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: 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 Arrival

 “I don’t believe the Almighty has actually created a suggestion box.”

This isn’t just wonderful television. It’s pure bliss.

Take the pre-credits flashback scene, a two-hander between Crowley and Aziraphale set at the moment of creation. Isn’t it a sketch right up there with the very best of Monty Python, the perfect hook for potential new viewers, deliberately rigging off Life of Brian while being every bit as good? Yet with the added joyful depths of David Tennant and Michael Sheen as actors utterly on top of their roles, the perfect double act? It’s exquisite.

That’s before we even start with the superlative comedy genius of Jon Hamm. This is first class comedy. Yet it’s simultaneously deeper than that. The conceit- that reality is as Christian fundamentalists see it, but that God therefore works in very mysterious ways indeed- is nicely distilled for the benefit of new viewers. This first scene at once encapsulates who the characters are and what the series is about.

So where is this seriess headed? It appears to be mysterious political skulduggery between Heaven and Hell, with the Almighty as a deeply cynical player of ten dimensional chess: a valid theological viewpoint, I feel. No witchfinders, antichrist children or witch descendents this time, although we do have what seems to be the beginning of a rather sweet romance between Maggie and Nina, two of Aziraphale's fellow street retailers of quirky goods. 

We also have lots of splendid interaction between our favourite two celestial beings, lots of office politics in Heaven- Doon Mackichan is already promising as the ambitious Archangel Michael. But it seems Gabriel is persona non grata, exiled to Earth with neither wings not memories- or, indeed, clothing- and only a seemingly empty box. And no sooner do Crowley and Aziraphale resolve to shelter him than we find that anyone found doing so will be subjected to "extreme sanctions". And this means... oh dear.

This is exquisite. Far more than mere superb telly.

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.

Good Omens: In the Beginning

”Welcome to the end times..”

I've read the novel of Good Omens. In fact, I've read it half a dozen times, which puts it right up there with Life, the Universe and Everything. So you could say I'm the kind of fanboy you'd expect would be hard to please, except Neil Gaiman himself is showrunning this (Sir Terry being sadly unable to join him), and the cast looked mouth-watering. So, especially now I've obviously seen it, let us not pretend I'm not going to be saying I like this.

Because, well, even before we start it's clear that the source material is superb, and David Tennant as Crowley is the most appropriate casting choice since Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark. But Michael Sheen as Azirophale is equally superb; Sheen is one of those actors who doesn't seem to have a style but simply to inhabit the character he's playing like a true chameleon, whether it's Tony Blair, David Frost or a moderate angel who is good mates with his fellow centrist from downstairs.

It all looks great, with loads of CGI, and it's a good way of structuring a first episode, with the backstory of, well, creation, but also of the ancient friendship between Crowley and Azirophale, and then straight into the old pastiche of The Omen. There are some nice additions, too. God as a narrator is a great idea, as is her gender. Jon Hamm as Heavenly middle manager Gabriel is inspired too, being to Aziraphale what Hastur and Ligur are to Crowley, and a bloody funny character too. The humour from the novel is translated intact, but the new stuff it just as funny. An excellent start.

Doctor Who: Fear Her

“You just took a council axe from a council van and now you’re chopping up a council road. I’m reporting you to the council!”



It’s Doctor Who, in the surroundings of everyday suburbia, in fact deliberately and exaggeratedly so. Even the slight futurishness(?) of it being the 2012 London Olympics has lost much of its, er, futurishness over the last four years. This feels a bit uneasy- the mundane in Doctor Who basically exists only to be contrasted with the fantastic, and we just don’t get enough of that here. And I’m a bit uneasy about Rose visiting her own very near future. I’m sure the great Mr Blinovitch wouldn’t approve.

Of course, this isn’t actually a normal street at all- everyone’s far too neighbourly for that. This is normal everyday life as defined by television rather than reality, although at least it doesn’t go as far as something like Eastenders where the same few families seem to hardly ever venture beyond the same few square metres and hardly seem to encounter anybody outside their little group.

The teaser and the early scenes aren’t very promising- the premise, of a child’s drawings coming to life, doesn’t have a lot of obvious potential and the main guest star, Nina Sosanya, seems to be wasted in the role of a wet drip. And all this from the pen of Matthew “Life on Mars” Graham.

Oh, there are brief moments of charm and humour, up to a point. The council man is a nice bit of comic relief, although a little too broadly written in the context of the wider story, and there’s a good gag with the TARDIS landing. But it’s all a bit dull. Even the bit with the cat reminding me of Survival just reminded me of how inferior this is. Still- a cat, a box: I’m sure there’s a good joke involving the word Schrödinger in there somewhere.

On the other hand, there are less impressive bits- Huw Edwards getting overexcited, the, er, terrifying chalk drawing in the wardrobe, but just as the good bits aren’t good enough to achieve escape velocity from the general mood of “meh”, nor are the bad bits sufficiently bad.

The fact that the baddie is just a lonely ickle kiddie isn’t actually necessarily a bad idea, and could probably have been done in a way which wasn’t vomit-inducingly twee. Unfortunately it wasn’t. In fact, this is a story where everybody’s emotional lives only seem to work in a cute and superficial way. We hear a lot about the relationship between Chloe, her mother, and her abusive father, but there’s no depth to any of it.

Still- the Doctor tells Rose that “I was a dad once.” Bit of a bombshell there, although of course technically this was pretty heavily implied as early as An Unearthly Child for obvious reasons.

After a succession of cute and sentimental endings the thing finishes, but not before Rose pretty much says to the Doctor that they’ll be together forever and Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong. It’s an odd one, this; not so much actively bad but passively lacking in anything of note, Doctor Who by numbers. This is the shortest review I’ve done for a while, but I’m finding it rather hard to say much about it. 2/5, the weakest episode of the twenty-first century so far.