Good Omens (2019) [BBC One/Amazon Prime]

I have a confession to make: I’ve never really got along with the novels of Terry Pratchett. I know he’s a beloved publishing phenomenon, but his books have just never worked for me. Comedy is a very personal thing and if something misses the mark for you, no matter how good it is, then that’s that. In a similar vein I’ve not read any of Neil Gaiman’s books either, although in his case I have at least watched and enjoyed television shows based on his work including Lucifer and American Gods along with TV scripts he’s submitted to existing science fiction series such as Doctor Who and Babylon 5. However, for me there was never any question that Pratchett and Gaiman’s seminal 1990 literary collaboration Good Omens held very little appeal to me.

And yet when a TV adaptation was announced, I confess that there was something in the idea of David Tennant playing the cynical demon Crowley and Michael Sheen as the prissy angel Aziraphale in a new BBC/Amazon co-production that got under my skin. The itch became such that I ended up getting the DVD of the series a few months ago, and I was sufficiently smitten to quickly follow that by purchasing and perusing the paperback of the original novel.

Adapted for the screen by Gaiman (who is also essentially the showrunner, in fulfilment of a promise he made to the late Sir Terry to finally get the project across the line after numerous thwarted prior attempts on both the big and small screen) it’s no surprise that this version is very faithful indeed to the book, with Gaiman performing just a little tidying up and polishing to correct or update some of the clunkier parts of the text. It’s also slightly reshaped to better fit into the six 55 minute instalments, which means that the first episode pushes back the introduction of some major characters in order to concentrate on the prophesied arrival on earth of the antichrist as the covertly adopted son of the US ambassador to the United Kingdom (a brief cameo from Nick Offerman), a scenario which is an obvious and cheerful homage to The Omen. Crowley and Aziraphale have been on Earth since the days of the Garden of Evil – and even played a crucial part in those events – and over the millennia since then have gone native albeit in very different ways. Neither want to see their cosy existence brought to an end by the inconvenience of Armageddon and so they try to thwart the ‘ineffable plan’ in such a way that will allow things to carry on as normal. Without getting caught by either side, moreover.

Tennant and Sheen are, as you would expect, quite brilliant in their roles. It’s not much of a stretch for Tennant, who just needs to add some demonic inflections to his best known role as the Doctor to pull off the perfect portrayal as Crowley, but it’s quite a transformation – some might say a genuine revelation – from Sheen. However as the series progresses the all-star cast grows larger and larger, and Crowley and Aziraphale begin to get crowded out somewhat. For starters here’s Jon Hamm as Aziraphale’s boss, the smug archangel Gabriel – basically Heaven middle management, with the voice of Frances McDormand providing narration as the Big Boss – while Anna Maxwell Martin plays Gabriel’s Hellish counterpart Beelzebub who ultimately reports to Satan, briefly voiced – with a certain sense of inevitability – by Benedict Cumberbatch.

Meanwhile the antichrist himself – through what you might call a clerical error – ends up as a seemingly ordinary English teenager called Adam Young (Sam Taylor Buck) growing up with his gang of very ordinary school friends in the idyllic village of Tadfield, having recently adopted a stray dog that is actually a disguised hellhound which is very confused to now find itself a domesticated family pet. Threatened by hardcore demons Hastur (Ned Dennehy) and Ligur (Ariyon Bakare), Crowley and Aziraphale are trying to track down the misplaced spawn of Satan, as is the wonderfully named occultist Anathema Device (Adria Arjona) who is armed with the infallible book of prophecies written by her 17th century ancestor Agnes Nutter, played in a hilarious flashback cameo by Josie Laurence. In the modern day Anathema bumps into Newton Pulsifer (stand-up comedian turned actor Jack Whitehall), the apprentice of Sergeant Shadwell (Michael McKean) who is the last remaining Witchfinder in Britain, now impoverished and living in rented rooms in the house of fake medium and woman of middling ill-repute Madame Tracy (Miranda Richardson).

Okay, pause for breath. As you can see, there’s a huge amount of sprawl here both in terms of characters and linking storylines, including an extended self-contained ‘teaser’ at the start of episode three that fills out the story of Crowley and Aziraphale’s relationship down through the centuries that also reunites The League of Gentlemen’s Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith in the process. And I haven’t even mentioned the cutaway sequences to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse being assembled around the world by means of a series of messages dispatched via an unremarkable global courier service. The introduction of The Killing’s Mireille Enos as War as she attends an ill-fated desert peace summit is a particular stand-out moment, while Brian Cox is also perfect casting as the deep, dark voice of Death. The story has a great deal of fun with the entire scenario, and shows unending creativity with its often inspired appropriation and remixing of religious sources (for example, Pestilence has retired from the Four Horsemen due to the advance of antibiotics making him effectively impotent, and his place is taken up instead by the much more in vogue Pollution). The end result of all this is probably best described as scattershot, and it’s to Pratchett and Gaiman’s credit that something this totally all over the place actually does manage to come together in a reasonably coherent fashion by the end of the run, which features a very nicely executed ‘twist’ concerning the intertwined fates of Crowley and Aziraphale.

For me, though, the frequent lack of focus along the way was somewhat frustrating. What works on the printed page as a fun game of two talented writers trying to one-up the other feels rather messy when brought to the more sanitised medium of the TV screen. There were characters I liked and wanted to see more of, which meant that I grew restless when they were off-screen for long periods in favour of other characters I was less invested in. Your mileage may vary – you will probably favour different characters than I did, or perhaps find that the overall coating of humour is more to your liking making it better able to smooth over the dips in the narrative as a result.

Visually it has to be said that this looks like a production on a budget. I have no complaints about the execution of the FX, but the overall appearance of the episodes is strangely flat and ordinary, and looks more like the way that Doctor Who did under Russell T Davies in 2005 than more recent prestige productions such as His Dark Materials or American Gods which positively ooze cutting edge gloss. Maybe that Doctor Who comparison was triggered by the presence of David Tennant, or by noting Phil Collinson as a producer, or the plethora of familiar British character actors popping up in the smaller supporting roles; but it’s also perhaps a contributing factor that director Douglas Mackinnon has also helmed a number of Doctor Who episodes in recent times, and therefore brings a certain televisual/BBC ‘house style’ with him. No complaints about the joyously sprightly, slightly mocking theme and incidental music from film composer David Arnold (James Bond, Sherlock, Dracula) however.

Certainly if you’re a Pratchett and Gaiman fan there’s going to be little to complain about in this adaptation, which hits all the right buttons for those who already love the authors’ individual works. Speaking for the agnostic, I wouldn’t say that Good Omens has entirely converted me – I have no immediate plans to pick up any Discworld novels anytime soon – but I got a perfectly decent amount of enjoyment from this production, particularly everytime that Tennant and Sheen were on screen as Crowley and Aziraphale. For their scenes alone, I’d describe Good Omens as very nearly a must watch, albeit not a perfect one.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ 1/2

Good Omens has been available on Amazon Prime since May 2019, and was subsequently also released on DVD and Blu-ray at the end of October. In the UK it received its free-to-air broadcast premier from January 15 2020 and over the following five weeks on BBC Two on Wednesdays at 9pm, each episode available after transmission to be viewed on BBC iPlayer.