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Good Omens

by 30 Comments

Year: 2019
Director: Douglas MacKinnon

(THIS IS A REVIEW OF THE AMAZON PRIME|BBC SERIES BUT THOUGHT IT FITTED BEST HERE)

I hated the Hitchhicker’s Guide To The Galaxy film so very much. It was like having your favourite jokes told to you very slowly in pidgin English. And perhaps some people will feel the same about the long gestated adaptation of Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman’s 1990 novel ‘Good Omens: the Nice & Accurate Prophesies Of Agnes Nutter: Witch’ – what was once quicksilver comedy becomes flat footed farce. I wouldn’t know as I haven’t read either man’s work. Not for any reason other than a vast unwieldy back catalogue that I wouldn’t know where to begin. Guess people feel the same about Van Morrison but I digress

The basic plot isn’t the most original – the devil puts his son, the Antichrist, on earth to be unknowingly bought up by human parents of some influence so he can eventually bring about the apocalypse with the help of the Four Horsemen. Yet the course of true evil never runs smooth. From the garden of Eden to a sort of present day the opposing sides are represented by plummy angel Aziraphale (Michael Sheen pitched somewhere between his Blair and Kenneth Williams) and fallen angel Crowwley (David Tennant using his Doctor voice) who have struck up a relationship over the years which involves them doing a bit of each other work to cut down the workload. Their attempts to correct a mistake made at the very beginning of the devils plan and to precvent both sides discovering a) that they are fratanising and b) that there is anything awry is what drives the narrative

The cast is to die for – Jon Hamm as Archangel Gabriel, Anna Maxell Martin as Beelzebub, Michael McKean as Witchfinder General Shadwell with the League Of Gentlemen, David Morrissey, Bill Patterson, Miranda Richardson, Jack Whitehall (not being shit), Nick Offerman, Adria Arjona and Frances McDormand as the voice of God. There are plenty of surprise appearances and voices to watch out for too.

The two leads have a wonderful chemistry together and its a series that has a wonderful sense of ambition. Yet the quality is also there in the SFX, MacKinnon’s visual flair, David Arnolds wonderful score with (as it seems de rigeur at the moment) dollops of Queen throughout as Queens Greatest Hits is the CD that always appears to be in the glove compartment particularly when the devil rides out. I thought it was funny, smart (a bit preachy maybe) and ripped along nicely

The 6 episode series is available now from Amazon Prime Video or coming soon to BBC2 over six weeks. I devoured it over 2 days but your mileage may vary.

You might love it and will be your TV binge of the year or you might hate it. Either way its time to pick a side.

Might appeal to people who enjoyed:

Doctor Who, Dirk Gently, Hitchhikers Guide, Time Bandits and fantasy

5

Comments

  2. I’m half way through and having read the book two or three times over the years, I’d say it’s very good so far. IIRC, the book refers to Queen’s Greatest Hits as being in all car glove boxes (probably more relevant at the time of the book’s publication).

    • I dunno, it seems they are to heard all over the place once again at the moment so its quite timely. loved that version of the theme at the end of the 1st episode full of May-ish guitar sound and solo runs. They must have done the production a favour with track clearances. There’s a lovely song appearance in the final episode I wont spoil

      I have seen a couple of bad reviews from people besotted with the book which is why I made the HG2G comparison cos when tales are close to the heart, the version which is not the one inside your head can’t help but disappoint

    • From the book

      “Crowley was currently doing 110 mph somewhere east of Slough. Nothing about him looked particularly demonic, at least by classical standards. No horns, no wings. Admittedly he was listening to a Best of Queen tape, but no conclusions should be drawn from this because all tapes left in a car for more than about a fortnight metamorphose into Best of Queen albums.”

  3. I’m three episodes in and really enjoying it so far – another one that has not read the book (although read many other Gaiman / Pratchett books) and so the I do have the ‘not as good as the book’ feelings that you mention are being picked up in some reviews.

  4. We loved it – watched the first 3 episodes on Friday, the second 3 last night and I’m going to the pop up exhibition in Soho today.

    That said there are numerous things wrong with it. I want to list some here not to distract from the achievement but because if I put them in the NG fan Facebook page I would be hounded by wounded cosplayers for the rest of my days. The following will make me sound like a petulant Doctor Who fanboy, or the sort of viewer who starts petitions about Game of Thrones and is of course full of SPOILERS.

    There’s the narration, which is a way of getting around the footnotes which are such a joy in the book. Thy can over-explain. In the first episode we are told at least twice how the naming of the hellhound will trigger the beginning of the end of days, and then Frances McDormand’s God tells again in great detail as it happens. The voiceover and animations do look like a clear homage to the Hitchhikers radio/TV adaptations.

    There are changes to the plot, which are inevitable in the journey from book to screen but which I didn’t think served the story. The first half of the third episode was an extended time-hopping section which didn’t add anything. Did we have to lose the 4 bikers of the Apocalypse for this? Shame if so. And the whole trial section in the final reel didn’t need to be there. Once you have averted the end of the world there isn’t much call for anything but a quick what-happened-next to wrap things up.

    There were more minor niggles (Crowley in the church, hopping and skipping to avoid consecrated ground, that was crying out for a little of the CGI which was so lavishly applied elsewhere.)

    I repeat that overall it is wonderful it will be watched for years, but I had to get those things off my chest. You don’t make these sorts of observations unless you care enough about something to see how it could be made even better.

  6. Watched the first episode. Bit meh, not terrible but nothing special. It definitely lacks the charm of the book so far, and I’m a bit concerned that the Them, who are the heart of the story for me, are going to be sidelined in favour of Glitzy Star Casting. I’ll watch the rest though.

  7. Good Omens is actually my favourite novel ever, in a field of several. There’s just something about tit that always makes me go back. Maybe it’s the footnotes, maybe it’s the set piece gags (the nuclear power station never fails with me).

    I binged it on Friday, and I utterly adored it. For me, it did have the charm the book,though episode 1 did take a little bit to properly get going after the very hitchhiker-y starting sequence.

    Casting an American Anathema also felt slightly odd very initially (like, about a minute orr so), then I thought: why not? Some of the Devices could have ended up going there in the space of 350 years, so it’s perfectly fair. Plus, it’s a hook for a US audience, I suppose. It also helps that she was actually rather great.

    You can’t argue with chemistry. Tennant and Sheen were utterly perfect together, and the little cameos along the way were great – like the League of Gentlemen. And I actually thought Jack Whitehall was pretty good too. And The Them turned out to be more than passable as well, patricianly when the pace hots up. And a cautious thumbs up for Michael McKeans’s Scottish accent. It wasn’t quite a thick Glesga as was in my head, but he did a decent job on it. In fact, I didn’t have an issue with anyone – they all put in good turns

    There were a couple of things missing from the book that would have been nice to keep, like what happened to the soldier at the airbase that Aziraphale dispatched, and the Four Other Horsemen (but that was probably a gag that worked better in print). But there aways are things like that when you dramatise a book, I suppose. Instead, there were a couple of nice new things, and I really liked the ending. Nice to hear Tori Amos doing some more than passable old school stuff there.

    I really loved it, not a disappointment for me NOT AT ALL.

    • Is Shadwell supposed to have a true Scottish accent. I got told that in the book his accent does wander about. I am guessing Tennant & MacKinnon were giving him tips but then it’s Michael fucking McKean – he can do what he likes

      • Someone on the Gaiman Facebook page said the accent was ‘spot on’. I asked ‘spot on to where, exactly?’ as it wanders all over Scotland without landing anywhere identifiable. He. quite reasonably, responded by saying that was exactly what his accent was supposed to do, according to the book.

        • ruminating a little more, I wonder if that’s because Shadwell *is* Scottish, but has had something of an itinerant life. In which case, even better. Something that hadn’t really struck me before.

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