Good Omens: Every Day

 "You know as well as I do how badly understaffed Hell is right now."

Crikey, that was a busy final episode. And, in the end, it was very good indeed. I still maintain that this season started well, ended well but had a fair bit of filler in the middle, and perhaps one could criticise the pacing in that this last episode had an awful lot of work to do. But there’s no denying that it’s very good indeed.

It’s an episode about Armageddon and the desirability or not thereof, yes. But it’s also an episode about love and choice. We finally get to see what happened with Gabriel and… he stopped being such an arse and started to parallel Aziraphale. He lost his enthusiasm for Armageddon, started to plot with the other side to avoid it… and fell in love with Beelzebub. With whom he concocted a plan. 

All this, though, is riffing on the relationship between Crowley and Aziraphale, and their unspoken love, with heartbreaking results. The intervention of Maggie and Nina towards Crowley is mature and beautiful. They’re not rushing into their inevitable relationship, because this is reality, but it’s strongly hinted that happiness awaits them. Their own intervention, urging Crowley to tell Aziraphale how he feels, is far more grown-up than a Jane Austen ball full of shopkeepers.

But, despite Crowley pouring his heart out, and that kiss, happiness is not to be for Crowley and Aziraphale. Crowley is a realist, not cynical for the sake of it, and he is right to be equally wary of Heaven and Hell. After all, in the flashback, Metatron strongly hinted at “institutional problems”. But, alas, Aziraphale succumbs to temptation, not from a demon but from Metatron. A fancy title, a fancy office, a swanky job running a project known as “the Second Coming”… he’s learned nothing, in the end. Poor Crowley has no choice. In a sense, Aziraphale has become Gabriel, while Gabriel has become Aziraphale.

An extraordinary, courageous finale. Despite the high concepts, in the end, the point is that love needs principles. We can’t just give our hearts to those who turn out to be lacking in integrity. Crowley, in the end, is more moral.

Good Omens: The Ball

 "Well, it wouldn't be a Shopkeeper's Association without dancing, would it?"

This is another very good episode, with a delightful conceit, a witty script and typically superlative acting. It's still dragging out a rather thin amount of plot though. Only now do we discover that Gabriel, apparently, emptied his memories into a matchbox for some reason. What's going on? Next episode is the finale and there really doesn't appear to be all that much to finalise.

The central conceit really is brilliant, though: a Shopkeepers' Association made to be a ball from right out of Jane Austen, all for the purpose of bringing Nina and Maggie together. It's milked for all its worth, with a splendid collection of shopkeepers, especially the, er, seamstress. And the Doctor Who fan. Who dies, naturally. There are a number of characters here, though, whom I hope we shall be seeing again.

Muriel's clueless credulous is amusing too, as are the spelling deficiences of the hordes of Hell. Yet we also have several hints that Aziraphale and Crowley may well have... those sorts of feelings for each other. I suppose it says a lot that this can somehow manage to entertain so much with such a thin plot. Good stuff, but the further throiugh the season we get, the thinner the gruel.

Good Omens: The Hitchhiker

 "We'd like to apologise for the wait and the conditions, but we won't. Cheer up. Things could be worse, and they will be."

There's plenty this episode to amuse, but... isn't this season sort of treading water at this point? The first two episodes were superb, but it's looking increasingly as though there just isn't tgat much going on, just the Gabriel plot thread really, and it's all being padded out with minisides.

This time the minisode, while not the best, is decent enough, by the League of Gentlemen gang and featuring wartime London, prestidigitation, Nazi zombies and a fantastic take on the bureaucracy of Hell. But... it's pretty much the main point of the episode.

Otherwise... well, Aziraphale picks up a hitchhiker who turns out to be Shax, she tells him she's worked out whrre Gabriel is, and she then proceeds to persuade Beelzebub to order her to lead a full-on demonic assault on the bookshop. That's literally it.

There's entertainment to be had, but arc-wise, this episode advances things not one iota. There's literally no reason for it to exist.

Good Omens: I Know Where I'm Going

 "So Elspeth here has all the opportunities because she's so poor."

"That's lunacy."

"No, that's ineffable."

The above quote says it all. Like last week's "minisode" (I've finally worked out what's going on with those: they're the historical flashbacks inserted into the episodes), Aziraphale learns a damn good lesson on moral ambiguity, and on the fact that seeing morality s something literally dictated from on high may not be the best idea. Here, he learns that lesson in 1820s Edinbugh, complete with bodysnatchers, laudanum, David Tennant getting to use his real accent and the anachronistic use of "Flower of Scotland".

It must be sais, fun though the episode is. Yes, Muriel's attempts and pretending to be a human police officer are hilartious, but the effect of her being there is to prevent the Maggie/Nina romance plot from having to move forward too quickly so other stuff can happen. Aziraphale discovers a few clues in Edinburgh, but it isn't much.

Whatever has been going on with Gabriel gets curiouser and curiouser, though. Plus Shax, and Beelxebub, have worked out where Gabriel is, and this means war. Still, fun though this episode genuinely is, with another sparkling script, I'll be glad if some more actual stuff can happen next time.

Good Omens: The Clue

 "Shoemaking and obstetrics. Those have always been the twin passions of Bildad the Shuhite."

This is, of course, wonderful stuff. The stuff about Job (took me a while to recognise Peter Davison under all that make-up) is a delight, the perfect way to show us how Crowley first got Aziraphale to doubt that God was truly all-wise and all-benevolent, while Crowley subtly shows himself not actually to be as bad as he pretends to be. All of the flashback stuff is a delight- and shows Gabriel to be an amoral git, the sort of bad manager we've all had, a proper contrast with the innocent Jim of today.

The plot is fun, too. Aziraphale simply has to get Maggie and Nina to fall in love to stop last episode's miracle looking suspiciois to the senior management of Heaven. There's the mystery of a jukebox in an Edinburgh pub which eventually turns all records into the one Buddy Holly b-side. And the fact that of course the children of God's favourite goody-goody are going to be insufferably entitled. This is the best comedy in yonks, yet it has real subtext too. We must never take our morals from authority, but from our hearts.

Oh, and Jane Austen, that well-known bank robber, smuggler and spy, also wrote novels on the side. Who'd have thunk it?

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.

Good Omens: The Book

"Let us discuss my purchase in a private place, because I am buying... pornography!"

The quality and the humour doesn't let up for the superb second episode. The entire exchange on pornography in the bookshop between Angel and Aziraphale had Mrs Llamastrangler and myself in stitches. But this episode actually has a lot to do- it introduces the story of Agnes Nutter (the brilliant Josie Lawrence) and her Nice and Accurate Prophecies, and how she avenged her own death by blowing up the splendidly named Witchfinder Major Thou-Shalt-Not-Commit-Adultery Pulsifer and his silly underlings. It introduces Anathema Device, a very different, very Californian character than she appears in the novel; Newton Pulsifer and his Tom Baker scarf tie; and Witchfinder Sergeant Shadwell. It also introduces young Adam and his friends properly and, of course, in an amusing scene, War. I rather suspect the next three episodes will all feature a similar scene with a Horseman of the Apocalypse...

A lot of the laughs, though, still come from Crowley and Azirophale, despite their reduced screen time this time around, with Tennant and Shen again excellent. But one has to credit Gaiman's script, with so much plot to cram in, for managing also to cram in so many funny lines. I love how Crowley's car radio always seems to play the most appropriate Queen song, and how 666 is literally the phone number of the Antichrist, a nice resolution to our pair of angel/demons hunting Adam down without either of their respective Head Offices being in on what they're up to.

This is bloody brilliant. And we're really still only in the set-up phase.

Alice in Wonderland (1999 TV Film)

“Chop, Chop! Blood everywhere! Proud to be Queen!”

It’s both odd and refreshing to watch such a straight adaptation after Tim Burton’s Whimsical and action packed version. It’s such a wonderfully straight adaptation, even though this means it’s rather long. The whole look of the production has an ineffable late ‘90’sness that recalls many television films from the period. It has a gloss and a picture quality which, though they have dated slightly, look gorgeous.

The cast are as glittering as can be, so much so, in fact, that it was an agonising task narrowing down those cast members who would appear in the tags. Nevertheless, the stand out performance is from the young Tina Majorino, who gives us a likable and realistic Alice while maintaining a flawless British RP accent throughout. The other stand-out performances are from Miranda Richardson as the Queen of Hearts and Martin Short as the Mad Hatter.  This Queen of Hearts is gloriously eccentric and wonderfully homicidal, and perfectly cast, given her performance as Queen Elizabeth I in Blackadder II fourteen years previously. This Mad Hatter is arguably the best version I have ever seen, at the same time utterly mad yet unthreatening and child friendly.

The special effects, courtesy of sparing use of CGI and the muppetry skills of the late Jim Henson’s Workshop, are superb and a huge contribution to the success of the film. Some of the choices made are intriguing. The caterpillar is made to look very SGT Pepper, while the Queen of Hearts, as my girlfriend noticed, is carrying what can only be described as “The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch”. It must be said, however, that the Griffin looks uncannily like a raggedy Big Bird.

Perhaps this could be said equally of the book, but, well, this is in no way druggie, is it? I know this is hardly the most original observation, but, well, a hookah smoking caterpillar (in no way a reference to opium); mushrooms that make you grow or shrink; and the general sense that the logic of stoned conversations applies here…Well!

The ending, with Alice having gained confidence from her experiences, is mainly fun because of the chance to see all the same actors out of character, per se. It has to be said, that the film is bloody long, but there is certainly value in a thorough version. The only moment where the film flags is the sequence with the Griffin and the Mock Turtle, where Gene Wilder somehow fails to capture his usual charisma. I admit, I’ve only seen two, but this is my favourite version of the story.