Trivia / The Watch (2021)

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• Disowned Adaptation: Terry Pratchett's daughter Rhianna has been very clear that this is no longer an adaptation, it's simply "inspired by characters created by◊", explaining that creative control was handed over when her father was still alive, "but it wasn’t the same team and was a very different beast back then".
• Extremely Lengthy Creation: First announced to be in development in 2011. it wasn't picked up by a network - BBC America - until 2018! It was finally released in January of 2021.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Early descriptions were of a series fully in continuity with the books and set in the "present" (at the time, just after Snuff), but focusing on a satellite Watch house, with a brand new Naïve Newcomer as the main character, unsure if he should bring a case to the attention of the big names at Pseudopolis Yard (i.e. the book characters) or try to deal with it himself.
  • At one early point there were whispers of an animated series with the Watch books adapted by Pratchett and Terry Jones, with the possibility of Jones scripting brand-new episodes. Alas, Jones' deterioration in health and eventual death meant this was not to be.
  • Rhianna Pratchett was also attached to the series as a writer at one point, when it transitioned to being a live-action series with Terry Jones signed-on as a director.
  • Lady Sybil mentions in the first episode that she rescued Goodboy from being trapped and used to power a street lamp and that she thinks the time doing so stunted his growth. According to the commentary for the episode on the home video release, there was going to be a plot where she freed a whole bunch of other dragons from the street-lamps, but it proved prohibitive on the budget.

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