The Watch (Season 1)

The Watch (2021) is a British fantasy series you can watch online on iFILM — a loose adaptation of Terry Pratchett's Discworld Night Watch novels, starring Richard Dormer as the rumpled, whisky-soaked Commander Sam Vimes.

Ankh-Morpork is a city where crime is licensed: the Thieves' Guild operates with official quotas, the Assassins' Guild takes appointments, and the Night Watch is regarded by most citizens as an embarrassing formality. Vimes leads a crew that includes a troll, a dwarf in denial, a female werewolf and a zombie, and they have to stop a catastrophe that the city's actual power structures have no interest in preventing.

The show departs freely from the source material — enough that purists spent the first episode writing complaints — but as standalone genre television it has a genuine point of view: the misfits are the only ones doing the job. Wendell Pierce and Matt Berry in supporting roles are worth the watch alone. Stream The Watch (2021) online on iFILM.