These days, every network is trying to make its own super-sized fantasy tentpole series in a bid to inherit the crown lately on the head of HBO’s Game of Thrones. When I heard that Amazon was going to make a show based on Good Omens, the 1990 religious satire by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, I thought we were in for something similar. I thought Amazon was going to do to Good Omens what Starz did to Gaiman’s American Gods: turn it into a multi-season series when there really only enough book for one.
So I was pleasantly surprised when I heard that Good Omens was just going to be a six-episode mini-series with a beginning, middle, and end. Gaiman wrote every episode, Michael Sheen and David Tennant play the angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley respectively, and the trailer looked really good. This seemed like a sure-fire hit.
Is the show as good as advertised? Let’s watch it episode by episode and find out!
Episode 1: “In the Beginning”
I have read some Neil Gaiman. I have read some Terry Pratchett. I have never read Good Omens, so I’m going into this review pretty blind. After watching a super-serious adaptation of Gaiman’s work on Starz’s American Gods, I wasn’t sure of the tone Good Omens would go for. It’s brighter and goofier than I expected.
We open with God (voice of Frances McDormand) telling us that the Earth was made some 6,000 years ago, and that dinosaurs are a joke paleontologists haven’t figured out yet. Aziraphale and Crowley meet at the Garden of Eden, and debate why God didn’t put the Tree of Knowledge on a mountain or the Moon if he didn’t want people eating the fruit. Thousands of years later, the Antichrist is sent to live with the wrong family, there’s an extended bit where one of the “Satanic nuns” trying to bring about the apocalypse misinterprets a wink, etc. This show embraces its quirkiness with a ravenous hunger. There are notes of Monty Python. There are notes of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. And it’s all extremely British.
And all that’s great, although the quirkiness can border on twee sometimes. It works better in some parts than others. I enjoyed Crowley showing up at the door of the house where he THINKS the young Antichrist lives, dressed as a woman, and saying in a low, deadpan voice, “I hear you need a nanny.” But Aziraphale turning up to the same door in facial prosthetics as a winsome gardener felt overdone and distracting. I think director Douglas Mackinnon, who’s worked on shows like Doctor Who and Outlander, could take things down just a notch or two.
But however twee the jokes can get, the performances anchor the series effectively. Sheen and Tennant are terrific in these roles, and play off each other very well. Crowley is the showier character, wearing sunglasses at night to hide his demonic eyes and blasting Queen as he drives through the night with the baby Antichrist in his backseat, but I was laughing more at Sheen’s Aziraphale, a buttoned-up angel who enjoys sushi and bookstores too much to just sit back and accept that the world is coming to an end, even if it is God’s plan.
That’s the crux of the conflict, by the way. The Antichrist is on Earth, which starts a countdown to the apocalypse. Both heaven and hell expect to go to war and to end existence in the process. Crowley and Aziraphale, who are on opposite sides of the conflict but both of whom enjoy the Earth too much to want to see it destroyed, are working to prevent armageddon. By the end of the first episode, the Antichrist came into his power when he got his very own hellhound, and it’s off to the faces from there.
So there’s a plot, but based on this first episode, Good Omens is going to be more about what fun Gaiman and Mackinnon can have during the journey than it is about reaching the destination. With a troupe of excellent actors in tow (I didn’t even mention Jon Hamm as the smug angel Gabriel or Nick Offerman as a macho American diplomat), I’m excited to see what trouble lies ahead.
Episode 2: “The Book”
Good Omens cruises along with its setup, introducing a few new characters who will surely play into the action when the apocalypse hits the fan.
One thing I learned today: Gaiman and Pratchett (probably more Pratchett, if I had to guess) really like pun names. Adultery Pulsifer, medieval witch hunter witchfinder; Anathema Device, the latest in a long line of women to have access to a stone-cold accurate book of prophecy (her ancestor is Virtue Device, which is even better), and so on. Would anyone actually name their kids these things? Probably not, but it fits right into the whole Monty Python vibe the show is going for. We are here for the wacky.
For example, the episode kicks off with Agnes Nutter (Josie Lawrence), the witch who wrote that stone-cold accurate book of prophecy, being burned at the stake, but only after she stuffed her skirt full of gunpowder so she can take a few of the judgmental townsfolk and witchfinders wither her. That was my favorite sequence of the episode — Lawrence sells the gravity of Nutter’s peril even amidst the absurdist comedy. Also welcome is Miranda Richardson as Madame Tracy, the next-door neighbor to current witchfinder
general
sergeant Shadwell (Michael McKean doing a kinda Scottish accent). It never hurts to have her in your movie.
The whole thing is still held together by Michael Sheen and David Tennant’s performances as Aziraphale and Crowley, an angel with material attachments and a demon who isn’t necessarily bad; he just “fell in with the wrong people.” Also he’s abusive to his houseplants, which is weird. A lot of this episode was spent getting to know other characters — including budding Antichrist Adam (Sam Taylor Buck), newly minted witchfinder Newton Pulsifer (Jack Whitehall), and War, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Mireille Enos) — but the show works best when it focuses on these two trying to prevent armageddon, their conflicting ideas about responsibility and good and evil bouncing off each other all the while.
So “The Book” is moving things into place. The show still seems kind of made of spare parts, with weird touches that seem to exist for no other reason than to be delightfully quirky (e.g. Newton Pulsifer being so bad with computers he shuts an office down with the stroke of a keyboard, which strikes me as an idea that worked better in 1990), but there’s something charming about Good Omens’ ambling eagerness to please. I’m ready for these characters to meet up and for the fireworks to start going off.
Episode 3: “Hard Times”
This is the least eventful episode of Good Omens yet, but it’s also the best because it drills down on the millennia-long friendship between Aziraphale and Crowley.
“Hard Times” checks in on their relationship as it develops over the centuries: the two of them watching Jesus’ crucifixion at Golgotha (Crowley: “That’s got to hurt” — honestly, making light of the crucifixion is pretty ballsy even today, and I appreciate it), Aziraphale tempting Crowley into trying oysters and then crepes in ancient Rome and later in Paris during the Reign of Terror; Crowley saving saving Aziraphale from German spies during the Blitz (I loved David Tennant dancing on the church floor, consecrated ground being difficult for a demon, like he was walking on hot coals) and Aziraphale returning the favor in the ’60s by getting Crowley a thermos of holy water, which he can use to commit demon suicide if the bigwigs down in hell ever discovers the extent of their partnership.
All of this takes place before the (excellent) opening credits even roll. Usually, that space is reserved for a throwaway teaser of what’s to come, but this stroll through time is vital to enjoying the show. We learn to see Aziraphale and Crowley as more than just a biblical odd couple; they care about each other, so the later scene where Aziraphale refuses to tell Crowley the location of the Antichrist — essentially their breakup scene — has real weight.
And also all the history references and period costumes are fun.
If I’ve had a complaint about Good Omens so far it’s that it was too much quirk and not enough substance. By putting Aziraphale and Crowley’s friendship at stake, we have something to be invested in beyond the small matter of the end of the world.
Although that’s coming along, too. It ends up that both Aziraphale and Crowley, completely unaware of what the other is doing, are employing Shadwell and his witchfinder “army” to find the Antichrist in the village of Tadwell. Anathema Device is already there, cursing herself for losing her copy of The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch and befriending Adam the Antichrist without realizing who she’s talking to. Apparently, Anathema is something of a new age crusader, big into saving the whales and eliminating nuclear power and stuff like that. It’s a fun enough turn, but I wish actor Adria Arjona would go broader with her performance. Or maybe they should have updated her agenda to include stuff like cleaning up social media and taking down big pharma? Her complaints felt a little 1990.
Anathema has convinced Adam, though. The episode ends with him replacing a nuclear reactor with a lemon candy, in his sleep without meaning to. The Antichrist’s power is on the rise.
Episode 4: “Saturday Morning Funtime”
It’s hard to beat an episode where Aziraphale exclaims “Oh, fuck!” before getting zapped up to heaven, isn’t it?
So I’ve said multiple times how David Tennant and Michael Sheen are holding this show together with their performances, and they are, but really, it’s Sheen who’s impressing me most. His Aziraphale is quietly, delightfully glad to be alive, and it’s infectious. I find myself cracking up whenever he breaks out that sunny smile of his, whether he’s trying to appease Gabriel in the middle of a run (of course the smug Gabriel tries to keep himself fit; he enjoys the pleasures of the human body even if he thinks himself above them) or dancing the gavotte in flashback.
Tennant is terrific as Crowley — the sequence where he kills one demon with holy water and traps another in his old-ass answering machine is a lot of fun — but I feel like I’ve seen his take on the hard-bitten-sarcastic-type-with-a-heart-gold before. Sheen is stealing the show.
“Saturday Morning Funtime” is a…fun time, although it does mostly take a step back from the Crowley-Aziraphale of it all to focus on other characters, which means it’s not quite as good as “Hard Times.” Sam Taylor Buck is creepy as Adam the young Antichrist, and I like his gang of precocious supporting characters, but he’s gone from doe-eyed moppet to Bringer of Destruction pretty quickly. Is he just evil by nature? Did Anathema’s alternative literature drive him to it? It doesn’t really matter. He’s setting the plot into motion, and how.
Speaking of Anathema, her plotline feels kinda weightless. While the Antichrist tears Tadfield to pieces with tornados, she and a terrified Newton Pulsifer have sex because life is short and precious and ending in a few minutes and all that. It’s cute, I guess, and it’s framed in a funny way — we cut between the sex and Shadwell worrying that he’s sent the poor boy to his doom — but I don’t really know what she’s getting out of it, because I don’t really know her, or Newton. I’m getting the idea that these two may be more fleshed out in the books. They kind of seem like hangers-on here.
But plot isn’t the only thing Good Omens has to offer. Now that the Antichrist is coming into his powers, it can serve up some delightfully bizarre imagery, like a whaling ship on top of the head of a kraken, which reminded me of an incredibly memorable panel from Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. Is there any network out there ballsy enough to adapt that? I’m waiting.
Episode 5: “The Doomsday Option”
Good Omens kicks up a lot of dust in “The Doomsday Option” as it barrels towards its conclusion. The recently discorporated Aziraphale, in need of a body, possesses the spiritually receptive Madame Tracy during a seance. This allows Miranda Richardson all the slack she needs to cut good and truly loose, railing at an empty-headed customer who wants to contact her dead husband just to bitch about their friends. It’s the best scene of the episode.
Elsewhere, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse finally get together, cutting a bloody swath through England on their way to Tadfield Air Base, where they intend to activate the planet’s nukes and set the countries of Earth against each other. And Crowley is determined to get out of London, even if he has to rocket through a wall of fire to do it.
So yeah, “The Doomsday Option” is overblown, frantic, fantastic fun, and the second-best episode behind “Hard Times.” Who needs emotional resonance woven together with dorky historical references when you’ve got David Tennant driving through a sleepy English village in a flaming Bentley while blasting Queen?
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If there’s a down side to all this excess, it’s that the special effects budget isn’t quite up to the job. Adam the Antichrist looks silly rather than threatening hanging in the air above his frightened friends, and as fun as Crowley’s flaming ride through the country is, it never reads as anything but campy.
But then again, the choppy special effects go with the arch tone of the show. Yeah, it’s campy, because what did you expect this show to be? A grounded drama about a flying scooter?
The momentum and imagination makes up for everything. I’m even getting on board with Anathema and Newton, who come off as more personable as they do their part to prevent armageddon, whatever that part is. And good for Adam for kicking the genetic power trip and deciding to save the world rather than destroy it.
“The Doomsday Option” (the title refers to Sergeant Shadwell’s killer index finger, by the way) ends on a cliffhanger, the first episode to do so. And it’s done its job, because I can’t wait to see how this thing concludes!
Episode 6: “The Very Last Day of the Rest of Their Lives”
You can tell that the people behind Good Omens loved making it. That’s the overpowering sense I got from the finale, particularly the back half, after Adam banished the devil back to hell and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse had been felled with Aziraphale wayward flaming sword. All of that was fun, but in the lengthy tail to the series, Good Omens gets back to its best quality: its warm, ooey-gooey heart.
I loved Aziraphale and Crowley switching places to baffle heaven and hell into leaving them alone, and ending their journey dining at the Ritz toasting their freedom. At the end of the day, Good Omens is really a love story between these two; no wonder there’s so much fan-fiction written about them.
Although it was a bit odd that the show ended on a pun about “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square.” I mean, it’s a pretty song but you’d figure a show with as much on its mind as Good Omens would pull out something a little more profound.
The show takes care of the secondary characters, too. I still don’t think Newton and Anathema ever really popped as characters — it’s hard when Aziraphale and Crowley are bulldozing over you — but they had a sweet ending, opting to live their lives without further guidance from The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch. Even Shadwell and Madame Tracy get to settle down and talk about getting a place in the country. Miranda Richardson and Michael McKean are perfectly tender as two strange people choosing the make the best of it. It’s heart-warming, dammit.
Really, I was so taken with the last half that I almost forgot that not 20 minutes earlier Satan himself burst through the pavement at the Tadfield Air Base to scold his son for refusing to end the world. (I liked Satan’s quiet voice, by the way; it contrasted nicely with his towering body and fire-red eyes and demon wings and such.) Throughout, Gaiman and Pratchett put a lot of stock in the power of belief to alter reality. Crowley can drive through flames because he thinks he can. Adam’s friends can fell the Horsemen because they believe in making the world a better place, which was kinda hokey but whatever. And of course Adam can rewrite reality as he chooses. It all reminded me of how Shadow can alter the world with his will in American Gods, another Gaiman joint.
But man, this series was a lot more enjoyable than Starz’s American Gods adaptation. It wasn’t perfect. I dunno if we needed Frances McDormand’s almighty narration interrupting the flow, and there were choices that seemed very of their time, like Newton’s incompetence with computers being what averted nuclear war — tell me that wasn’t written in the late ’80s by a couple of bibliophiles unsettled by the oncoming digital revolution. But all that means little in the face of the show’s well-measured good cheer.
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