The Watch
- TV comedy drama
- BBC iPlayer
- 2021
- 8 episodes (1 series)
Series based on the police force in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels. Also features Richard Dormer, Marama Corlett, Adam Hugill, Jo Eaton-Kent, Lara Rossi and more.
Press clippings
The Watch review
Some escapism from all this harsh reality would be welcome, and Sir Terry Pratchett's blissfully silly Discworld characters ought to be the ones to provide it. But BBC America's ill-conceived adaptation, The Watch (BBC2), fails hopelessly.
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail, 13th August 2021The Watch review
A 2* review of the Terry Pratchett adaptation.
Carol Midgley, The Times, 13th August 2021The Watch review
The BBC must be hoping no one watches this duff Discworld dog's dinner.
Benji Wilson, The Telegraph, 12th August 2021Simon Allen interview
Another skill I think you develop after you've done a few things is that when you get rushes back at the end of every shooting day, you see what people are accentuating, what's registering and what isn't.
Sci-Fi Bulletin, 29th July 2021The Watch review: Pratchett fans will hate adaptation
Discworld fans will want to avoid this fantasy series like the plague, but for everyone else this is diverting steampunk schlock.
Ed Power, The Telegraph, 1st July 2021Can TV ever fully capture Terry Pratchett's Discworld?
The final episodes of BBC America's The Watch stand well enough on their own. But will a Terry Pratchett adaptation ever be able to capture the heart of Discworld?
Alana Joli Abbott, Den Of Geek, 15th February 2021Showrunner Simon Allen discusses The Watch
The industry is IP driven and we live in a naturally conservative world so most people gravitate towards the most direct adaptation possible. However, quite often, what made the original property so appealing to begin with goes missing in the movement between mediums. I have tried to solve that issue in my own way based on my own experiences of the world and who I am. I'm a writer, not a typist.
Martin Carr, Flickering Myth, 29th January 2021The Watch: It isn't the books - so what?
The truth of the matter is, there is no one right way to tell a story - even the same story you know and love.
Eden Arnold, Bleeding Cool, 12th January 2021The Watch: TV review
With its nonstop spectacle and movement, the show offers too much to look at and too much happening for the viewer to ever get fully bored.
Inkoo Kang, Hollywood Reporter, 3rd January 2021Review: The Watch is a a colourful, energetic treat
It's colourful and energetic and amusing, and full of interesting throwaway ideas (an alarm system that forces brawlers to become dancers; film as a series of paintings in the absence of photography) and gets you quickly interested in the fate of its broken characters, some of whom may also be on a road to love: what the Discworld, and our round one, needs now.
Robert Lloyd, LA Times, 3rd January 2021