If you re liking
The Watch, you may want to take a gander at these other fantasy stories brought from the page to the TV screen:
1.
Speaking of Pratchett, let s kick off this list with a collaboration between Pratchett and
Neil Gaiman. Their story of angels and demons was made into a TV series in 2019, starring
David Tennant and Michael Sheen. We see Tennant as the demon Crowley and Sheen as the angel Aziraphale.
Typically, the two are at odds, but with the world at risk, they join forces to fight against the Antichrist and a forthcoming Armageddon.
2.
Actor Marama Corlett tells DQ about her transformative experience playing the mysterious Corporal Angua in BBC America’s cyberpunk thriller The Watch.
As an actor, Marama Corlett has picked up numerous credits in genre-splitting, often fantastical dramas, from Sinbad and Blood Drive to His Dark Materials and The City & The City, as well as an appearance in Marvel movie Guardians of the Galaxy.
“What excites me is to be able to completely transform physically as much as possible and to live in a different world,” Corlett tells DQ. “I love the idea of being unrecognisable from one character to the next.”
Actress Lara Rossi Brings to Life A New Narrative for Black Women As Star of New TV Show “The Watch”
By Saybin Roberson, Contributing Writer
Published January 7, 2021
Lara Rossi
It’s been discussed repeatedly amongst television and movie fans alike, the specific type of roles given to Black women. Actress Lara Rossi shares her latest role, however, breaks the mold allowing her to be a full human, full of flaws and full of truth.
Staring in BBC America’s new show “The Watch,” Rossi plays the last scion of nobility, Lady Sybil. The show follows a group of misfits, The City Watch, who find themselves saving the world while simultaneously figuring out who they are. Mixing comedy with a bit of thrill, “The Watch” brings to life trolls, werewolves, and wizards who fight against an evil plot to resurrect a great dragon which would then lead to the end of the world as they know it.
1/3/2021
Terry Pratchett s beloved Discworld book series gets another TV adaptation, this time as a police procedural for BBC America, with Matt Berry and Wendell Pierce in supporting roles.
“Is this death?” asks a character in the inky-black opening scene of BBC America’s fantasy police dramedy
The Watch, addressing a hooded figure whose only visible attributes are his pointed claws, his gleaming sword and his glowing, blue-hued not-quite-eyes. “Obviously,” deadpans Death (voiced by an unseen Wendell Pierce). It’s not the stylized Grim Reaper that unnerves, but the ease with which the deceased man, police chief Sam Vimes (Richard Dormer), accepts his bleak destiny.
Fantasy and science fiction are perfect vehicles for humor, and better with it than without. Given that all imaginative fiction is imagined by humans from Earth any that you will get to read or watch, anyway it is always really about the world we live in. Ironic distance and satire come with the territory.
Not all works of sci-fi and fantasy follow this path, of course; some writers, and some audiences, are inclined to take things dead seriously, and while this can be fine “The War of the Worlds” is not a laugh riot it can also lead to suffocating self-importance and a lack of fun. This is why the best contemporary “Star Wars” for my money is “Lego Star Wars,” and not the live-action franchise spending heaps of money to tell remarkably similar, not especially moving stories of Empire vs. Rebels/Republic and of parents and offspring (and offspring’s offspring) looking at one another from opposite sides of the Force. (The series works better with “Flash Gordo