The second season of Good Omens is now out in its entirety on Amazon, and it’s just as much a cheeky British delight as the first season. The whole thing has a cozy, family affair type of vibe, sometimes literally.
In Good Omens, Doctor Who vet David Tennant plays the demon Crowley. At one point, Tennant’s son Ty Tennant shows up an Ennon, the son of the Biblical figure Job. Ennon is spectacularly condescending to Crowley and his angel friend Aziraphale (Michael Sheen).
Apparently, David Tennant had no idea that Ty had even auditioned for the show. “I don’t know how that happened,” he told Variety. “I do a bunch of self-tapes with Ty, but I don’t think I did this one with him because I was out of town filming Good Omens. He certainly wasn’t cast before we started shooting. There were two moments during filming where [Good Omens creator Neil Gaiman] bowled up to me and said, ‘Guess, who we’ve cast?'”
"Ty definitely auditioned and, as I understand it, they would tell me, he was the best. I certainly imagine he could only possibly have been the best person for the job. He is really good in it, so I don’t doubt that’s true."
What’s more, David Tennant’s father-in-law Peter Davison played Job himself. “And then my father-in-law showed up, as well, which was another delicious treat. In the same episode and the same family! It was pretty weird. I have worked with both of them on other projects, but never altogether.”
Incidentally, Ty Tennnat also played young Aegon Targaryen in the first season of House of the Dragon over on HBO. He could be going places, especially with his family in his corner.
Does David Tennant exist in the Good Omens universe?
Good Omens blurs the lines between David Tennnat’s realities in other ways. For instance, at one point Aziraphale, who owns a rare book shop, reveals that he has a copy of the Doctor Who 1965 annual, which was about the first actor to play the Doctor back in the 1960s: William Hartnell.
So apparently Doctor Who exists in the Good Omens universe. David Tennant played the Tenth Doctor from 2005-2010. So does that mean that David Tennant exists in the Good Omens universe, and is separate from Crowley, who is played by David Tennnat in our world?
ComicBook.com put this question to Tennnat, who did his best to puzzle through it: “Well, we know that William Hartnell does, because he’s on the cover of the annual, isn’t he, that you get at the back of the bookshop?”
"That is a … But then after that, we could be … Who knows? Timelines are very complicated things."
David Tennant was more surprised by Good Omens return than Doctor Who return
No one knows how complicated timelines can be more than the Doctor. Tennnat will actually return as the Doctor in a series of Doctor Who specials later this year. It’s been a while since he last in the TARDIS, but since Doctors are known to return to the show from time to time, he wasn’t shocked to get the call.
“In some ways there’s a precedent for returning to Doctor Who,” Tennant said. “People have done it over the 60 years of the show. I was probably quite surprised that it ended up being the type of return to Doctor Who that it is, but I can’t talk too much about that clearly, because that’s all still to come.”
On the other hand, learning that he was going to come back as Crowley on Good Omens was a surprise, since it wasn’t an established franchise where that kind of thing was known to happen. “I suppose it was a surprise that it might go somewhere else. It was not an option to do more. It was never a notion when we first talked about it, so it sort of crept up on us,” Tennnat said.
"So it was less of a surprise and more of a slightly slow dawning realization that actually we were going to get to go back and see what happened to Aziraphale and Crowley next. But then when we were back on set, it felt like the most natural thing. Like, of course, you weren’t going to leave these characters alone. Of course, there were more stories to tell. And they seemed to lend themselves to it."
A third season of Good Omens is tentatively in the works, but the ongoing actors and writers strikes in Hollywood may stymie things:
To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.
Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels