The Watch (Discworld)

Not to be confused with the not-very-good 2012 comedy film, this review is about the TV series that was inspired by Terry Pratchett's Discworld books.

I love the Discworld books. Over the years, I've read them at least three times each, so maybe I'm a little biased with this review. The question is... in which direction?

In my opinion, the criticism that this TV series received was unwarranted, a gut-reaction from people who were expecting something else. It's not a TV adaptation of the books but is inspired by them. For example, some of The Watch members are physically inaccurate when compared with the descriptions in the books - but where do you find actors with the physical characteristics of the more unusual Discworld characters? I prefer not to see an overuse of CGI in place of actors.

I enjoyed the series. It was entertaining and I thought two of the best characters portrayed were Richard Dormer's Sam Vimes and Jo Eaton-Kent's Constable Cheery.

If you haven't formed your own fixed ideas of what this series should be, give it a try. I watched it twice and now I have the DVD-set so that I can watch The Watch whenever I want.

The series is no longer available via BBC iplayer but the DVD-set is currently under £10 on Amazon. There are also trailers on YouTube that provide a taster.

Also available are DVDs of: The Colour of Magic, Hogfather and Going Postal - plus Discworld books, of course.

By the way, I found the opinions of another film & series reviewer on IMDB to be quite interesting, too.