The characters of The clock are based on characters from the “The City Watch” stories by author Terry Pratchett Discworld soap operas; there seems to be a portion of Pratchett’s view of The clock included in these characters and their mission to overcome crime well embedded in Ankh-Morpork. But does Simon Allen’s adaptation of these characters into a new story retain his charm and intelligence?
THE CLOCK: TRANSMIT OR JUMP?
Opening shot: “Somewhere In A Distant Secondhand Dimension.” A gray-haired man wakes up and sees the hooded image of Death (voice of Wendell Pierce). Some background noise is heard and Death shouts next: “I’m with someone! Uuugh, it’s an absolute nightmare today. “
The Gist: Captain Sam Vimes (Richard Dormer) is actually talking to Death and wants to know why he is there. Death begins to explain everything, but goes back to 20 years, when young Vimes (Trevor Frost) infiltrated The Watch, the police force in Ankh-Morpork, for the gang he was with. He is confronted by his friend Carcer Dun (Samuel Adewunmi), who wants him to kill Captain John Keel (Hakeem Kae-Kazim). Vimes decides to release his loyalty to Keel, who promises a better life with The Watch. Carcer kills Keel, and Vimes chases him to the edge of a tower, where Carcer falls to his death.
Twenty years from now (and a lot of drinking, among other things, later), Vimes is in charge of a tiny and disorganized Watch team that has essentially stayed out of all serious crimes. When the naive adoption dwarf Constable Carrot Ironfoundersson (Adam Hugill) comes down from the mountains to join the Patrol, he quickly finds out what happens when he arrests a purse thief. When bringing the thief to the police station, which is full of pigeons, Corporal Angua de Uberwald (Marama Corlett) says that thieves, murderers, drug dealers and other criminals have formed guilds and, as long as they leave a receipt, they can commit their acts with impunity. Carrot is incredulous, but Angua tells him that this is the only way for things to work in the city without the crime getting out of hand.
Vimes and his partner, a large troll named Sargent Detritus (voice of Ralph Ineson), are instructed by Lord Vetinari (Anna Chancellor) to look for a book stolen from the library. In the process, he meets a man who looks a lot like Carcer. He interrupts and interrogates every person and camera he can find, but then passes out and finds himself in the “classroom” of Lady Sybil Ramkin (Lara Rossi); she threatens to feed her students (ie, captives) to her pet dragon Goodboy, unless they learn about changing their habits.
Once Vimes tells her who he is, however, they go looking for Carcer. In the process, they manage to find the lost book, which contains many dangerous spells. Who arrives at the same time? Carcer, of course.
Which programs will you remember? The clock has the irreverence of other series made from the characters of Terry Pratchett – more recently, Good omens, the late author’s collaboration with Neil Gaiman – but the charm has not yet been found.
Our opinion: The characters in The clock, they may have all the quirks and jokes of a Pratchett novel, but they also have no real charm. We don’t know much more about the characters at the end of the first episode than we did at the beginning; even Captain Vimes is more of a caricature than a character, talking between his teeth while chewing on a cigar.
All we really know about The Watch is that they try to do something good, but most of the time they shoot pigeons at the station while crime runs rampant in the city. The idea is that, with a newly revived Vimes and Lady Ramkin as part of the group, they will fight to overcome these guilds and clean up the city.
We watched the first episode trying to figure out what the hell is going on, but the dialogue was so full of jokes that it took us a while. And, because that goes back and forth between 20 years ago, the days before Vimes found Death, and his encounter with Death, maintaining control over what is also difficult. This becomes clearer when Vimes meets Ramkin, although we are not sure what is Ramkin’s incentive to follow Vimes.
But not everything is lost; Vimes’s story about how Dertritus saved him when he didn’t want to be saved explains their relationship, and we learn a little about the creation of police officer Carrot and why he was sent to town. So there is potential to meet other people on the crew, like Cape Angua (who at least we know is a werewolf) and Cape Cheery (Jo Eaton-Kent), a forensic specialist. But, as in the first episode, they can get too involved in games to advance the story a lot.
Sex and skin: None.
Parting Shot: Carcer shoots an arrow at Ramkin, and Vimes gets in the way. He opens his eyes and sees Death again, who says that the story was a little expository in the middle, but it worked. “Is this the end? It’s just the beginning,” says Death.
Sleeping Star: Adam Hugill is good as the naive Constable Carrot, who messed things up at home and seems to think he can arrest people for committing crimes. Silly newbie.
Most pilot line: Carrots decorate themselves in the station mirror while they change … and the mirror responds, as if it were the Magic Mirror in snow White.
Our call: SKIP THIS. Is not it The clock it’s a complete mess; some elements of the first episode gave us hope that the series will calm down. But the first episode was so confusing and so proud of how witty it was, that it forgot to establish anything about most of the characters that we will see throughout the season.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and technology, but make no mistake: he is a TV addict. His texts have been published in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
Chain The clock On BBCAmerica.com