Get yer first look at Ankh-Morpork! BBC America has released its first set of photos from the set of its upcoming Discworld adaptation, The Watch, and we finally have an idea of what Vimes, Carrot, Cheery, Angua, Carcer Dun, and Lady Sybil will look like.
Although BBC America describes The Watch as an adaptation of the Discworld series’ City Watch novels, some key changes have led some fans to consider it more of a reimagining of Terry Pratchett’s characters. Back in November, the network released a casting announcement that included Anna Chancellor as Lord Vetinari (whom the actor described as “combining characteristics of Dracula and Elvis”), Jo Eaton-Kent as Constable Cheery (who is now an “ingenious non-binary forensics expert, ostracized by their kin and finding a new home and identity”), and Lara Rossi as Lady Sybil Ramkin (who is now the “last scion of Ankh-Morpork’s nobility…trying to fix the city’s wrongs with her chaotic vigilantism”).
Other cast-members include:
- Richard Dormer as Sam Vimes, “Captain of The Watch, disempowered by a broken society that’s reduced his department’s jurisdiction to almost nothing”
- Adam Hugill as Carrot Ironfoundersson, “the idealistic new recruit, raised by dwarfs, but really a human abandoned at birth”
- Marama Corlett as Corporal Angua, “tasked with Carrot’s training and keeping the rookie alive”
- Sam Adewunmi as Carcer Dun, “the wounded and wronged Carcer Dun, out to hijack destiny itself, take control of the city and exact a terrible revenge on an unjust reality”
- James Fleet as The Archchancellor, “a wizard, magical advisor, and the Head of the Unseen University”
- Ingrid Oliver as Doctor Cruces, “Head of The Assassins’ Guild”
- Ruth Madeley as Throat, “the city’s best snitch, with a gang of freelance henchmen at her beck and call”
- Hakeem Kae-Kazim as Captain John Keel, “former leader of The Watch and mentor to Sam Vimes, determined to save the corrupt and chaotic city”
- Bianca Simone Mannie as Wonse, “a wizard hopeful in waiting that is frequently underestimated”
After the first look photos were released, the official Terry Pratchett Twitter account posted a link to a 2004 Slate article by Ursula K. Le Guin in which she criticized the Sci Fi Channel’s white-washed adaptation of her Earthsea novels. The link was posted with no further commentary or context, but some fans in the replies have interpreted it as a response to BBC America’s adaptation.
— Terry Pratchett
(@terryandrob) January 17, 2020
Okay, the tall guy is Carrot and the older dude is Vimes, I guess. The rest? I haven’t the faintest idea of who they’re supposed to be.* And if I saw the pictures anywhere else without knowing they’re from this show, I wouldn’t even think they were Carrot and Vimes. I hope the writing is better than the visuals, but the acting can certainly make characters’ visual design a non-issue in any case. I’m not terribly optimistic about this, but I’ll give it a fair shot when it comes out.
* Yes, I realize the article says who they are, I was referring to simply looking at the pics.
Are those shotguns???
Can you imagine being a scriptwriter egotistical enough to have a copy of Terry Pratchett’s Guards! Guards! and Night Watch to hand and thinking, “No, I’m a much, much better writer than Pratchett. I’ll just use the names and make up my own stuff.” The arrogance of it is absolutely breathtaking.
The writer’s name is Simon Allen by the way, and his breathless CV consists of the BBC’s forgettable Musketeers show and a few episodes of forgettable late night drama New Tricks.
I think this only happened because BBC America did the same thing with Dirk Gently and it ended up working, but they got away with that because Dirk Gently is relatively obscure, already had a successful, faithful TV adaptation and the show was posited as a semi-sequel to the books with an original story, and it worked well on that basis (at least until the showrunner turned out to be a massive sex pest and the series got cancelled).
Discworld, on the other hand, has sold almost 100 million books, is one of the biggest and best-known fantasy series in the history of the genre, has a rabid and enthusiastic fanbase of almost 40 years standing and its author is regarded as one of the smartest, most observant and most humane authors in the history of the field. Taking his work and throw it in the garbage can and setting fire to it was never going to end well for the studio involved.
Wonse wasn’t a wizard, he was a secretary..
I’m sorry to say I’m giving up on this one, might watch some as I AM curious… but I’m not expecting greatness.
PLEASE tell me that little blond isn’t supposed to be Angua!
Looks great!
On the contrary, I think Vimes and Carrot totally work for me in these photos (I mean comeon, dude looks like the platonic ideal of a Mountie).
Am I wrong in remembering a “police dog” named Good Boy in Discworld? I’m positive I read about a dog who thought his name was Good Boy because people told him that all the time, but my Google searches don’t turn up anything that seems relevant. Am I thinking of a different book/series?
The upside to this is that the mini-series won’t be changing how we see the characters and locations in our heads.
@5: Yes, that’s supposed to be Angua.
@7: I think you’re thinking of Laddie in Moving Pictures and the dragon Goodboy Bindle Featherstone of Quirm aka Errol, from Guards! Guards!
Huh.
I can’t say I’m excited…
And are those electric lights?? Spray paint graffiti? It looks like a 1980’s dystopia instead of a non-technological multi-species society.
If anybody needs me, I’m going to be weeping softly into my copy of The Art of Discworld.
Plastic. Sunglasses.
They’re wearing plastic sunglasses on a leash.
@13 – Those actually make sense, they’re probably to protect Cheery’s eyes while doing forensics. PPE is very important.
@3
This is why diehard fans get a bad name. Before the series is out, you already write that.
The point of Carcer is that he plays at claiming to be wronged, to keep people off-balance, to gaslight them, and also simply because it’s a laugh, isn’t it? He’s an evil manipulator really.
That is what the psychopathic murdered character Carcer would say about himself!!! What in all that is holy is going on with this series!? How can you mess up that badly: “the wounded and wronged Carcer Dun, out to hijack destiny itself, take control of the city and exact a terrible revenge on an unjust reality”
Vettinari was bad enough with their misunderstanding the character but Carcer is a pure psychopathic killer who says he’s been wronged by the world but is a pure killer.
This is obviously written by people who are forcing their own ideological insanity onto these characters and don’t care what any of the source material is. This is a damn shame and I’m glad Sir Terry isn’t around to see this disgrace.
Not. My. Discworld.
Also. Flaming. Garbage. Barge.
Two things leap out at me…
Carcer hasn’t been wronged, he’s like Heath Ledger’s Joker. Some men just want to watch the world burn.
Where’s Cherry’s beard!? I was looking forward to see how they visualised it. In the books, for me at least, the beard signifies how she’s dealing with the desire to be feminine like other races without losing being a dwarf. It started with coordinating subtly between beard colour with lipstick and eyeshadow, then evolved gradually over the books with some jewellery, plaiting ribbons and some strategic dying. Did they think that looked too hipster?
I’ve loved the series for years and I’m loving these promotional pictures. My personal opinion is that any adaptation, “faithful” or otherwise, is destined to disappoint at least some segment of a fan base. Why not diversify the cast of a book series by a writer who worked throughout his career to unlearn his own prejudices and biases and write about fantasy in a new way? Why not give this show a chance?
@14, so that good looking definitely-not-a-dwarf sitting next to ‘Angua’ is supposed to be Cherry? Oh. Dear.
I’m not a canon freak, but this is almost certainly going to be dreadful.
This Discworld looks suspiciously modern. Isn’t the setting quasi-medieval-except-where-it’s-funny?
It’s better to adapt something that’s okay, or bad with redeeming elements. Then you can produce something good and have improved things. Trying to adapt a masterpiece is almost a guaranteed way to produce a lesser work, and then where are you?
Would be nice if the pictures had something to tell us who the people were. Something like, I don’t know, a caption.
I will do my best to withhold judgement until I’ve watched an episode or three; but it sounds like it’s been given the Shanarra treatment. I really do hope they still manage to capture the spirit of the tales; rather than abandoning them completely.
This looks like a hot mess. I know TV adaptations are just that, adaptations, and they’re not going to be slavishly devoted to the source material, nor should they be. They should have more than a passing acquaintance with it, however. I don’t recognize 6/8ths of these characters, or the setting.
Richard Dormer was a convincing Dondarrion and looks terrific as Captain Vimes!
Not sure about the art direction for the clothing (if it was theatre I would buy it, though). Anyway, nice casting! Corlett seems to be chamaleonic. Meaning that, in the photos, she makes Anqua interesting as Dormer makes Vimes interesting. Carrot seems to be spot on, too!
@2: Crossbows. You can tell a bit of the transversal section for the guy on the right. Similar to the fully shown one, held by the unmasked guy in the center.
@15 Agreed on the appretiation of a certain kind of fans. Although diehard might not be the word for that.
@25 If you have read the books, they are easy to tell apart. If you are in doubt, cast members are listed in the article. A quick search for their names and photos will surely take less time than writing a post complaining.
@15: Sir Terry Pratchett is one of the greatest fantasy authors of all time, on a par (certainly in the UK and I believe Australia) with Tolkien in being a beloved household name. You adapt his work with respect and care or you do not attempt to adapt it, at all. If he was alive and a producer suggested going in a radical new direction and he said sure (as Terry Brooks did with Shannara), that’d be one thing, but since he is not, that should not even be in question.
It’s also worth nothing that both Pratchett’s daughter and literary executor (he even said she could write new Discworld books but she declined out of respect for the canon) and his business partner whom he worked with on the books and the early versions of this TV series for many years have come out today and, as politely as possible, have slammed the adaptation.
@20, 22: In this version, Cheery is a human raised by dwarfs. They’ve taken over Carrot’s backstory. Where that leaves Carrot is unclear.
Well, I recognized Carrot, but if that guy with the beard is supposed to be Vimes, I’m already out of here. He looks like somebody the real Vimes would be arresting. I’m with @3 and @27; this isn’t an adaptation, it’s a travesty. Look at The Expanse if you want an example of how to successfully adapt a book (or series of books) to TV/film; they’ve made a lot of changes, it’s not slavishly sticking to every word, but it’s true to the spirit and intent. This thing looks trendoid beyond belief.
Having said this, I might watch the first episode just to check it out, and if it actually works, I’ll eat my words gladly, but I don’t hold much hope for it.
“Anuga” look more like Nobby Nobbs.
my gut feeling is that they got that wrong.
It is pretty hard to see what parts of this are an adaption of a Terry Pratchett book beyond some character names. I am more than skeptical about this. It seems very unlikely that any significant changes to a story told by Pratchett will make that story better.
Also for me, having actors with dwarfism play fantasy dwarfs without any cgi or costume to make them look less fragile does not work for me at all. It was one of the weak points of the Witcher adaption and it does not look more convincing here. I get that this is mostly due to budget limitations, but a major part of the essence of the “fantasy dwarfs” has alwas been their hardiness and strength and this cannot be expressed in this way.
It would be like casting people with Downs Syndrome as Mongolians in a history of Genghis Khan; “dwarfism” was originally an analogy with a legendary being, not an actual accurate description.
This adaption looks like an ardent Pratchett fan made a wish using a cursed monkey paw for a Guards TV show. Be careful what you wish for!
Is making Carcer a black man with dreads really a good choice I ask myself? And what on the Disk are those persons flanking him? And is that little redhead Lady Sybil???
Went from elation “Oh joy, new Discworld” to extreme trepidation in the five minutes it took me to read the article. My thoughts now are a simple WTF do they think they are doing? As mentioned by other commentors I will be pleased to be proven wrong, but I am not optimistic.
Thanks! I hate it.
Seriously. I hate it.
The bottom photo shows Sybil Rankin burning someone alive. Apparently she’s Rorschach now.
Cheery is now a non-binary human raised by dwarfs. No idea why they didn’t just leave her as a dwarf who refused to comply with the expectations for female dwarfs, which was a very clear way of reflecting/re-contextualising LGBT narratives in our own world (ie the whole sodding point of the Discworld series), but there you go.
I am a firm believer that adaptations shouldn’t just slavishly follow the original material, that you need to tailor the story etc. to the medium you’re working in, but this is like they based the show on the memories of someone who read a couple of the books ten years ago while high on mushrooms.
This is like if a new Star Trek series was announced and the cast were dressed in medieval garb.
These pictures almost made me feel physically sick … and left me absolutely seething.
When I first read about Sybil I was a lady of a certain age and a certian size – just like her. You have no idea the delight I felt as she proved to be a sensible, wise, caring, powerful, clever and highly likeable lady who as the series progressed showed even more of her common sense and yes goddammit her sexual activeness .. she had a baby! She is the strong calm centre of Vimesy’s life, and full of power and wisdom in her own right that doesn’t come from her family, her title or her man. She is a role model and a total vindication for the fact that women who are overweight and over the age of 40 don’t have to be over the hill! And they make her young and skinny and conventially pretty – taking away everything that makes Sybil Sybil.
Who can I kill?
Looks like they took the part from Guards! Guards! where the Watch initially is a rag-tag band of largely useless coppers and just started re-mixing from there. With the setting and characters getting some sort of visual “(New) Weird” treatment. I’m usually open to and sometimes even cheer on unexpected directions for adaptations but this has me in skeptic mode.
Does casting someone two feet shorter than the book character count as diversity?
The only thing I like abut this is the look of Carrot. So, yeah, I will stick with the books, thank you.
Something else about Angua’s look that was off for me, and I’ve just realised what it is: perfect hair, meticulously-applied makeup, but yeah, let’s not wash or change into clean clothes.
It looks more like a post-apocalyptic sci-fi than a fantasy, also why change some of the characters?!… Seriously, just adapt the d*mn novel! There’s no need to change Terry’s masterful work!
Perhaps most don’t know the history of The Watch series. these guys do though.
https://discworldmonthly.co.uk/terrypratchett_thewatchseries.php
When I saw Good Omens, basically every character looked “right” – like, “ok, this is Aziraphale, ok this is Crowley” etc.
I… don’t get that feeling seeing these pictures… Vimes doesn’t look beat-down enough, and Carrot isn’t… Carrot enough. I was not able to identify Angua….
@49, thanks for the link. Here, a quote from there:
“Why have they destroyed MY Discworld?
They haven’t. What is in the books is in the books and will always be the same every time you read one. No one is rewriting the books here.
You can choose to watch The Watch with the opinion that it is Discworld in another trouser leg of time (or as I said on Twitter, In another trouser leg, in another pair of trousers, in a different shop on a different planet) or you can choose to watch it and sit there complaining at the screen over everything or you can not watch it at all.
It will never destroy the Discworld in your head unless YOU make it do that.”
In hindsight, I feel like I’ve been skeptical about this series since Anna Chancellor’s comments on Vetinari – though at the time, I put it down to disappointment fallout from how Game of Thrones ended. Now, though, I’m pretty sure that I’m giving this a hard pass.
@50/carradice:
I’ve never been a fan of the “it can’t be destroyed” view on adaptations and reboots.
Yes, certainly, the original media isn’t going anywhere. But that doesn’t mean the “new version” doesn’t have a permanent impact on any conversation about the old version from then on.
Even if the new version is universally reviled, everyone will still be arguing about it for years afterwards.
And if the new version is popular, you won’t be able to talk about the original without people insistently cross-referencing the new one, pushing its version of the narrative, or insisting that the new one is better and the old one is no longer worth talking about.
Mythology is molded by the people talking about it, and in general new adaptations of an old work are going to be the first version of that work new readers are exposed to, and thus the version they know the most about. Adaptations, good or bad, color the mythology of the work in question. So when people are worried about how a new adaptation handles an old work, they’re not saying “oh no the old version is gone forever”, but they are saying “the cultural history of that work will be altered by that new work for as long as that adaptation is remembered”.
We’ve got plenty of historical examples of this. Dracula has been remade countless times, and yes, the original is still accessible — but people still end up describing it based on successful or failed adaptations decades later (“Bleagh” jokes, anyone?).
It doesn’t look like the Discworld, but it still looks interesting, I’ll probably give it a watch and see what I think then.
It’s a shame that they’re combining this with burning every single copy of Guards Guards, Men At Arms, Feet of Clay, etc. Especially as they’ve not publicly announced the burning, but judging from the reactions here, that must be what’s happening right?
You know all they have to do is change the names and nobody would guess this was Pratchett inspired.
Kind of laughed at the comment “not my discworld” as its likely your discworld isn’t terrys either.
Pretty sure Terry would have a gas at the sheer volume of discworlds in the minds of his readers and be delighted.
This won’t be “my” discworld either but im thrilled to check it out. Carrot casting is spot on, the rest could care less. Vetinari Actress has nailed his personality, so im not worried. Itll be a great entertainment in a time of woe.
So I’m really excited for … looking forward to … cautiously optimistic … mildly concerned … legitimately worried about what’s going on in the art department for this show. I really don’t know what they were aiming for with this, but I’m not sure how most of what we see here even relates to the descriptions in the books. I’m also mildly concerned with some of the casting choices on display here. I’m going to withhold judgement for now, but… I’m not going to hold my breath.
Yet who knows at this point, perhaps we’ll all be pleasantly surprised.
So, in short, Angua is going to train Carrot, Carcer is a poor boy from a poor family, Sybil is a leader of an underground uprising? Yeah, sure, why not piss off the fanbase even more.
This is DINO, Discworld In Name Only.
As I said before: it might be good, but it’s not Pratchett. Change the names and nobody would guess the there was a connection.