WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE WATCH, AND WHY I CARE

For today's entry I decided to take a break from thinking of filth and sharing nightmares from my past and instead finish a post I started writing right back when I began this blog, In the opening of my very first post I called the BBC America show The Watch "terrible," and as I began to share my feelings I realised I had enough to say about it to warrant a separate entry on the topic. It's not all negative though, I want to share a few franchises that influenced me growing up that will always have a place in my heart.

The Watch is a dramedy based on Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels. It borrows character names, world aspects and concepts from these 40+ books, but does not adapt any specific storyline or specific scene. It barely even borrows any dialogue.

What if everyone from Lord of the Rings started shopping at Hot Topic?

There is also a lot of stuff added - a steampunk aesthetic, a soundtrack of familiar songs (most are played as a soundtrack to heighten the action, (if you're thinking "Pixies cover" then you are right) but at one point the core cast have a good old boogie to Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, electricity (technology in the books was either pre-industrial revolution or magic) and the idea that "roundworld" items would mysteriously appear outside of the city where the action takes place. One of the cool things about the books as a series is that the Disc starts off much like any other fantasy setting but evolves over time. This allows Pratchett to experiment with the world by adding ingredients like a scientist would drop volatile chemicals into a stable solution. Whole books would explore what happened as the Discworld residents discovered cinema, rock music, firearms and paper money. The Discworld of The Watch is a "distant, second-hand universe" that incorporates elements from ours ad hoc and forces them into an incohesive mess.

When I first thought of writing about this I was planning on contrasting the central characters with their literary counterparts in order to show just how much more interesting and fleshed out the characters are in the books, and how sad it is to see names that I recall better than the names of former classmates being given to shallow collections of tropes. The character the show does the most with is dwarf Cheery Littlebottom (now there's a name you kinksters can appreciate!) who is used to experiment with ideas of gender and the conflict between following the traditions of your culture and following your heart.

The idea of listing the myriad ways the books are superior to this show frankly seems tedious and uninteresting, so I'll boil it down to my main issue: Any attempt to bring the Discworld to another medium will fail to capture the brilliance of the books. Sir Terry wrote in a way that took advantage of the medium, like the best works of art in any field do. You couldn't adapt Magritte's The Human Condition into a play or a short story. Leave the greatest works in each medium to those that enjoy the medium.

A true masterpiece, an idea simple enough that it's amazing no-one thought of it before, but the more you think about it the more you realise just how clever it really is.

I read my first Discworld book at 10; Mort, the story of a country lad who seeks employment as the Grim Reaper's apprentice. It is Sir Terry's fourth Discworld novel and the first, in my opinion, to really show what stories he was capable of telling and what he had to say about humans. He often said that the idea for Discworld came to him whilst at school, when he wanted to explore the idea that being a troll and living under a bridge didn't make you a bad person. The Discworld was a fantastic place to visit whilst growing up; a place filled with action and humour and a love of humanity. The characters who triumphed usually did so by learning and being empathetic. To paraphrase one of his children's books, The Amazing Maurice And His Educated Rodents, a great story isn't one where the good guys win and the bad guys lose; it's one where everybody gets what they really need. I am aware that they are making an animated film version of that book, and I am curious to see what they do with it despite myself.

Other works I discovered before the age of 18 that meant a lot to me then and more to me now include:

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Kevin Smith’s View Askew-niverse
• The Sandman comics
• Bill & Ted
• Police Squad! and the Naked Gun movies - I remember watching these a bunch on VHS at my grandparent’s house and being horrified years later when I understood some of the dirtier jokes!
• South Park
• Red Dwarf
• Los Dos Bros
• Clone High
• The Monkey Island PC games
• American McGee's Alice
• Scream
• The Breakfast Club
• Mr Show
• The Office - the original UK version
• One Foot In The Grave

I'm aware that most of these properties have been tarnished to some degree due to changes in culture or the actions of some of the people involved in them, and I simply don't care. These are things I have an unconditional love for and that shaped me as a person to some extent.

I hope this gives you a little glimpse as to who I am as a person, I think for most people the media we choose to consume says as much about us as our jobs or where we grew up.

I am aware that this post is pretty different from any others I have posted; if you have started with this one then tread carefully! I am currently working on a post that details my medical history, or I might just post some kink content, I'll see where I get to.

Peace!

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