attached to it and it made me nearly throw up a little in my mouth.
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It's the difference between Christianity and Christianity.

You can have a Christian who goes to church every Sunday, avoids drinking alcohol, is very particular about not having sex before marriage, tries to live up to their faith.
And you can have a priest who screams about sin and homosexuality during the day while raping some twelve year old boy in the church at night.

Pratchett's progressivism is the former. Modern progressives are the latter. It's the matter of actually believing in the things you say you do.
 
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