Home TV News ‘The Watch’ Based On Terry Pratchett’s ‘Discworld’ Novels Gets Series Order At BBC America

‘The Watch’ Based On Terry Pratchett’s ‘Discworld’ Novels Gets Series Order At BBC America

by Dave Elliott
'The Watch' Based On Terry Pratchett’s 'Discworld' Novels Gets Series Order At BBC America

‘The Watch’ Based On Terry Pratchett’s ‘Discworld’ Novels Gets Series Order At BBC America

BBC America has greenlit The Watch, a new series based on Sir Terry Pratchett’s popular and beloved ‘Discworld’ novels it has been announced.

The Watch is described as a punk rock thriller inspired by the legendary ‘City Watch’ subset of “Discworld” novels. This disruptive, character-driven thriller centres on Terry Pratchett’s misfit cops as they fight to save a ramshackle city of normalized wrongness, from both the past and future in a perilous quest. Modern and inclusive, The Watch features many famous “Discworld” creations including City Watch Captain Sam Vimes, the last scion of nobility Lady Sybil Ramkin, the naïve but heroic Carrot, the mysterious Angua and the ingenious non-binary forensics expert Cheery together with Terry Pratchett’s iconic characterization of Death.

The show will be written by Simon Allen (‘The Musketeers’, ‘Das Boot’, ‘New Tricks’), and co-produced by Narrativia and BBC Studios. Exec producers will be Hilary Salmon (‘Luther’, ‘Silent Witness’, ‘Three Girls’), Phil Collinson (‘Doctor Who’), Ben Donald for BBC Studios and Rob Wilkins for Narrativia.

“The Watch has been startlingly reimagined for television by writer Simon Allen, while still cleaving to the humour, heart and ingenuity of Terry Pratchett’s incomparably original work,” comments BBC America President, Sarah Barnett. “BBC America embraces what’s fresh and exhilarating in TV; we believe The Watch will astonish audiences.”

For those of you worried about what Sir Pratchett himself would make of this, it seems he gave it his blessing before he passed away. “Many years ago Terry made the brave decision to allow brand new Watch stories to be told with his existing characters,” adds Rob Wilkins, Executive Producer and Managing Director of Narrativia. “It’s taken a long time for anything to happen because we guard these characters with our very lives! So many of Terry’s biggest ideas seem more vital and urgent now than ever before and I am thrilled to be working with Simon and such a talented team, who understand the unique genius of their creator. They have really keyed into the subversive qualities of Terry’s voice and they clearly adore ‘Discworld’ as much as I and millions of fans around the world do.”

It looks like it’s going to be a good year for Pratchett fans in 2019, as BBC Studios & Narrativia are also the people behind the upcoming adaptation of ‘Good Omens’, based on the Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman novel, which lands in Spring 2019 on Amazon Prime. ‘The Watch’ will consist of 8 x 60min episodes.

No news yet on where The Watch will land in the UK, but we’ll keep you posted.

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