S01.E08: Better to Light a Candle

[Aulty]

Quote

Carcer's got everything he needs to control the Noble Dragon and destroy Ankh-Morpork.

Original Air Date: 02/14/2021

[Aulty]

Based on what popculture has taught me, all it needs to deal with a pissed off dragon is either a chatty donkey or a bad rockband and a cute baby dragon? (If you don't mind killing the beast a pointy family heirloom will do too)
Here is the philosophical question: Could the good people of King's Landing have saved themselves if they had managed to aquire a lovely doe-eyed donkey (mini dragons are probably hard to come by) and fuel up the local harpist with some claret?

They got Vetinari so wrong.

Here's to it NEVER EVER getting a second series.

Edited February 16, 2021 by Aulty

[WildPlum]

Big fan of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, but have been enjoying this sort of mess of a show - mostly because of the actor playing Vimes as a demented pirate Popeye. Sure, it's not the books, but it IS something on its own. There are some things that they get wrong, even within their own version of the world and some production choices I think could have been much better, but I am fairly amused by it.

I also have to say that this "reimagining" is far better than the BBC's attempts to do a couple of the Pratchett books "straight up" - for whatever reason, I don't think they work when played straight.

I THINK this was the last episode, leaving us hanging off in the "file system" universe?

Edited February 16, 2021 by WildPlum

[Mr. Sparkle]

It was the last episode of the season. I haven't seen anything about renewal or cancellation yet. The ratings are very low, and I've noticed I haven't seen much "buzz" either here or anywhere on social media. Nobody is talking about this show. I don't know what BBC America's threshold for cancellation is. 

They seem to have alienated a section of their potential audience by straying so far from the source material. Personally, I would watch a second season, but I won't be crushed if there isn't one. 

[Aulty]

2 hours ago, WildPlum said:

I also have to say that this "reimagining" is far better than the BBC's attempts to do a couple of the Pratchett books "straight up" - for whatever reason, I don't think they work when played straight.

I rewatched those recently. Most of the really good humor in the books (especially the earlier ones) is narrator and footnote based and thus difficult to translate unless the lines are given to a character. Going Postal is allright.

I enjoyed that this show dragged A-M out of its dusty Victorian setting.

Personally, I'd love a TV show centred on Vetinari and A-M. Start with Vetinari as a student in the Assassin's Guild, the assassination of Lord Winder and the  25th of May uprising (a chance to introduce Vimes!). Graduation, a short stint in Uberwald, Snappcase snuffs it and then move on to the goings on in the city and how Lord Vetinari manages it - with the stories and characters from the novels weaving in and out of it. There is enough background information and snippets on Vetinari in the books to ground the story, but also enough room to be a bit creative.

[kieyra]

I genuinely don’t understand why it should be impossible to mine a good TV show out of this IP.

I know that Terry Pratchett was one of a kind, and that his *voice* is impossible to replicate, but it wasn’t just his humor and his voice; he created unbelievably detailed settings and characters. There is just so much material to work with. It seems to me like the key to a successful adaptation would be to focus on getting the characters just right, pull in as much original dialogue as you can without resorting to voiceovers/narration, and not worry too much about getting the big, fantastical elements on screen. A certain percentage of people are never going to get past “flat world elephants turtle”, so stop trying to figure out how to nail the imagery and CGI on that one, and instead open with a perfectly-cast Granny Weatherwax trying to figure out what to do about Eskarina Smith. 

Age up Esk just a few years, and the miniseries (teen girl wizard who shouldn’t exist?) practically writes itself. 

(I know Tiffany Aching is supposed to be the YA heroine, but I think starting with the earlier, more straightforward books would be easier.)

(I still can’t read Shepherd’s Crown, and now I’ve made myself sad.)

[Vermicious Knid]

Most of the actors really put their all into the performances, too bad it was in service of something that wasn't really worth it. Making Wonce the next baddie to carry over is just dumb. I wouldn't mind if they went away from the books entirely, and established the TV world as something new. But I doubt we'll be seeing another season.

Completely missed the fundamental point of all Pratchett novels, that they are social commentary and he's using the story to say something about the human condition.

[ProfCrash]

On 2/16/2021 at 6:16 PM, kieyra said:

I genuinely don’t understand why it should be impossible to mine a good TV show out of this IP.

I know that Terry Pratchett was one of a kind, and that his *voice* is impossible to replicate, but it wasn’t just his humor and his voice; he created unbelievably detailed settings and characters. There is just so much material to work with. It seems to me like the key to a successful adaptation would be to focus on getting the characters just right, pull in as much original dialogue as you can without resorting to voiceovers/narration, and not worry too much about getting the big, fantastical elements on screen. A certain percentage of people are never going to get past “flat world elephants turtle”, so stop trying to figure out how to nail the imagery and CGI on that one, and instead open with a perfectly-cast Granny Weatherwax trying to figure out what to do about Eskarina Smith. 

Age up Esk just a few years, and the miniseries (teen girl wizard who shouldn’t exist?) practically writes itself. 

(I know Tiffany Aching is supposed to be the YA heroine, but I think starting with the earlier, more straightforward books would be easier.)

(I still can’t read Shepherd’s Crown, and now I’ve made myself sad.)

I have not read this series, blaspheme I know, or seen the show but as a comic book fan who avoids every X-Men movie because of how badly they managed to botch those movies, I get it. Tons of material, well laid out and defined. easy to draw from to make great movies without butchering the plot line or original story line(s) and yet they still butchered it.

It sounds like what happened here.

[John Potts]

Well, for a life long* Pratchett fan, I suppose I should be glad that they kept the ending from Guards Guards! and had "Errol" save the day (and GG! came out in 1989, comfortably predating Shrek). But there were too many unnecessary changes. He may be a devious, cold hearted bastard, but Lord Vetinari loves his city and would never just hide when a dragon attacked - nor would he arrange a luxury suite inside his cells in case he was sent to it (he would - and did - however, make sure he had a key so he could escape). The show seems obsessed with virgins although it's not really significant in the books (if nothing else, wizards feature in most of the books and they're not supposed to have sex at all). And how exactly did Carcer survive the dragon attack? Dragon breath vaporises people, it doesn't just singe them! I also wasn't quite clear why they kept Wonse alive - the only reoccurring antagonists in Discworld are the Auditors (who I presume are the ones we hear in Filing Cabinet World), who can't really be permanently defeated, although a few villains (eg. Vorbis and Lily Weatherwax) are defeated without technically dying. And that presupposes they'll need a returning villain in a second Season, which I can't see happening. And I really hated the "If you're here when I get back, I'll know we're meant to be together" bit at the end, because romantic misunderstandings like that only exist in fiction to avoid altering the personal relations between the characters. Is it really so terrible to imagine Vimes and Lady Sybil might go from attraction to engaged to married to being parents, as they do in the books? 

On 2/16/2021 at 6:28 PM, Superclam said:

It was the last episode of the season. I haven't seen anything about renewal or cancellation yet. The ratings are very low, and I've noticed I haven't seen much "buzz" either here or anywhere on social media. Nobody is talking about this show. I don't know what BBC America's threshold for cancellation is. 

I would be surprised if it got a second season. It's not funny enough for a comedy and not bloody (or sexy) enough to be a gritty drama.

* Well, not quite. I think the first book came out when I was 12

[WatchrTina]

Well, I finally got around to watching the final few episodes of this season.  The fact that I stopped mid-binge-watch weeks ago speaks volumes because I love fantasy/SciFi and have a high tolerance for the ridiculous in those genres. (I was once the proud owner of a hard-back copy of "The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul," a.k.a. Dirk Gently #2, though I don't know where it has gone these days).   Still, I finally got around to finishing this season.  It left me confused and frustrated but also entertained from time to time.  I give the actors high marks for giving their all and committing to what must have been a REALLY confusing script.  The production values were really good too.  But plot is king and . . . damn.  That plot was hard to follow.  (I particularly detest time-travel and alternate parallel universes in SciFi/Fantasy so that's probably a BIG contributor to my disappointment.)

Oh well.  It was an amusing trip through a carnival fun-house fictional universe.  If there is another season, I'll probably watch.  But if there is not another season I probably won't notice.