Wossname

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WOSSNAME is a free publication offering news, reviews, and all the other stuff-that-fits pertaining to the works of Sir Terry Pratchett. Originally founded by the late, great Joe Schaumburger for members of the worldwide Klatchian Foreign Legion and its affiliates, including the North American Discworld Society and other continental groups, Wossname is now for Discworld and Pratchett fans everywhere in Roundworld.

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Editor in Chief: Annie Mac

News Editor: Vera P

Newshounds: Mogg, Sir J of Croydon Below, the Shadow, Mss C, Alison not Aliss

Staff Writers: Asti, Pitt the Elder, Evil Steven Dread, Mrs Wynn-Jones

Staff Technomancer: Jason Parlevliet

Book Reviews: Annie Mac, Drusilla D'Afanguin, Your Name Here

Puzzle Editor: Tiff (still out there somewhere)

Bard in Residence: Weird Alice Lancrevic

Emergency Staff: Steven D'Aprano, Jason Parlevliet

World Membership Director: Steven D'Aprano (in his copious spare time)



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The End. If you have any questions or requests, write: wossname-owner (at) pearwood (dot) info



Copyright (c) 2019 by Klatchian Foreign Legion

INDEX:01) QUOTES OF THE MONTH02) EDITOR'S LETTER03) GOOD OMENS NEWS04) ODDS AND SODS05) IMAGES OF THE MONTH06) CLOSEoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo01) QUOTES OF THE MONTH"I'd like to think Pratchett is smiling in some version of an afterlife at what his great friend and writing partner has wrought."– web journalist Jennifer Ouelette"Throughout it all, I kept wishing that Terry Pratchett was there. Whenever I got stuck, I wanted to call Terry and say, 'What do I do now?' And whenever I did something clever, I wanted to call him and say, 'I did it, I figured it out!'"– Neil Gaiman, speaking at the London red-carpet premiere of Good Omens"When people have lived with these characters and this story that means so much to them, you don’t want to be responsible for breaking it. I hope I don’t live to regret this, but I feel relatively comfortable that we’re on the right side of it."– David Tennant, speaking to The Independent"While the plot doesn’t quite take a backseat to anything – it is Armageddon – Aziraphale and Crowley are the magic that made Good Omens such a beloved work of writing from two of the most loved to put word to page. Staying true to the source material, at least in this first episode, with the help of Tenant[sic] and Sheen, that magic is redirected on the small screen in a way that captures the spirit, if not the intent, of Gaiman and Pratchett"– Darryl Jasper for ScienceFiction.com"Good Omens is a farce, a cheeky lark, as stylish as it is stylized, macabre and endlessly inventive. It moves like a demon in a burning car."– web journalist Alex Saveliev"If these are the End Times, at least we’re going out in style."– journalist Fiona Carr"That voice adds color and texture that somehow makes it fly."– Neil Gaiman gives his rationale for the narration in the Good Omens miniseries, in an interview with Film Independent curator Elvis Mitchell"I knew this was a lot like Michelangelo phoning you up and saying, 'Do you want to do a ceiling this weekend?'"– ... and recalls his reaction when Pterry first suggested they collaborate on what became Good Omens the novel%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%02) A LETTER FROM YOUR EDITORThe BBC/Amazon Prime miniseries of Good Omens has certainly made its mark. There have been so many pre- and post-broadcast reviews, interviews and behind-the-scenes stories that Your Editor has been run ragged trying to collect and sort them all... and write her own... and the size of the resultant text mountain, even in cut-down form, is why there will be two issues of Wossname this month. Many thanks to the various Newshounds who have also sent in links – and hey, O Readers, if any of you want to write and share your own review, do feel free to send it along! As always, the address is wossname-owner@pearwood.infoThe series had its cinematic world premiere in London at the end of last month (28th May), featuring a big-budget-film-worthy red carpet and the presence of Neil Gaiman, director Douglas Mackinnon, and various cast members. Apart from the flash and fury of glam, glitter and glitz, there was a small poignant presence – one seat in the front row had been kept empty because it was reserved for the original novel's co-author. But it wasn't *quite* empty. Yes, Sir Pterry's seat was occupied by The Hat. And if that gives you a frisson of simultaneous delight and sadness, you're not alone.Department of Some People Just Don't Get It: "As religious experiences go, Good Omens reveals more about star power than sky piloting. Anyone who still refuses to believe in the ability of big-name actors to work miracles on screen will be instantly converted after even momentary exposure to this convoluted and plodding effort at a comedy of cosmic errors. Without the semblance of wit and charm provided by its luminous A-list cast, after all, the six-part series would be little more than a litany of tired biblical gags and theology school smart-aleckry – holy hokum at its corniest." – so said critic Liam Fay in The Times, thereby becoming a front runner for this month's Joe Queenan Missed The Point award. I understand that people's tastes vary, but when a critic is so divorced from even a modicum of critiquing savvy... nah. I'm sticking with "Dude, here's your award. Now go forth and bother us no more."And now, on with the show!– Annie Mac, Editor%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%03) GOOD OMENS REVIEWS3.1 SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL(S)... AND ONE ANGEL: A WOSSNAME REVIEW OF GOOD OMENS, THE MINISERIESBy Annie MacFirst, as to what Good Omens got right: nearly everything.Good Omens the miniseries is faithful to the book. Very faithful, apart from a few cultural updates (none of which feel forced) and a number of new parts that were either derived from the two authors' notes for a possible sequel or newly created (pretty much likewise) by Neil Gaiman while looking over his shoulder for the possible disapproving shake of a behatted ghostly head. Faithful beyond necessity in some instances? Perhaps, but after all the original novel's millions of fans had been waiting for more than a generation to see them translated from text to screen, so that faithfulness is well justified.The title sequence, half-animated in a style that owes much to Yellow Submarine and Monty Python, absolutely sparkles. I normally get frustrated by repeated viewings of a title sequence that's become familiar, but in the case of Good Omens I never itched to press a real-world fast forward button each time the opening credits rolled.The music, by veteran score composer David Arnold, is particularly noteworthy. Other reviewers, when they mention the music at all, seem to focus only on the Queen track extracts and references, without noticing that the theme and incidental music is simply marvellous. The main theme itself, a deliciously derivative confection stretching in its influences from Für Elise to The Teddy Bears' Picnic by way of Delilah and Chim Chim Cher-ee, is as earwormy as an earwormy thing. I've found that even after a week, it's still circling round in the back of my mind... and I've no complaints about that.The set design, costume design and general mise-en-scène: yep. No balls dropped there. All excellent.The acting... ah yes, the acting. Let me start by saying that David Tennant was always as close as a human actor could get to being "my" Crowley. Several years ago, when he co-starred in the rollicking remake of Fright Night, I even described his performance in it as "his audition for Good Omens if they ever make a film of it... and his audition for Greebo too, if they ever film Witches Abroad," so there was no way he was likely to disappoint, and oh how he so very, very did NOT disappoint. Michael Sheen *wasn't* "my" Aziraphale by a long chalk, but I have to say he won me over in a relatively short time. Much of that was down to the core of the series being about the relationship between Crowley and Aziraphale down through the millennia, and much of *that*, it has to be said, was down to Neil Gaiman's script, that beautifully defined and showed the depth of a love-hate/hate-love relationship that was only hinted at (and that only barely) in the book. Watching the two of them verbally sparring and dancing around their respective Issues(TM), watching them doing their best to hoodwink their respective line managers and Chief Holy (or Unholy) Officers as their earthly duties unfolded, watching them slowly come to realise that the only entity who had either back, ultimately, was the opposite number and supposed enemy – most poignantly of all, watching both of them begin to doubt the wisdom, ineffable or otherwise, of their very purposes... yes, it was easy to think "Apocalypse? What Apocalypse?" and almost resent the appearance of the rest of the characters.But that's not to say that the other characters weren't well played. Quite the opposite. Standouts for me in the rest of the cast were Michael McKean as Shadwell, bringing the old fool's dedication, passion, lunacy and rambling accent perfectly to life, and Miranda Richardson's ever so believable take on Madame Tracy. As for Jon Hamm's Gabriel, I know that everyone seems to be raving about his performance, but I found it merely quite good – if you want to see Hamm *really* acting a storm, see Baby Driver; still, quite good is well good enough. Adria Arjona's Anathema was given a creditable backstory: after all, in the course of more than three centuries of family that separated her from Agnes Nutter, it's quite reasonable to imagine that some of Agnes' "professional descendants" might have migrated to sunnier parts of the globe. I enjoyed Jack Whitehall as Newt, and The Them were perfectly adequate even though they didn't get as much screen time as the Crowley and Aziraphale Show. Sam Taylor Buck didn't look like I imagined Adam would from the book's description, but as several people I know have pointed out, he looked very much like a pre-teen Mick Jagger, so every time he was on screen as the story progressed, I was happy to add the Rolling Stones' classic Sympathy For the Devil to my mental soundtrack. Bill Paterson's RP Tyler was bang on the money – I wish we could have seen even more of him. And kudos to Nina Sosanya for making Sister Mary Loquacious a shining, sweet Satanist who made the early baby-swap segment and the later corporate-retreat segment shine.The flow of the story was smooth. The episodes each built nicely to a climax. Oh, and there's a positively toothsome twist at the end, but I'll not mention the details here apart from saying "well done, Team Omens!"So what, in my opinion, did Good Omens *not* get right?Well, very little. I have one major cavil and a few minor ones; the major cavil being the casting and direction of Frances McDormand as the Voice of God. That's a cavil of two halves – one, there was far too much superfluous narration, much of which could either have been dispensed with altogether or slotted in with minimal effort to the live action; and two, the narrator was, in my opinion, grievously miscast. I've admired McDormand for years as an *onscreen* actor of great ability, but as Good Omens' unseen Big Boss Godsplaining to the masses, I found her delivery so "whiny American mom exhausted by her bratty hyperactive kids" that it threw me right out of the flow on a fair few occasions. And no, I don't think this is a matter of my knowing Good Omens-the-novel so well. I remember going to see Fellowship of the Ring in a party of six, half of whom knew the source material and half of whom who didn't, and while the three of us who'd read Lord of the Rings found the opening narration a bit wearisome, the newbies all said they would have been lost without it. And of course there's the Book in the Hitchhiker's Guide, which in the audio and visual versions was utterly indispensable.Re McDormand, I was interested to see that more than a few reviewers agreed with me, although none of them offered any if-only alternatives. For what it's worth, my own if-only alternative suggestion would have been a less obtrusive narration by an African-sounding female analogue of James Earl Jones -- because the series got the Garden of Eden scene spot-on, and as the God of Good Omens created humankind in Her image, that kind of voice would have been appropriate. Ah well, we all can dream.Lesser cavils: the Horsemen seemed somewhat lacklustre to me, and I think casting a tall, catwalk-slim black woman as Dr Raven Sable (Famine) and sticking with a book-version sleazy late-teenage white male grunge punk as Pollution would have worked better. And Brian Cox, an actor who normally gives value for money, seemed pale – the wrong kind of pale! – as Death, especially when compared to Christopher Lee's definitive rendering of THE DEATH VOICE. Mireille Enos as War also felt a bit try-hard to me. Not a poor performance by any means, but not as vital and sensually dangerous as I hoped she would be. Also, I think Anna Maxwell Martin as Beelzebub and Doon Mackichan as the Archangel Michael were, sorry to say it, simply mediocre. But these cavils are small indeed, and I have to emphasise that Good Omens on the whole was an absolute triumph and I hope millions of viewers love it the way I do.I'll be counting the days until Good Omens comes out on DVD. Meanwhile, the magical theme music plays on in my head....p.s. I'm moved to share a link to the opening credits, with the theme music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsrPO8qslBE 3.2 ...AND THE RESTBy Flora Carr for the Radio Times:"The true triumph is the casting. Michael Sheen shines (quite literally, in some scenes) as the angel Aziraphale, a celestial field agent who teams up with his opposite number, the stylish demon Crowley – played with a Bill Nighy-esque swagger by David Tennant – in order to prevent Armageddon. It’s this pairing that proves to be the beating heart of the series. Crowley and Aziraphale have been on Earth since the very beginning, and in their own ways they’ve both “gone native”. Aziraphale owns a Soho bookshop, and likes gravlax salmon with dill sauce. Crowley drives a pristine 1926 Bentley and listens to Queen. They’ve formed a professional agreement not to meddle in each other’s affairs, and in their spare time they’ve enjoyed a series of rather nice clandestine lunches. Every time either actor appears onscreen, you can almost hear the costume department’s (and fandom’s) squeals of joy. David Tennant in snakeskin boots! Michael Sheen with artfully tousled bleached hair! A tartan bow tie! Tennant also sports appropriately flame-red hair (not in the books, but worth it for Doctor Who fans’ realisation that the Tenth Doctor finally got his wish) that frequently changes style. In one particularly memorable moment during episode one, Crowley disguises himself as a bobbed-haired nanny, a Satanic crossover between Nanny McPhee and Mrs Doubtfire... Various sets are also new for the TV show: Heaven is now a vast corporate headquarters, while Hell resembles an overcrowded basement office. A rather gloomier version of The IT Crowd, if you will. Some of the show’s special effects can feel a bit hammy (think Russell T Davies-era Doctor Who with a couple of rubber frogs thrown in), but the scene depicting the entrances to both Heaven and Hell features a pretty cool bit of cinematography, including a mirror effect and an upside-down Tennant..."By Lucy Mangan for The Guardian:"Both Sheen and (a miraculously non-manic, given the potential of his part) David Tennant as the demon Crowley are wonderful in the six-part adaptation by Neil Gaiman of the much-loved fantasy novel he co-wrote with Terry Pratchett in 1990. Their chemistry is a joy, even if the banter they are given is often stale or overegged... Off we go into a maelstrom of adventures, misunderstandings and tangles with witches and witchcraft, involving Gilliamesque levels of invention, puppetry stylings, disguises, pyrotechnics, extravagant costumes, CGI curlicues and a general sense that neither kit nor caboodle has been spared in the construction of this entertainment. It doesn’t quite work, because it doesn’t quite disguise the fact that beneath the razzle-dazzle, every character apart from the main two is tissue-paper thin... That sense isn’t helped by the perpetual signposting of gags, overly faithful reproductions of the original dialogue (what skips along when read becomes laborious when spoken) and the repetitive nature of many scenes..."By Tristram Fane Saunders in The Telegraph:"Gaiman’s screenplay is utterly faithful to the novel. But is 'faithful' really the best thing for a blasphemous comedy to be? This reverential approach feels at odds with the book’s innate playfulness. The success of the book had less to do with its plot – a sprawling tangle of witchfinders and apocalyptic horsemen – than its rich comic prose, in a quintessentially English style that owed much to PG Wodehouse and Douglas Adams. In an attempt to translate that to the screen, the show falls back on voiceover narration (from Oscar-winner Frances McDormand). This technique is always a danger when an author is allowed to adapt his own work; it gives him an excuse to cram in all his favourite descriptive passages at the expense of visual storytelling. Here, it’s a distracting and unnecessary irritant... That screenwriting chestnut, ‘show, don’t tell', has rarely felt more apt. Combined with heavily signposted comic beats, that storybook narration has an unfortunate effect on the overall tone; it often plays like a children’s programme, though it’s not billed as one. Oddly, young Sam Taylor Buck, who pops up in the closing minutes as the Just William-esque antichrist, is virtually the only cast member who isn’t taking the stage school approach of broad-acting-for-kids. Salvation comes from the comic chemistry between the show's pair of scenery-chewing stars, David Tennant and Michael Sheen. They light up the screen as Crowley and Aziraphale..." https://bit.ly/2I62hH3 (requires registration)By Nicholas Barber for BBC online:"Gaiman has made some shrewd changes to his and Pratchett’s original narrative. (Pratchett himself died in 2015.) He develops the unlikely bromance between Aziraphale and Crowley, so that these celestial beings’ friendship is more touching and, well, human, than it is on paper. Sheen is especially lovable as the anxious, bow-tied angel who would love to stick to God’s ineffable plan, but who can’t bear the thought of an eternity without Stephen Sondheim musicals and tea at the Ritz. Tennant’s louche, rock’n’roll demon may sometimes come across as a Bill Nighy impersonator, but anyone who warmed to his swaggering Doctor Who persona will relish seeing what that same persona would be like with the addition of a bottle of bourbon. Gaiman also bumps up the number of other angels and demons (most notably the archangel Gabriel, played by Hamm as a bumptious corporate boss) who pop into Aziraphale’s vintage bookshop and Crowley’s bachelor pad to keep them on their toes... The tangential structure won’t put off the book’s devotees, who adore it not for its plot but for its studenty jokes, its mischievous commentary on Christianity, and its leaps from continent to continent, and from century to century. But everybody else will be asking if it was strictly necessary for the series to ramble on like this for six hours..."By Sophie Gilbert for The Atlantic:"In Good Omens, Gaiman’s creativity seems almost entirely unfettered – by possibility, by structure, or by budgets... The dynamic between Tennant’s Crowley and Sheen’s Aziraphale is what makes Good Omens, which in its finest moments feels like a gay-ish, biblical When Harry Met Sally. The third episode’s pre-credits sequence, which runs a stonking 30 minutes long, details the encounters the pair have had over the years: an early run-in as Noah is constructing his ark, a meet-cute at the Crucifixion, a rendezvous during the French Revolution. It’s in foggy Arthurian England that they finally figure out why they’re always in the same place at the same time, each trying to shift the balance of good and evil on Earth during pivotal historic moments, and only canceling out each other’s efforts... It’s a kind of storytelling so maximal that the same 57-minute episode can contain a tangential alien invasion and a physics lesson explaining how angels and demons can shrink and grow in size (featuring multiple Sheens dancing the gavotte and multiple Tennants getting down to disco). The blessing of the streaming-TV era is that Gaiman seems to have been given the go-ahead to manifest literally anything; the curse is that the story itself is better suited to a two-hour movie than a meandering six-hour trip through time and space. It takes an awful lot to make Armageddon feel anticlimactic, and yet, after the travails everyone in Good Omens has endured through millennia, things conclude with what feels awfully like a whimper. Even the Four Horsemen, whose actors include Mireille Enos and Brian Cox, can’t live up to the hype that precedes them... What sets the series apart is the relationship between two polar opposites who end up realizing, as the best antagonists do, that they’re not that different after all. The funniest moments in their history – such as Crowley hopping over consecrated ground to save his friend like a person walking barefoot on hot sand—are also the most endearing..."By Mike Hale for the New York Times:It’s taken a long time for “Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch,” Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s 1990 end-of-days fantasy novel, to reach the screen. Long enough for Gaiman, then a promising comics writer and Duran Duran biographer, to become an industry... And there have been other auspicious changes. When Gaiman and Pratchett made a Queen greatest-hits CD a leitmotif in their book – it’s the preferred driving music of one of the heroes, a demon named Crowley – it was a joke about the bombastic songs’ late-1980s inescapability. Now it gives the mini-series a soundtrack of pop classics. But what makes the diverting and mostly pleasurable “Good Omens” especially timely is something that hasn’t much changed: Armageddon seems as real a possibility now as it did three decades ago. The story’s hopeful universalism and ecological consciousness, which played well against the backdrop of the late Cold War and the ozone hole, feel just as necessary. A line like “your polar ice caps are below regulation size for a planet of this category” can go right from book to screenplay, and it has... The BBC Studios production is studded with piquant performances by veteran actors, mostly British. The great Bill Paterson is at his bemused best as Adam’s exasperated neighbor, and Michael McKean and Miranda Richardson are fun to watch as the aging witchfinder, Shadwell, and his accommodating landlady, Madame Tracy. Sanjeev Bhaskar of “Unforgotten” is pleasingly oily as the libidinous lawyer, Baddicombe, and Derek Jacobi, no less, has a cameo as God’s spokesman, Metatron. Gaiman’s tweaks to the plot, along with explanatory animations and an unfortunately obtrusive narration by Frances McDormand as God, make the story more straightforward and – take this as a description, not a judgment – more cartoony, less writerly..."By Aja Romano for Vox:"Directed by veteran Doctor Who director Douglas Mackinnon, it’s a funny, warm treat that fans of the book will find familiar and endearing, from the strong ensemble cast – Michael Sheen in particular shines as the fusty, fastidious angel – to the slightly kitschy production design, which flits between a litany of pleasantly clichéd English aesthetics, from P.G. Wodehouse to Harry Potter. The loving craft and extended runtime aside, though, the miniseries ultimately feels less substantive than I had hoped. But if it also carries a few of the books’ flaws with it, such as a few pancake-flat characters and stagnant bits of pacing here and there – well, like Aziraphale, we’re good at forgiving small sins... As the black-clad, snake-eyed, Bentley-driving Crowley, David Tennant should own the show – but his performance is a bit erratic, and the weird litany of bad hairpieces and occasional strange CGI he’s dealt doesn’t help. We’re never quite sure if Crowley is supposed to be legitimately cool or if he simply believes he’s a badass. By contrast, Michael Sheen is near-perfect as the bookish, overeager, and gleefully queer Aziraphale. But if anything, he’s too good, in the holy sense: we never really get a glimpse of the Aziraphale that Crowley fondly describes as being a bit of a bastard. When they’re together, however, Tennant and Sheen’s chemistry shines, and the series twirls around their transition from an all-too-human complacence to a growing horror over the coming apocalypse – and the possible end of their long, star-crossed relationship... With Gaiman at the helm, and with an ample amount of time to do the book’s nuances justice, Good Omens succeeds much better than any recent Gaiman (or Pratchett) adaptation in memory. But we’re still ultimately left with a screenplay that faithfully emphasizes Good Omens’ plot rather than its profundities or literary flourishes. There’s no attempt, for example, to recreate the book’s famous footnotes, though the addition of Frances McDormand as the voice of God is a nice, if largely wasted, touch..."By Ben Travers on Indiewire:"Though Neil Gaiman’s adaptation of his own 1990 novel (co-written with Terry Pratchett) would have fared better had it reached for the heavens (and cut its extraneous, tedious material) or sullied itself in the fires of hell (and embraced a more chaotic, subversive religious satire), the six-episode Amazon and BBC co-production is still a colorful, amusing piece of big-budgeted, middle-minded adventure-comedy that will likely please fans and even win over a few skeptics. Anyone willing to forgive its hodgepodge of plotting and dearth of dynamic characters will have a bit of fun with the two crackling leads; it’s just with such lofty potential, it’s hard not to be disappointed in the flawed results... It helps that Sheen and Tennant build chemistry to spare, with the “Masters of Sex” star going all wide-eyed and innocent while the former “Doctor (Who)” relishes the chance to shout, snarl, and snap at every other sentence. But they’re also given plenty to chew on; Gaiman (who wrote each episode) never excuses their innate disparity in order to make things easier on them or the audience. They fight, split up, and even work against each other, which only makes their will-they-won’t-they friendship all the more electric. These two carry “Good Omens” nicely when they’re around, but sadly the supporting characters fail by comparison. As difficult as it is to imagine, Michael McKean’s heavily accented witch-hunter becomes not just a one-note ninny, but a regular nuisance; Gaiman relies far too often on him, along with more mortals, to carry overly complicated exposition and run around with largely meaningless errands. (Related: Jon Hamm’s wry Gabriel, a character not in the book, isn’t given nearly enough to do.) Everything they do does connect with the angel and demon’s main story, but more by force of will than symbiotic necessity..."By Tim Goodman for the Hollywood Reporter:"Good Omens was a labor of love that finally came about, Gaiman has said, because one of the last things Pratchett told him before his death in 2015 was to make sure a filmed version became reality. It finally has, with great world-building fantasy glee, as Gaiman wrote all six episodes and shepherded the complex (and funny) story to an end that works both as a full conclusion should he not want to write a second season (Gaiman has a lot of projects) and as a pause before a logical second season. The series was directed entirely by Douglas Mackinnon (Sherlock, Doctor Who, Line of Duty), giving it visual panache and, when the fantasy elements call for it, visual humor as well. The end result is a feel-good romp and creative triumph that is easily digestible and never flags in search of entertainment... It's a testament to Good Omens... that while all the madcap plot twists and eccentric cameos keep things humming right along, it's the performances of Tennant and Sheen that make every minute they are in it stand out. While Tennant gets the juicier role, exaggerating his walk to be half runway model, half rock god, with flowing redheaded locks and steam punk sunglasses, that only works as it does because of Sheen's delightfully worried, stammering sweetness (and Aziraphale's love of fine but staid clothing), constantly worried about the rules they are breaking to stave off the war of heaven and hell. These two actors are so emphatically into their roles that they make the hourlong episodes fly by and the absolute need for a second season apparent – if for nothing else than to watch further tales of this disparate duo meeting throughout history to enjoy each other's company..."By Karishma Upadhyay on Firstpost:"There’s sharp and witty dialogue, tons of cultural references and visuals that span six millennia of the world’s existence, starting from the Garden of Eden. They’ve splurged on the music with a highly catchy theme composed by David Arnold, the man who scored six Bond films and the 2012 Olympics. There’s an abundance of rock classics from Queen, The Beatles, CCR and AC DC amongst others. The cast is stellar with David Tennant, Michael Sheen and John Hamm among others, and of course, Frances McDormand essaying the voice of God... The banter between the two actors has charm in spades, and this is a brand of buddy dynamics that modern cinema (and television) seems to have lost. There’s a lovely scene where Aziraphale and Crowley discover that they both need to go to Scotland, one to perform a blessing, while the other a curse. So they flip a coin to see who would go and do both. Given the quality of the source material and the actors delivering the lines, this in itself is gold. Unfortunately, what is the show’s biggest draw is its only one. Had this just been a series of small shorts featuring Sheen and Tennant riffing off of each other, it might have made for more entertaining fare. Unfortunately, there’s a story unfolding as well, and that’s where things become a little tiring..."By Clint Worthington on Consequence of Sound:"Neil Gaiman adaptations can be a bit of a mixed bag – hell, American Gods got considerably worse when Gaiman himself took the reins in its second season – so it’s understandable to go into Good Omens with a bit of trepidation. The source material, a collaboration between Gaiman and the late, great Terry Pratchett, is a lovely lark of Douglas Adams-tinged magical realism, complete with the flights of fancy and droll observations of the everyday you’d expect from both. It’s a tonal cocktail that’s hard to imagine translating to the screen: at worst, it would look cheap and deliberately confuse. It’s then a relief to learn that Amazon’s adaptation (written by Gaiman and directed by Sherlock and Doctor Who alum Douglas Mackinnon) largely manages to keep all of the novel’s many plates spinning... Occasionally, God’s voiceovers feel like over-exposition, or like they’re hammering home a particular bit of stiff-upper-lip British irony too ardently, but they also feel woven into the fabric of Gaiman’s inherent desire to keep the audience at a distance. There’s plenty of visual anarchy on display as well, from whizzing battles across telephone lines to Tennant cackling like mad inside a flaming Rolls..."By Sara Wallis in The Mirror (UK), who explains nicely and accurately for people who aren't familiar with the source material (yes, the whole plot is described, but if any Wossname reader *isn't* already familiar with Good Omens, your Editor might be giving you Very Stern Looks across the aether):"Based on the 1990 novel co-written by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, this is fantasy at its best. But it’s leading men David Tennant and Michael Sheen who steal the show – they are the comedy double act we never knew we needed. A match made in, er, heaven, Sheen plays angel Aziraphale while Tennant is demon Crowley. The pair have struck up an odd love-hate friendship over the course of 6,000 years serving on Earth, but the world is about to end so they need to stick together. The story starts at the beginning. The very, very beginning. The creation of the universe... As we prepare for the end-times, you will not want this to end. A hell of a lot of fun, it’s telly that’s good for the soul."A cluey review by Jef Rouner in the cluey San Francisco Chronicle:"The project was a labor of love for Gaiman, who promised a dying Pratchett he would finish it. Be glad he did, because it is marvelous. However, a lot has changed in the text between 1990 and 2019, mostly for the better. Primarily, the fact that the story’s two main characters are more clearly in love with each other than they are in the book. It’s an intriguing development, because these two men are the definition of polar opposites... But at the heart of “Good Omens” is the relationship between Aziraphale and Crowley and what it says about good and evil. In the novel, this relationship is fairly sexless and fraternal. The show maintains that on paper. There are no “I love you” declarations in the script or other little touches of suggested intimacy. The problem is, well, David Tennant plays Crowley, and there is just nothing sexless or fraternal about David Tennant, ever. Especially not when he is sauntering around in black skinny jeans..."By Norman Wilner for Now Toronto:Good Omens, the whimsical end-of-days novel by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, is to 90s fantasy nerds what Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy was to 80s sci-fi nerds: an irreverent goof on its chosen genre that conjures an absurd universe in a very specific voice that only works on the page... Frances McDormand reads large chunks of the novel as the voice of God. It works well enough, I suppose, though it also feels like padding for a show that’s longer than it needs to be: only the first half of the six-part series was made available for review, but that first episode could be condensed to a five-minute prologue. Still, I’m glad I stuck with it because the show does get better as it unfolds, once Michael Sheen and David Tennant move to the centre of the action... As frustrating an adaptation as it can be, Good Omens is also a frequently charming one, thanks to their marvellous double act: their endearing back-and-forth is the heart of the thing: Sheen’s wide-eyed fussiness and Tennant’s affected swagger create a perfect equilibrium..."By Jennifer Ouelette for Ars Technica:"Confession: I am an uber-fan, having read the book multiple times over the last 19 years. I'll likely read it several more times before I kick off this mortal coil, so I'm very much in the target audience for the series... I suspect Gaiman loves the book as much, if not more, than its most ardent fans, and that love shines through every scene of the adaptation. There's a moment in Good Omens when Anathema Device (descended from a famous witch) tells Newton Pulsifer (descended from a famous witchfinder) about the town of lower Tadfield, where the Antichrist is prophesied to rise: "There isn't any evil here. There's just love. Something or someone loves this place. Loves every inch of it so powerfully that it shields and protects it. A deep-down huge, fierce love. How can anything bad start here?" The same goes for Gaiman's adaptation: it's his deep-down huge, fierce love driving everything, and that is ultimately what makes the series a sheer joy to watch (even though season two of American Gods may have suffered a bit from Gaiman's absence). The series almost slavishly follows the novel in many respects—right down to the soundtrack packed with the music of Queen, because a running gag is that any cassette tape (it was 1990, folks) left in the car for longer than a fortnight automatically turns into the band's Greatest Hits compilation. And that's just fine with me. Apart from a few minor quibbles, this is pretty much everything fans could hope for in a TV adaptation of Good Omens..."By Danette Chavez on The AV Club:"Good Omens’ biggest thrill is found in the pitch-perfect pairing of David Tennant and Michael Sheen as a millennia-old odd couple who find themselves increasingly attached to our flawed selves – and each other. Gaiman’s even more hands-on with this adaptation than he was the second season of Starz’s American Gods, writing all six episodes and working with series director Douglas Mackinnon to make TV’s latest foray into the great beyond worth the jaunt. Good Omens is an undeniably faithful adaptation of its source material, porting over stretches of text to serve as dialogue, often in the form of exposition (to its own detriment at times)... As Crowley, Tennant affects a slithering strut that’s part rock star, part pied piper – it’s not hard to see why Aziraphale, let alone lesser beings, is ultimately so taken with his immortal enemy. Sheen’s Aziraphale, meanwhile, is fastidious, caring, and just a little self-centered, as even the best people are. Their relationship changes over the course of the show, as they influence each other to look beyond moral absolutism to see the many shades of gray in their existence as well as our own... Gaiman generally adheres to his and Pratchett’s original vision, which includes Anathema Device (Adria Arjona), the descendant of Agnes Nutter (Josie Lawrence), though she’s now a Latinx woman from California who makes her way to England to head off the end of the world. Anathema’s journey finds her wrestling with predetermined fate and how her own agency is undermined by foreknowledge, but it feels a bit undercooked compared to the other main storylines. The nipple-and-witch-obsessed Sergeant Shadwell (Michael McKean), the psychic Madame Tracy (Miranda Richardson), and Newton Pulsifer (Jack Whitehall), who seems the very opposite of another one of Gaiman’s creations, the Technical Boy, also find themselves embroiled in Adam and Anathema’s stories, though they bring little to the proceedings beyond comical squawking and hangdog expressions, respectively..."By Amy Glynn for Paste Magazine:"The script is, unsurprisingly, annunciation-grade, luminously funny and strikingly poignant – and considering the principal characters include angels, demons and witches, (and a tween Antichrist) it’s as human as they come. The cinematic sensibility is something like… I don’t know, like if Terry Gilliam, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger all had a lovechild. There’s Powell-and-Pressburgerish, deeply saturated, slightly hyperreal color and exquisitely weird visual imagery; there’s Gilliam-saluting surreal, and sometimes hammy, oddball cheekiness side by side with an arrow-to-the-heart sort of emotional honesty. (Mackinnon noted at least one Gilliam-shout-out Easter egg; I’ll leave it to fans to find it.) There is excellent sound design and a thoroughly bitchin’ Queen-heavy soundtrack (you will have “I’m In Love With My Car” earworming you to the edge of insanity and you will relish every minute)... With the Final Battle successfully put off and the heroic/antiheroic odd couple breathing a sigh of relief and basking in the momentary peace, they raise champagne flutes and toast “To the world” and I swear, if you do not do that involuntary catch in the throat thing, I’d propose you might want to consult an otorhinolaryngologist to make sure your throat is in working order..."By Peter Rubin for Wired:"Over the years, adaptations were planned, then abandoned – but when Amazon announced that it would be working with Gaiman to create a limited series (at Pratchett's personal request, no less), Good Omens would finally get a chance to live up to its name. Yea verily, does it ever. The best kind of book-to-screen adaptation welcomes fans and newcomers alike, and Good Omens hosts an ecumenical congregation. Even if you're completely unfamiliar with the book, you won't have trouble keeping up... The heart of Good Omens beats in the relationship between Crowley and Aziraphale – in their Odd Couple foibles, in their growing dependence on each other, huddled together as their worldviews crumble around them – and Tennant and Sheen nurture that pulse expertly. Tennant oozes rockstar insouciance; Sheen, an aesthete's prissiness. The lesser known of the two, Sheen had the additional burden of playing a character who felt custom made for British comedy stalwarts like Martin Freeman or Simon Pegg, but he owns Aziraphale completely, making him a cuddlier, smilier, much older Niles Crane. (Watch the late-episode flashback scene in which Aziraphale dances the gavotte and tell me Sheen wasn't born for this role.) The special effects, it should be said, are terrible. Terrible! Laughingly, knowingly terrible. When Crowley takes off his ever-present sunglasses, his reptilian eyes look about three sizes too big for his head; explosions are big and boomy and defy you not to roll your eyes. That's the point. Stripped of its evangelical fear-mongering, the Book of Revelations is patently ridiculous, and leaning into that was exactly how Gaiman and Pratchett celebrated humans' godliest qualities – to give it form without schlock would be to disrespect the show's source..."By Barry Didcock in The Herald Scotland:"On paper, a collaboration between fantasy authors Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman is so mouth-watering a prospect that it’s hard to believe it could ever have come about. But it did, in 1990 novel Good Omens, a comic tale about the coming of the Apocalypse written two-thirds by Pratchett (his estimate) and one third by Gaiman... in finally bringing it to the small screen Amazon Video have made two very sensible decisions. First, they’ve employed Gaiman to come up with the screenplay. Second, they’ve doubled the wow factor by putting another dream-team in front of the camera: David Tennant and Michael Sheen. Two of our most watchable actors, they bring a gleeful, Lemon-and-Matthau-in-The-Odd-Couple feel to this offbeat tale of angels and demons, directed by Scot Douglas Mackinnon... The show jumps around a lot, through time and celestial planes mostly, and by the end of episode two there was a dizzying number of other characters in play, among them young witch Anathema Device (Adria Arjona), who has a book of prophesies and is tasked with finding the Antichrist, and apprentice witch-hunter Newton Pulsifer (Jack Whitehall). But it’s never less than terrific fun and there’s a starry supporting cast to help things along.."By John Devore for The Pulse:"If you can’t tell, Good Omens is a comedy. It’s a very British comedy, in fact. The cast is excellent, featuring David Tennant, Michael Sheen, Jon Hamm, Frances McDormand, and Michael McKean, among others. It’s fairly faithful to the book and the decision to adapt the book into a miniseries rather than a multi-season show is a good one... Good Omens keeps the pace up and moves along from scene to scene, episode to episode, without ever being boring. The adaptation is so good, in fact, that it suffers from some of the same problems that the book had, namely that it jumps through the plot so quickly that the characters themselves feel a bit flat. This is forgivable, given the genre, but it leaves the audience wanting more, especially when it comes to understanding the systems that these characters operate in. But then, when dealing with matters of faith and the order of the universe, that’s largely true of our own reality as well... Overall, Good Omens is a satisfying experience for fans of the books, and likely a good one for those unfamiliar with the source material..."By Richard Trenholme for CNET:"As the show romps through human history from the Garden of Eden to the swinging '60s, the former Doctor Who steals the show as slinky demon Crowley. A snake-hipped combination of Bill Nighy and Keith Richards, Tennant offers serpentine oomph whether he's sinking into the depths of demonic despair, engulfed by flame or dressing up as a Mary Poppins-style nanny – practically perfidious in every way. This louche Lucifer has adapted well to the modern world, crashing mobile networks and diverting motorways into the shape of demonic sigils, and he begins to think armageddon might not be such a great idea after all. Sheen's nervy angel Aziraphale shares Crowley's concerns: He loves sushi and rare books and can't understand why heaven is so keen to go to war. Sheen's Aziraphale is a less showy part than Tennant's Crowley, but the unfailingly decent angel is the gentle heart of the story. Sheen and Tennant have fun in a succession of divine period costumes... A love of language shines through the masterful writing of both Gaiman and Pratchett. Unfortunately, the TV adaptation clings to the book's text, translating it into a clunky and intrusive voiceover. Look, I've loved the novel and its delightful wordplay from the moment I first read it as a teenager. But television is a visual medium, and the wordplay-based jokes that can only be done in a voiceover, as amusing as they are, don't make up for the constant interruption by momentum-killing explanation... Apart from that, though, the cast is rounded out by familiar faces injecting energy into even the smallest parts. Michael McKean manages to find pathos under a wildly veering Scottish accent, Jon Hamm brings glossy-eyed cynicism to the blandly self-righteous angel Gabriel and Mireille Enos gleefully vamps it up as one of the four motorcyclists of the apocalypse. But most of all there are Sheen and Tennant, bouncing Pratchett and Gaiman's words off each other beautifully..."By Raja Sen on Livemint:"As the book reminds: “The Devil has all the best tunes... But Heaven has the best choreographers." As shows go, this feels less choreographed and simultaneously more tuneful. It is a miniseries where the credits at the end of each episode feel like a cocoa-break between chapters, and the cast reads like a wish list: Michael Sheen and David Tennant as Aziraphale and Crowley, Jon Hamm as the Archangel Gabriel, Michael McKean as Witchfinder Shadwell, Miranda Richardson as Madame Tracy, Brian Cox voicing Death and Frances McDormand voicing God. It feels like an event. That event might, however, be a pantomime. Glorious goofiness steers this slapdash enterprise, and Good Omens isn’t the slickest or edgiest or most revolutionary thing you will see on television this season. Even as the plot thickens, it is forever playing catch-up with the bouncy sketch-comedy style, the spoofy absurdity, the intentionally daft visual effects... It’s a fiercely loyal adaptation, right down to the magnificent McDormand delivering the sharpest lines, but while some bits of the book don’t shine – the bicycling small-town children slow things down, for instance, till Things get truly Strange – new additions work. Jon Hamm is a riot as the Archangel Gabriel, a painfully by-the-book boss who loves The Sound Of Music, jogs wearing a cardigan with a winged logo, and is utterly awful at subterfuge. Who knew heaven would be home to the boss from hell..."By Chelsea Steiner on the Mary Sue:"The series, which was adapted by Gaiman himself, struggles to winnow out the extraneous plot points when it should be leaning into Sheen and Tennant’s dynamic. It suffers from being overwritten, which is glaringly apparent in Frances McDormand’s narration as the voice of God. McDormand is one of the best actors of her generation, but she is woefully miscast as she churns through monologue after monologue, over-explaining everything to the audience. Given the essential Englishness of the series and the writing, the narration would have benefited from a British comedic voice like Stephen Fry or Emma Thompson. The series also suffers from some distractingly bad CGI and an overabundance of characters and side plots... But all those issues are easily forgotten when Sheen and Tennant take center stage. It isn’t until episode three that the series hits its stride, starting with a 30 minute cold open that follows Crowley and Aziraphale throughout the ages, as they discover that they are more alike than they realize. Eventually the duo reach an agreement when they realize that their earthly deeds essentially cancel each other out. The duo’s banter is delightful, but there is genuine heart and emotion at the core of their friendship. They may be working for opposite sides, but they are clearly kindred spirits who love each other deeply..."By Kate O'Hare on religion-and-philosophy discussion site Patheos:"Dare I say it, but Amazon Prime’s adaptation of Good Omens is fun, witty, clever, entertaining and just plain, well, good. Based on the apparently beloved novel of the same name by Neil Gaiman and the late Terry Pratchett, Good Omens (all episodes are currently available) is a bit like what might happen if one threw The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Monty Python, Harry Potter, Doctor Who and The Omen into a blender and hit puree... Despite the Biblical underpinnings, it doesn’t ask to be taken seriously as history or theology and doesn’t set out to insult believers, but it still manages to be occasionally heartfelt and profound. At the heart of it are Aziraphale and Crowley, whose best-mates relationship has been labeled by at least one TV critic as a chaste gay one – but that is likely because representations of true, platonic friendship are so rare these days,.."By James White for Empire Online:"Gaiman has cannily trimmed the expansive plot down to what really works on screen. Sheen and Tennant are fine casting for the central pair, a nervy gourmand-turned-bookseller and a swaggering louche boasting an unexpected way with plants (a shouty, fear-driven way). It's a partnership that sparks with real warmth and joy, even as this seemingly mismatched duo bond over the centuries. Yet while they're the focus, the rest of the series has some excellent performances, including Jon Hamm (as the Angel Gabriel), Michael McKean (as the pugnacious Witchfinder Sergeant Shadwell) and Frances McDormand keeping the tome's asides alive as God, narrating the background and filling in the basics. If there's a weak link, it's the kids playing the antichrist and his friends, who while they're not disastrous, are broader brushstrokes than some of the other characters, feeling less inspired by the likes of Just William and more ripped from those pages. And, while it's well shot, there are one or two moments that are a little more in the style of cheaper '70s sci-fi telly, though that in its way adds to the charm..."By Michael Russell in the West Highland Free Press:In ‘Good Omens’, the Amazon Prime debut of Skye-born director Douglas Mackinnon, two key elements stand out – simply because they are outstanding. They are David Tennant and Michael Sheen. Every time these actors are on screen together this six-episode novel adaptation is a joy to watch. Tennant’s louche demon Crowley and Sheen’s prim, fussy angel Aziraphale form a touching dysfunctional relationship that is the emotional heart of this comedy-horror-fantasy...If the word ‘antichrist’ immediately conjures images of impaled priests and decapitated photographers, ‘Good Omens’ majors on lightness, not creeping unease. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse wear leather jackets and ride motorbikes; the King of Atlantis wins a competition on board the cruise ship that rescues him. We are firmly in Certificate 12 territory here, and it is never seriously tested... Subplots abound, and there are pacing issues at times, but all the various strands eventually converge for a spectacular finale. If the M25 is hell to drive on at the best of the times, the Day of Judgment gives it a little extra sizzle..."By Isaac Butler, who described the title as "Adorkalypse Now", for Slate:"Pratchett, the now-late author of dozens of novels set on a planet called Discworld – which sits atop the backs of four elephants who themselves stand on top of a giant turtle swimming through space – might be the dork novelist par excellence. If that description of the setting of the Discworld novels makes you cringe, please know Good Omens is not for you. It has, remarkably, made the transition to the screen with its dorkiness fully intact, thank God – or perhaps, given the subject matter, the Devil. Good Omens, whose six-episode first season is now streaming on Amazon, is a very silly and very English comedy... As in many dork comedies, the story of Good Omens is somewhat beside the point anyway. Like a rapidly deflating balloon, the narrative is meant to zoom miraculously in unexpected directions, until coming to land just so in the perfect spot. The template here is Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and its 1981 BBC adaptation. Like that series, Good Omens pairs absurd situations with an stiff upper lip, employs frequent deadpan voice over narration (here courtesy of Frances McDormand), and has special effects so unconvincing they become their own form of amusement..."By Omar Gallaga for Book and Film Globe:"It’s a funny idea from a very funny book that Gaiman decided to adapt himself, writing all six of the TV episodes after Pratchett’s 2015 death. Gaiman has said in interviews that Pratchett was foremost on his mind as he made decisions as showrunner for the miniseries, giving him motivation to push harder on creative decisions than he might have otherwise. It shows. While fans of the book will quibble with lines omitted and some of the casting choices, such as Frances McDormand as Narrator and God, Good Omens is tremendously generous. With Amazon’s deep pockets, the production quality goes above and beyond, with a big cast, convincing locations, and lots of animation and visual asides that incorporate jokes and footnotes from the book. What feels in the novel like a series of overly plotted Douglas Adams-style riffs on God, the Universe and Everything, becomes visually expansive on screen with surprisingly good special effects. It’s not enough to mention, in passing, that Atlantis has risen. Good Omens shows the city, and it’s glorious..."By Kathryn VanArendonk on Vulture:"In the case of Good Omens, a new Amazon miniseries based on the Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett book of the same name, one of the trickiest elements of adaptation works astonishingly well. The experience of reading Good Omens, maybe first and most intensely, is the sense of its voice. A chipper, breezy, insouciant, and simultaneously dire sense of humor carries through the book’s silly story about the apocalypse, and the combination of lightness and darkness in its tone is an impressively fitting match for a book about an angel and a demon who become friends. It’s a narrator’s voice, a very self-consciously booky voice, full of self-satisfied vocabulary and jokes about the nature of text. Good Omens is a book about books – specifically, about the Bible and a goofy, made-up prophetical text called The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch – and the story, which is ostensibly about good and evil and humanity and the end of the world, is more specifically about the way we interpret and fail to interpret texts... Much of the original dialogue has been transplanted into the script, and the series’ brisk, snappy editing style – specifically its whooshing transitions from one scene to the next – go a long way toward replicating and re-creating the book’s wry tone. It is self-consciously constructed as a silly, constructed thing. When you watch the series, which premieres on Friday, you get a visual version of the book’s gleeful wordiness. That’s no small feat..."By Glen Weldon for NPR:"Most of the cleverest, funniest bits in Amazon's six-episode series Good Omens, which debuts on May 31, come straight from the 1990 novel by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, as you might expect. Most – but, happily, not all... the thing that sets Good Omens – book and show – apart from the fire hose of grim apocalyptic fare we're getting doused with on a daily basis is its thorough, inveterate, consummate Britishness. (I was going to add "unapologetic," there, but "unapologetically British" feels like a contradiction in terms, surely.) You're unlikely to find an Armageddon as warm and cozy as the one outlined in the novel; think Mad Max: Fury Road, if the Charlize Theron role had instead gone to Miss Marple – that's the all-important vibe the show has to nail, and it does. I mentioned above that most of the cleverest bits in the Amazon series come straight from the book, but the series does stake out its own patches of humorous real estate. The angel Gabriel rates only a mention or two in the novel; here, as played with a kind of tetchily impatient smarm by Jon Hamm, he's the ultimate slick, condescending corporate boss – which is to say: As seen through the eyes of a Brit, he's everything that is quintessentially American. Largely though, the series makes the novel come alive through its (mostly) unerring casting choices, which double down on that crucial Britishness. Brief cameos by Derek Jacobi (as the Metatron), Josie Lawrence (as a witch whose prophecies figure largely in the plot), Miranda Richardson (as a psychic who doesn't get much to do until the final episode), Brian Cox (as the voice of Death) and Benedict Freaking Cumberbatch (as never mind who, it's a surprise) make the whole thing go down like a fresh cup of inordinately milky tea. But it's Tennant and Sheen in the two lead roles who really dig in and unearth the foundational Britishness the story requires, by planting their feet at either end of the spectrum of national identities popularly associated with the United Kingdom..."By Wenlei Ma for News.com.au:"Good Omens is wickedly funny and often gives off Life of Brian vibes. It’s also clear all the actors are having an absolute ball in their roles, and that kind of fun is infectious and leaps off the screen, enveloping you so that you’re completely lost in the story... Good Omens takes irreverence to the next level — and if you’re not going to do that with a TV show about the apocalypse, then when are you going to?"By Allison Shoemaker on the Roger Ebert website:'Maybe it’s part of the “ineffable” great plan of the creator. Maybe it’s just chemistry. Whatever it is, it looks like fun, and watching it ain’t half bad either... It’s entertaining writing, lively and often surprising... The problem with a story that both wanders and is predicated on a ticking time bomb and race against the clock, is that to spend time on one can weaken the other. The plot moseys alone at a slow but steady pace, bursts of energy often undermined by the same action taking place again an episode or two later, or by filmmaking (from Douglas Mackinnon) more concerned with quirk than with questions. (Get ready for endless conversations about whether or not Aziraphale and Crowley’s coworkers can trust them, all painted with the same broad brush and without escalation.) More damaging is the fact that the narrative comes with the built-in contrivance that, while the forces of light and darkness bustle about in bureaucratic fervor, the real action is happening in a suburb none of them has ever even heard of—but that action, centering on Adam and his friends, is rarely anywhere near as compelling as what’s happening elsewhere. Both the series and the young actors involved don’t seem to be much interested in what’s going on (at least, until the final installment); somehow, a secret suburban Antichrist comes off deadly dull. Then again, some of that might be due to comparison (a fate befalling, though to a lesser extent, actors as gifted as Michael McKean, Miranda Richardson, Anna Maxwell Martin, Nick Offerman, and others). Sheen and Tennant are so good, individually and especially together, that it’s possible any disinterest in the other corners of this series may in fact be generated by eagerness to return to wherever Aziraphale and Crowley might be... Together, it’s like watching two musicians at the top of their game play a duet; they positively sing. In those moments, the vibrancy and energy of Gaiman and Pratchett’s book shoots to the surface, and is even deepened and enriched by the artists interpreting it..."By David Griffin for IGN:"Apart from Sheen and Tennant, Good Omens is enriched with a brilliant supporting cast. Jon Hamm, who plays the Archangel Gabriel, is pitch-perfect in the "everyone's boss you love to hate" role. Hamm is smarmy in all the right ways - he's basically playing a goofier version of Donald Draper from Mad Men. Other impressive veteran actors include Better Call Saul's Michael McKean as Witchfinder Shadwell, and his promiscuous neighbor Madame Tracy, provocatively portrayed by Harry Potter alumna Miranda Richardson. There's also Brian Cox (X-Men 2), Nick Offerman (Parks & Rec), and yes, even Benedict Cumberbatch (Doctor Strange) as Satan. If we haven't made it clear already, Good Omens is not lacking in the impressive-actor-resume department. Good Omens also has an impressive visual style, thanks to director Douglas Mackinnon (Line of Duty), who helms all six episodes. Mackinnon's effective work behind the camera is bolstered by excellent production and set design that's a key part of the world building. Hell does indeed seem like the worst place ever – it kind of looks like everyone is stuck at the post office for all of eternity. Heaven resembles an Apple store, minus the cool electronics. In a way, Heaven's minimalistic decor is almost as eerie as Hell's. Either way, many of the locations you'll visit in Good Omens are delightful places to spend your time..."By Brian Lowry on CNN:"Beyond the perfectly matched leads, "Good Omens" is populated by an impressive cast, including Jon Hamm as the Angel Gabriel (a typically officious boss), Miranda Richardson and Michael McKean as two mortals in way over their heads, Mireille Enos as one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and Frances McDormand as the voice of the Almighty. Benedict Cumberbatch and Brian Cox also drop in, unrecognizably, as Satan and Death, respectively. The high stakes notwithstanding, the story unfolds with a sense of unhurried whimsy. While it risks being too precious at first, the show gets better as the hours proceed... "Good Omens" would benefit from a bit more forward momentum during its midsection, but its underlying appeal relies upon making even the biggest issues somehow mundane. The fire and brimstone notwithstanding, the show is really about friendship, however inconvenient it might be..."By Adam Starkey for Metro (UK):"While a countdown to the end of the world might scream urgency, Good Omens is lethargic and playful in tone. There’s an unconventional rhythm to the show as it jumps back and forth through time, delivering comedy sketch-like scenarios one minute and chasing down the antichrist the next. It’s not always successful, with some of the tangents feeling unnecessary or bloated, but the pacing is more rewarding the further you roll around in, and embrace, its obscurities. That’s because there’s always an excellent cameo or surprise appearance lurking behind every corner... Holding this all together is the binding, hysterical glue of Michael Sheen and David Tennant, who form one of the most enjoyable on-screen partnerships you’ll find all year... this miniseries is a refreshingly whimsical concoction of British humour, infectious imagination, and old fashioned charms. With so much of fantasy on television embracing the darkness, Good Omens is a delectable counterweight bursting with a lust for life."By the apparently humourless and openly fantasy-detesting Rachel Cooke for New Statesman:"I do not love Good Omens. The first episode, I will grudgingly admit, was mildly entertaining, largely because Tennant and Michael Sheen (who plays an angel called Aziraphale; expect to hear this name being called in a playground near you some time soon) are so good together. But once the novelty of their double act had worn off – Tennant channels a thin-as-a-streak-of-bacon rock star vibe; Sheen looks and sounds like the very kind and camp bastard child of Boris Johnson and Billy Bunter – weariness soon set in. Such archness. Such ostentatious charm and so-called wit. It made me feel like I wanted to suck the sugar from my teeth – and that’s even before the children had appeared... It’s all terribly, tweely English, a bit like those Children’s Film Foundation productions some of us used to watch on telly in the school holidays in the early Eighties...}"By Alex Saveliev on Film Threat:"From the get-go, Good Omens establishes its tongue-in-cheek tone, instantly rejecting all of our established theories regarding the specific time of the Universe’s creation... none of this would gel without the formidable leads. Michael Sheen, one of our most versatile actors, conveys Aziraphale’s reticence and benevolence, but with a penchant for mischief – as well as sushi, magic acts, bowties, and a certain kind of dancing that’s too uproarious to reveal here. Tennant does a splendid job as Crowley, a live-wire that brings to mind Sam Rockwell at his best; he dances on the screen (often quite literally, to his favorite Queen), flaring his cat-like eyes, and you can’t take your eyes off him. Together, they anchor the show, grounding each of its wild turns with warmth, poignancy, and wit. Director Douglas Mackinnon, who’s had his experience in directing TV shows including Doctor Who, helms all six episodes with the assured hand of a veteran, working symbiotically with his writer. Which leads me to Gaiman’s elegant script, elevating the show above the rest with its spellbinding passages, boundless imagination and quotable lines... But it’s not just the dialogue that soars; Gaiman devises unexpected, charming surprises in almost every scene..."By Janaki Viswanathan for the Pune Mirror in Mumbai:"It's a pleasure to watch Michael Sheen play the self-righteous but also self-and-Goddoubting kindly angel Aziraphale, especially when he tries to hide his affection for Crowley whom he's known since forever. David Tennant in quite a shift from the gaunt police detective he played in Broadchurch, seems to be enjoying himself immensely as Crowley – a somewhat cliched flamboyant minion of Satan who drives too fast and, when bored watching humans paintball fighting, turns the guns into real ones. There's also the descendant of a witch, a witch-hunter's great-great-great grandchild and what is possibly the funniest hospital baby exchange that belongs in a Manmohan Desai film. Actually, the whole plot and its many story tracks would fit right into a potboiler. We mean that as a compliment. Good Omens is funny, entertaining, but best of all, it's weird, bizarre and originally so..."This was a "spoiler-free" pre-review by Britt on Nerds and Beyond, but it's cogent and well-expressed, so I'm including it here:"Particular standouts are, of course, Tennant and Sheen as our demon and angel. Forced into an unlikely alliance (being the only Earth-side representatives from each side) that becomes a friendship, Tennant and Sheen have a sweet and undeniable chemistry. Tennant has always excelled at playing the rakish and charming, well, devil. But Sheen is the perfect foil for him as the fussy and nervous Aziraphale. The ease at which their banter flows really does make it seem as if they have been friends since the dawn of time. My other favorite performances include Nina Sosanya as Sister Mary Loquacious, Josie Lawrence as the prophet Agnes Nutter, and Amma Ris as the sole female member of the Antichrist’s “gang,” Pepper. The ladies killed it, y’all. Special attention must also be given to Jon Hamm as the Archangel Gabriel. My favorite Hamm is a comedic Hamm, and he really nails the tone of the arrogant angel here. (And he is also a huge fan of the original book!) But also, honestly, with a cast that includes the likes of Michael McKean (as Witchfinder Sergeant Shadwell), Miranda Richardson (as Madame Tracy), Benedict Cumberbatch (as Satan), and even a cameo by Nick Offerman, you just really can’t go wrong. They are all stellar... I will say, though, that one exclusion left me bummed. One of my favorite bits from the book were the Hell’s Angels, a.k.a. the “other” four bikers of the apocalypse, a.k.a. “Grievous Bodily Harm,” “Cruelty to Animals,” “Really Cool People,” and “Treading In Dogsh*t” (formerly “All Foreigners Especially The French,” formerly “Things Not Working Properly Even After You’ve Given Them A Good Thumping,” never actually “No Alcohol Lager,” briefly “Embarrassing Personal Problems,” and finally “People Covered in Fish”). (Dear Mr. Gaiman and the ghost of Terry Pratchett please forgive me/do not haunt me if I left out any of their names.) They were hilarious, especially their explosively fishy end. (The book came out in 1990, so I don’t feel bad about spoilers here.) I was sad to not have them as a counterpoint to the real Horsemen. However, if the biggest complaint I can make is that one gag from an otherwise gag-filled book didn’t make it in the final cut, then I think that speaks to how successful this adaptation was..."...and a review of the first episode by Darryl Jasper on ScienceFiction.com, that beautifully sums up early on:"David Tenant[sic] and Michael Sheen are the backbone of Good Omens, bringing to life two of fiction’s most outrageously entertaining characters... While there is fun to be had in the humor portrayed in the narrative,to put it bluntly, without Crowley and Aziraphale, Good Omens is nothing more than a cheeky tale that, though entertaining, would be lacking the spirit that has made it an indelible work of literary fiction. As in the book, the relationship between Aziraphale and Crowley makes this story. Thus, it was imperative to find two actors that had not just the acting chops but the chemistry necessary to truly deliver the witty banter and charming interactions between these two peculiar representatives of Heaven and Hell. While only one episode in, David Tenant and Michael Sheen are masterful, their chemistry and timing spicing up the generic tale of the Antichrist leading the world Armageddon and making it something truly special. There may be other actors that could have done these roles justice but like Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans have made it so that I can never see anyone take on the mantles of Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, respectively, so too will Tenant and Sheen forever be my Crowley (not to be mistaken with Mark Sheppard’s wondrous Supernatural character) and Aziraphale. Not to be left out, the remaining cast makes its own powerful impressions. Frances McDormand takes the reigns[sic] as the narrator/God. Her even yet witty narration gives life to those aspects of “In the Beginning” that are imagery heavy (using metaphors to drive a point home) or in need of an extra bit of panache to keep the ball rolling while Jon Hamm represents Heaven as the stuffy and condescendingly friendly Gabriel. Both take a backseat to Tenant and Sheen but bring their own stamp that adds even more sauce to the story..."...and finally, a review of the last episode that sums up the summing-up, by William Hughes on the A.V. Club:"Does any of this feel-good philosophizing make for effective TV? The first half of “The Very Last Day Of The Rest Of Their Lives” unfortunately argues that it pretty much doesn’t, offering up a series of showdowns that mostly boil down to people staring meaningfully at each other until a bad guy suddenly explodes. There are moments of grace – as when Adam’s two celestial “godfathers” stop time to give him a brief pep talk before facing down Satan himself, or when the would-be Antichrist calmly stares down Beelzebub and Gabriel (Anna Maxwell Martin and Jon Hamm, the latter of whom is transcendent in this episode) as they try to bluster him into ending the world. But the Four Horseman, especially, go out as they lived, ostensibly good ideas that just didn’t work as TV. Even the confrontation with The Big Man himself – voiced for two whole lines by Benedict Cumberbatch, and powered by CGI that did not, for once, look like absolute dogshit – is an anti-climax, pretty much by design... It’s lucky, then, that author and screenwriter Neil Gaiman clearly grasps that the end of the world is the least interesting part of this apocalyptic finale, which is why his script spends so much time on the question of what comes after, instead. (Or, to put it in the words of Agnes Nutter, witch: “Ye saga continuef.”) Mostly, this plays out in a series of happy endings, largely romantic, for our various heroes,.. But we end, of course, with the three characters we started this whole cosmically incompetent mess with: The renegade angel Aziraphale, the rogue demon Crowley, and that infernal little bundle of joy, Adam Young... A good ending – and you could comfortably argue that this is a very good ending, emotionally satisfying without being too terribly cloying – can go a long way toward salvaging a troubled show. Good Omens was a frequently troubled show, often feeling like a collage of the book’s best bits, randomly assembled into some semblance of a story more-or-less at random. Gaiman seemed to gain more confidence in the material, and the strengths of the medium, as the series went on, though, relying less on his and Pratchett’s narration, and inserting more stylistic flourishes like the Aziraphale-Crowley friendship sequence that powered episode 3. The series was always messy, but in its best moments, it was gloriously messy..."%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%04) GOOD OMENS ODDS AND SODS4.1 SURPRISES GALORE AT AZIRAPHALE'S REAL-LIFE BOOKSHOPAs mentioned in items 3.1 and 3.4 in last month's issue! By Brian Silliman for SyFywire:"One of the more fantastic locations that we go to in the novel (and will go to in the series) is the bookshop owned and run by the angel Aziraphale, played by Michael Sheen. A full reproduction of the shop, A.Z. Fell and Co, can now be visited at 19 Greek Street in London... On the outside, the shop looks even better than it does in our dreams. On the inside, though, there's more magic to be found. The place has been turned into a giant space dedicated to the new series, with one of the highlights being a Good Omens-themed escape room. As a special treat for some lucky fans (as tweeted by Amazon's Good Omens account), series stars David Tennant (Crowley) and Sheen both ended up as the surprise that fans were greeted with when escaping the room. Tennant appears with copies of the book itself, too, and we have never been so jealous. An escape room based on the book (and show) is great; one that ends with meeting Crowley and Aziraphale in person? Yeah, that's even better..."A reminder: tickets can be booked via https://az-fell-and-co-bookshop666.eventbrite.com/_ Another reminder: there will be a free screening of the entirety of Good Omens on 29th June at the Edinburgh Film Festival! https://bit.ly/2WtrGOT and https://bit.ly/2KdpKIO 4.2 THE FAITHFUL REPRODUCTION OF SHADWELL'S ACCENTBy Huw Fullerton in the Radio Times:"'There are a lot of Scotsmen on the set who are helping me out, Tennant of course and Douglas MacKinnon, who’s our director,” McKean told RadioTimes.com on set. “They’re keeping me honest, you know, and every now and then I have to just run it by them.” Despite this, Shadwell’s delivery is not quite like any Scottish accent we’ve heard before – but perhaps that’s the point. You see, while it’s easy to assume Shadwell’s unusual manner of speaking is due to American actor McKean struggling with an impersonation, in fact the character’s “roaming dialect” is a key part of the original 1990 novel, with Shadwell’s voice in the book randomly shifting between all sorts of different accents from around Britain during the story. Some have speculated that the character was (rather ironically) intended as a riposte to American actors who tried and failed to master specific UK dialects, or as a parody of sitcom character Alf Garnett, as played by Warren Mitchell in Till Death Do Us Part and In Sickness and In Health. But whatever the truth, Good Omens showrunner Neil Gaiman (who co-wrote the novel with the late Pratchett) was more than happy with what McKean delivered..."4.3 ABOUT SOME OF THE CAMEOSA guide to some blink-and-you'll-miss-them cameos, by Eleanor Bley Griffiths in the Radio Times:"In adapting the novel he co-wrote with Terry Pratchett, showrunner Neil Gaiman has introduced some subtle guest appearances – from a famous Blue Peter presenter to the host of Newsnight... The host of Pam & Sam is… Konnie Huq... The TV news presenter is… Kirsty Wark... The voice on Crowley’s radio is… Nicholas Parsons..."4.4 ...AND SOME OF THE CASTINGSAt New York Comic Con 2019, well before the Good Omens release, Neil Gaiman and director Douglas MacKinnon explained some unexpected casting choices. Here be an article by Rose Moore on ScreenRant:"Gaiman: Well in terms of gender diversity, angels and demons, as stated in the book, have no gender... Archangel Uriel and Archangel Michael are both played by women, Sandalfon and Gabriel are both played by men. I love that one of those women is black, Gloria, who is just this amazing actress. And doing the same in Hell, we had male demons in Hastur, and I love the idea that Beelzebub would be Anna Maxwell Martin, Aegon would be Elizabeth Berrington, I think that it gave us a nice kind of balance."MacKinnon: I think that the thing we were doing all the way through the casting process in these terms was to question the assumptions and see if there was a different answer that just felt right."Gaiman: The one I received the most s**t for, was Pepper. Who is played by a fantastic young actress named Amma Ris, who is a person of color. Who is a small girl of color. And who also happened to be the best and the feistiest person who turned up at any of the auditions. What’s interesting is that there are almost no physical descriptions of anybody in the book, but Pepper is described as having red hair and a face that was basically one giant freckle, and so people are like ‘oh my god, that has to be white’, and… no she doesn’t..."4.5 THE CAST AND CREW REFLECTS...Here be a 16-minute video interview from Digital Spy with Tennant, Sheen, Gaiman, Rob Wilkins, Miranda Richardson, Jon Hamm and Adria Arjona, link ported by NADWCON 2019:4.6 ...AND SO DOES THE SET DESIGNER:By Rachel Wallace for – wait for it – Architectural Digest:"To bring the show to life, production designer Michael Ralph had to tackle a lot of big ideas. A few of the various settings depicted through flashbacks over the six-episode series include the Garden of Eden, heaven, hell, the crucifixion of Jesus, William Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, and more. Ralph hadn’t read the book, and “there was nothing in the script that told you what it looked like,” he says. “Thank God I read some of the Bible.” Those biblical scenes were mostly filmed in South Africa, but for the show’s ambiguously present-day London, the team filmed at Wolverhampton Airport, near the English village of Bobbington. 'It’s] in the middle of nowhere on a flat piece of tarmac. I really only wanted the tarmac because it had a bitumen [asphalt] road. At least I’d have a bitumen road to begin with. And then I built the whole thing out there. We built a whole city block,” says Ralph. Indeed, they brought London’s Soho neighborhood to life from the ground up, the center of the action being a book store owned by the angel Aziraphale. Filling it with books was as large of a task as building it... to source around 7,000 throwaway books from across Europe, Ralph had a set decorator he could count on – his wife, Bronwyn Franklin. “She is sort of the unsung hero,” he says. “To find books that we could burn that weren’t necessarily damaging some fantastic literal tome, we had to really find a whole lot of books we could disguise and make look like antique books. She found some other beautiful items for the shop, like the antique cash register. My God did she get some beautiful things. And then we set fire to things...'"Ralph’s attention to detail is evident, and it actually goes even deeper than it seems. “There are a lot of secrets in the design – a lot of buried subliminal stuff,” he reveals, noting that he hopes an eagle-eyed fan will find all the Easter eggs in Good Omens. For now, he’s willing to share just one. “I put Aziraphale’s bookshop on a crossroads of a four-road intersection because of the four horseman of the apocalypse and the four corners of the earth,” he says. “Then I based his bookshop entirely on the design of a compass. And therefore if you look up at the oculus or the skylight on the roof of Aziraphale’s bookshop, it actually is the face of a compass..."4.7 DAVID TENNANT INTERVIEWBy Alexandra Pollard in The Independent:"Tennant is clearly having a ball playing a demon – “a delicious part”, he says, practically smacking his lips – channelling the enjoyably obnoxious swagger of Bill Nighy. But alongside all the strut and the camp chaos, the show asks some deep questions about the nature of good and evil, with lines that are practically delivered with a wink to camera. “As if Armageddon was a cinematic show you wanted to sell in as many countries as possible,” says Frances McDormand’s narrator at one point. Tennant, who on screen and in person looks about a decade away from his 48 years, agrees that the show is “perhaps going to seem prescient in a way that it might not have done 10 years ago … but that doesn’t mean there might not have been other subtleties that we’d have picked up on then, because of circumstances…” He thinks again. “Yes, maybe it’s time to tell this story.” The thing about Crowley and Aziraphale, he says, is that “they’re representatives of these two fundamentalist viewpoints, and actually by living among these humans they’ve been knocked off course, both of them. They’re sort of meeting in the middle. Maybe that’s where we all need to meet for there to be some hope.” It’s difficult, I say, if someone’s viewpoint is diametrically opposed to your own, to meet them in the middle sometimes. “Absolutely, oh it’s very tricky,” he nods. “Nobody said it was gonna be easy, saving the world! But when everything gets so tribal, then there can be no solution, there can be no moving forward. It’s like with our own parliament at the moment. If everyone just says no to everything, then what will actually happen next? We all have to, at some point, accept that we don’t exist as an island.'..."4.8 DOUGLAS MACKINNON INTERVIEWThe Good Omens director was interviewed by "HM/JB" for AFP Relaxnews, posted in Philippines-based Inquirer.net:"In an interview with AFP Relaxnews, the Scottish director revealed how the unique series based on the work by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett took shape and why the small screen version of the story that moves from the Garden of Eden to Roman Britain and 1960s Soho should not be called an “adaptation.”... 'I first got the script for “Good Omens” on my son’s 18th birthday in the evening. I knew about the project, it was huge. I immediately said, “Well it is my son’s 18th birthday so I cannot read it tonight.” The executive producer said, “Could you read the first ten pages or something just to give us an indication,” and so reluctantly I started reading. An hour later, I was finishing the script and emailing her, “This is mine, everybody stand back. Please let me do it.”... I think Terry Pratchett for me, has always been present in spirit, which is interesting for somebody who was an atheist. He did not believe in heaven and hell, neither do I and yet we felt Terry there all the time. After I read the script properly and got to know the book better than Neil Gaiman, at times when we were filming, I would reread the relevant part of the book and there would be a certain line or a moment. I would say to Neil, “You have not put it in the script” and he went, “Would you like that?” and I said “I really love that part so can we put it back in again?” So in a way I became Terry Pratchett’s representative, protecting the book. That is not saying that Neil was not (protecting the book) as well, but it was just a conversational process that we had. Neil said that one of the things he felt all the way through was Terry on his shoulder all the time, slightly moaning, slightly complaining. This might sound odd but for me, I feel like I had a collaboration with Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman because the book was beside my monitors every day. We wanted to please this man somehow...'..."%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%05) IMAGES OF THE MONTHCrowley, Aziraphale and THAT car take a break on set. Photo by Chris Raphael for Architectural Digest:The Hat and The Scarf at the Good Omens London premiere, as tweeted by journalist Flora Carr:...and in the small ads in Good Omens, when Newt is job-hunting:The blink-and-you'll-miss-it Pratchett reference in the cafe when the Horsemen are assembling:(The above two photos were posted by Twitter userA nicely book-faithful rendering of the Horsemen, set against the background of telly-version Crowley and Aziraphale. :(No credit for the above image was given, but the original is on Screenrant.com)The Hellhound that became Dog, by Paul Kidby:%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%06) CLOSEHere be a sweet little listing of Agnes Nutter's predictions as used in the Good Omens miniseries, by Danny Salemme on Screen Rant:EDITOR'S WARNING: if you've not yet seen the series, and also have managed to avoid learning about the not-in-the-original-book twist at the end of the final episode, DO NOT read all the way to the end of the list!And that's it for the Good Omens Special Edition. We'll see you very soon with the rest of the news and regular features for June!– Annie Mac