“I’d rather sup with the de’el, woman!” - Whichfinder Sergeant Shadwell
The most ominous part of Good Omens is in the foreword section, written by Neil himself, in which he muses whether this copy of Good Omens might be the third, because I lost the first two, or lent them out and never got them back. And indeed, it was the very third copy I held in my hand for exactly those reasons, as if another nice and accurate prophecy by Agnes Nutter herself came true.
David Tennant was a very good Crowley. His first appearance in the modern age, getting out of his Bentley, with Queen blaring from the interior, walking, being all suave, being presented the baby by Hastur and Ligur, who greet him with a hail Satan, by which he replies “Hi.” Bloody brilliant.
Maybe you can tell, I’m a big fan. I’m also surprised by the timing of this Boing Boing blog post with regard to GO. As Nutter would say: “Yer tardy!”
People should “ignore the haters”, I watch any show with Michael Sheen and am glad I did with this one, however: I second your characterization.
Coming at this from the outside, not having read the book, and the plot choices they make seem to continually miss the mark. For example, Crowley is the “evil” angel yet really shows no character growth at all. He’s always been on the side of good! If you look at his actions, he’s always does things a good, if mischievous, person does. Eg, he changes the paintballs to live bullets, then ensures that all bullets miraculously miss (why would an angel of Satan do the second part)? We’re never shown an evil side. He’s always been reaching out to Aziraphale, attempting a mediation that is inherently “good” in itself. And, yes, the tired explanation is that his motive is self-interest, that he wants to stay on Earth and enjoy the worldly life, but an evil person doing so could (and would) sow evil at the same time. (But, sure, David Tennant’s is a wonderful performance.) Michael McKean starts off very, very strong-- and then just peters out (again, a factor of lackluster writing, and not McKean himself). Sian Brook and Jake Whitehall, the young witch and witchhunter-- we just do not care about their plodding interactions. We do not care about the name Whitehall has given to his car. I love Frances McDormand, and there are plenty of female voices to pick for God, but I didn’t enjoy this casting choice (eg, Jane Lynch instead). And, finally, the arc of Satan’s child just doesn’t work either. He’s a human baby entirely conceived and born of Satan, emerging from Hell, yet… he’s essentially, thoroughly, good. There is never any foreshadowing before he becomes evil. When he gets his red eyes and does become evil, its equally inappropriate: he still wants to keep his friends (wouldnt an evil person seek out evil friends?) Then he (and his thoroughly evil Dog) become good again (which apparently they were to begin with). Here, I think it’s the actor and the writing. I didn’t need a Damien from The Omen-- but Damien from The Omen did do an amazing job in his role. Adam Young, not so much, which is a problem because his role has to carry the series. People should manage their expectations. This series just isn’t “amazing.” (If you require an offhand example of “amazing”, see Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency of 2016.)
The anti-christ isn’t “Evil” or “good” the whole point was he was raised as a human without the interference of either side and essentially the anti-christ sides with humanity.
It’s the point of the story. (This goes double for the Aziraphale and Crowley who spend thousands of years with the rise of humans and find the planned war of heaven and hell foolish and essentially side with the humans as well)
As did I. It had its moments, but overall I found it tepid, and the repeated narration of what I was looking at…right now!…was downright irritating. Shrug.
Haters gonna hate, I loved it and I loved the book.
The only sad part for me is that I’ve been waiting 20+ years to watch something like this with my kids, and they both checked out after 15 minutes and went back to their stuff. Oh well.
Also, the part where Aziraphale figures out what the number of the beast actually means made my laugh out loud, for a few minutes. I chuckle now thinking about it.
One has to love that 15,000 people who not only hadn’t seen the show, but are basing their response on the writing of someone else who also obviously hadn’t seen the show, are demanding that an uninvolved streaming service which didn’t make it, stop producing more episodes when no more episodes were going to be made to begin with.
I wish those sorts of people would spend all their time engaging in such activities. It would keep them safely occupied…
