Good Omens: The Very Last Day of the Rest of Their Lives

“Just imagine how awful it might have been if we'd been at all competent."

It's the end, then. oh, I'm aware of what's been said in the media; Gaiman hasn't ruled out a second season, and he and Terry Pratchett even had at least some discussion way back when about a novel. But really; there are obviously no particular plans to continue and it all seems pretty much well-wrapped up to me.

It's a splendid finale, too. Oh, I realise it ends about halfway through with Newt breaking all the world's military computers with his superhuman klutziness while Adam firmly insists that a CGI Benedict Cumberbatch is not his father, in a bizarre reversal of The Empire Strikes Back, and we proceed to spend the rest of the episode in an indulgent celebration of Crowley and Aziraphale's six thousand year friendship. And why the bloody hell not? It's all highly entertaining, and the swap between the two of them to survive their respective punishments is, er, devilishly clever. Never mind that Mrs Llamastrangler guessed what they'd done, or that they're lucky that their respective punishments were indeed holy water and hellfire respectively. I'm far too entertained by this to be churlish about plot holes.

Even better, we get Agnes' new prophecies, and shipping of Sergeant Shadwell with Madame Tracey, as soon as he's checked she has an acceptable number of nipples. But best of all are our two friends, those magnificent actors Messrs Sheen and Tennant, and a superb adaptation of a splendid novel after three bloody decades. Wonderful.

Good Omens: The Doomsday Option

"Your car is on fire!"

Mrs Llamastrangler and I are somewhat distressed that there’s only one episode left to go, and a second series is unlikely given the sad, untimely death of the wonderful Sir Terry Pratchett. This is, if anything, the least good episode so far, much of which can be put down to its being Part Five. It’s still bloody brilliant.

We begin with Crowley at the bookshop, distressed that someone has apparently killed the man he now calls “my best friend” (although I love how Aziraphale, now partly played by Miranda Richardson whole role is suddenly no longer a bit part, has such a very English reaction to realising this), spends the whole episode in a state of furious, heroic, utterly David Tennant determination such that it’s tempting to call Crowley the central heroic protagonist of the entire series- I mean, he gets through the impassable hellfire that is the M25 in a burning car to get to Tadfield, where the delightfully British reaction of the local man whom he stops for directions and is too polite to point out that his car is on fire is one of the funniest scenes so far.

Interestingly, there’s far less piss-taking of the American military in the US airbase than there is in the novel, but everyone is gravitating towards there- the Four Horsemen, Anathema and the now-deflowered Newt, and of course Adam- who, having not been properly raised as an Antichrist, is sounding a little more sane. But there’s still time to mention Crowley’s intense dislike of the 14th century, something I was beginning to expect would remain only in the novel. And there is, of course, the ultimate nuclear cliffhanger...

It’s an energetic, fast-paced, apocalyptic penultimate episode. I suspect the finale will be anything but.

Doctor Who: Victory of the Daleks

“If Hitler invaded Hell, I would give a favourable reference to the Devil.”

Oh dear. I’m terribly sorry, but my opinions on this story are awfully conventional. I’m really sorry. I can’t help it. I hate it when this sort of thing happens. But yes; I’m rather afraid this is going to be one of those “Ian McNeice is a little too over the top” “New Daleks are crap” / “They got those Spitfires into space awfully quickly, cool though they are” / “The coda with Bracewell’s emotions stopping him going off was a bit pants” reviews. Actually, shall we just take all that as read and get on with something more interesting? Except the new Daleks, obviously. I’m going to have a good whinge about those.

So, it’s a very well-realised London in the Blitz, and an… interesting Churchill. Unfortunate how this was rather close to Brendan Gleeson’s far superior portrayal of the great man in Into the Storm, but there you go. We get CGI barrage balloons again, which is all nice and nostalgic, and lots of iconic Cabinet War Rooms stuff. It’s huge fun to see those khaki Daleks with their Union Flags and “Would you care for some tea?”, although so far this series seems to be doing an awful lot of flag-waving. First an archetypal English village, then Starship UK, now this- is this Moffat’s new British Agenda? I think we should be told.

We get a brief retread of Power of the Daleks for the first ten minutes, rather appropriately- after all, if Tennant could have a remake of Evil of the Daleks then why can’t Smith have a version of their other excellent David Whitaker-penned outing? This doesn’t go on for long, though.

Some interesting arc stuff, though; the Doctor calls Amy “Amelia” when he’s annoyed with her. And for some reason she can’t remember the Daleks, or those whopping great big planets in the sky. Our attention is drawn to this, so it must be significant.

But this set-up is all, of course, just a trap. The one surviving Dalek ship to escape the Doctor-Donna has found a “Progenitor”, with which they can make baby Daleks. Yes, Dalek sex really is that boring. Thing is, though, it really brings home the creepy genocidal nature of the Daleks that this Progenitor thinks they’re racially impure, and won’t even recognise them as fellow Daleks without the “testimony” of their greatest enemy. Worse, the Daleks willingly acquiesce in their own ethnic cleansing at the hands of the new “pure” Daleks. Possibly the most chilling example yet of the horrors of Dalek ideology, and a reminder of how appropriate it is that they should feature in a story set during the Second World War.

Shame the new Daleks are so awful, though. I mean, literally everyone thinks so. What were they thinking? I don’t care how much mentioning there is of things like “rels” and “time corridors” and “the final end.” They’re not even shaped like Daleks. I want my Daleks back!

The Daleks win, of course; they’re now out there, breeding baby Daleks in that strange U-certificate way of theirs, and for the first time since the stories returned they’re no longer an endangered species. But presumably they won’t be returning until they can sort out the horrible new Daleks.

We end with more emphasis on Amy’s forgetting the Daleks, and another crack. The story had some genuinely cool moments, and really treats the Daleks well script-wise, but there are all those little things wrong with it. 3/5, then. Never mind, I’ve already seen the first part of the two-parter that’s up next (I’m on a roll this week), and it’s way, way better.