Good Omens

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Good Omens

Postby tinyrick » Wed Jun 26, 2019 6:19 am

I read the book and really liked this series. David Tennant was the perfect casting choice for a demon that was mostly mischievous and not necessarily evil. It felt like I was watching a bad guy version of Doctor Who during his scenes. I also like the idea of a series that's only one or two seasons and just ends cause the story's been told. Hulu's Catch-22 is similar in that regard. I haven't read the book yet, but as far as I know, the first, and probably only, season, tells the whole story.
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Re: Good Omens

Postby Twistappel » Wed Jun 26, 2019 9:12 pm

I was very happy that:
  • The series features a Queen-heavy soundtrack, as is right and fitting.
  • Spoiler - EP 6
    They left in the bit where Crowley steps up to do battle with Satan himself, wielding a tire iron.

And yeah, I did a little "squee" when I found out that David Tennant hat been cast as Crowley. He was my dream casting choice.

Pretty much my only complaint was that I felt like some of the bits featuring the Them fell a bit flat.
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Re: Good Omens

Postby JamishT » Thu Jun 27, 2019 12:15 am

I watched this based purely on the casting of David Tennant, and I didn't know it was based on a book until a few episodes in. As most of y'all know, I grew up in a very religious family, and spent time on staff at a Christian organization that focuses a lot on the End Times. Because of that background, I caught a lot of references and stuff from the Bible, and also got annoyed by the, uh, contradictions. I'm not one of those Christians who signed a petition calling for Netflix to stop making it (the levels of ignorance!), because I know the difference between trying to tell a biblical story and taking a biblical story and trying a new angle/making a new ending because it's an interesting concept.

In short, I quite enjoyed it, regardless of any theological issues I may have with it. I'm not sure it has material for a second season, but then again, I don't know the books or anything.
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Re: Good Omens

Postby Twistappel » Thu Jun 27, 2019 1:01 am

JamishT wrote:In short, I quite enjoyed it, regardless of any theological issues I may have with it. I'm not sure it has material for a second season, but then again, I don't know the books or anything.


I believe that at one time, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett did have plans for a follow-up novel, but never actually wrote one, for whatever reason. They're unlikely now, what with Pratchett being dead and all. Other than that, the novel ends more or less at the same point as the TV show.

In any case, it seems like a fairly self-contained story, and like tinyrick, I prefer my TV shows to end when the narative reaches its logical conclusion.
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Re: Good Omens

Postby tinyrick » Sat Jun 29, 2019 4:20 pm

JamishT wrote:I watched this based purely on the casting of David Tennant, and I didn't know it was based on a book until a few episodes in. As most of y'all know, I grew up in a very religious family, and spent time on staff at a Christian organization that focuses a lot on the End Times. Because of that background, I caught a lot of references and stuff from the Bible, and also got annoyed by the, uh, contradictions. I'm not one of those Christians who signed a petition calling for Netflix to stop making it (the levels of ignorance!), because I know the difference between trying to tell a biblical story and taking a biblical story and trying a new angle/making a new ending because it's an interesting concept.

In short, I quite enjoyed it, regardless of any theological issues I may have with it. I'm not sure it has material for a second season, but then again, I don't know the books or anything.


If anything, this show confirmed some of the more radical ideas of Christianity, like the Earth only being 6000 years old, but considering that one of the author's wrote over 20 books about a flat planet that sat on top of four giant elephants that stood on top of a giant turtle, it's not like you can claim he took the young Earth theory all that seriously.
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Re: Good Omens

Postby Kivutar » Mon Jul 08, 2019 4:30 pm

I don't see it so much as making fun of Christianity so much as it's making fun of human nature, with the religious story being more of a medium than anything else.

I also loved it more than it is possible to express, so there's that :)
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Last edited by Kivutar on Tue Jul 09, 2019 7:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Good Omens

Postby JamishT » Tue Jul 09, 2019 6:28 am

Kivutar wrote:I don't see it so much as making fun of Christianity so much as it's making fun of human nature, with the religious story being more of a medium than anything else.


This is how I wish I would have put my thoughts into words.

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Re: Good Omens

Postby 52xMax » Fri Jul 19, 2019 4:53 pm

I thought the series was fine, but I almost wish I hadn't read the book beforehand, because I wouldn't have a basis for comparison and thus complain about the stuff they changed and so on.

First of all, both Sheen and Tenant are perfectly cast, and they have incredible chemistry on screen. There's a lot of solid casting choices all around, such as Frances McDormand, Jon Hamm, Michael McKean, but also the smaller roles and cameos which I'd rather not spoil. I don't feel that anyone was miscast, including the children, which are always tricky to deal with, but some of the performances could've been improved by better dialogue, or frankly if they'd been given something to work with. That's the problem of shows with tons and tons of characters such as this.

One of the reasons I loved the book, aside from the witty dialogue and comedic timing, was the religious/philosophical aspects of it, and I feel like a lot of that was lost in translation. Like the parts where Crowley (I know he gets his name for being the snake in the garden of Eden, but that had to have been an intentional reference to old Aleister) takes credit for bad things like the crusades or the french reign of terror, which were actually the doing of humans, along with a lot of good things. The main theme of the book being that there's both good and bad in all of us humans, including perhaps the antichrist.

Mostly, I felt that six episodes was stretching the source material too much, while at the same time there was a bunch of stuff that was left on the chopping block. For instance, I would've liked to see more from the satanic nuns, or from the four horsemen and the bikers who tagged along for the ride. I suppose the trade in were more scenes from heaven and hell and some scenes about Aziraphael and Crowley's bromance through history, which were nice, but didn't really help the story move along. That's a general criticism I have for content made for streaming platforms, which is divided into a certain number of episodes for contractual reasons, and even though the appeal of these shows is be to watched uninterrupted for long stretches of time until they're done, they still cut them into standard time lengths instead of taking full advantage of the nature of the media. Documentaries especially suffer from this practice.

Also, Crowley's sunglasses are wicked cool (pun intended), I want need them!

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Re: Good Omens

Postby tinyrick » Mon Jul 22, 2019 11:31 am

52xMax wrote:Mostly, I felt that six episodes was stretching the source material too much, while at the same time there was a bunch of stuff that was left on the chopping block. For instance, I would've liked to see more from the satanic nuns, or from the four horsemen and the bikers who tagged along for the ride.


One of my favorite passages from the book was about the Satanic nuns. I can't remember how it was exactly worded, but it was about how the Satanic nuns weren't recent converts, but raised as Satanists and being 4th or 5th generation Satanists really took the edge off. They really didn't do the whole dark ritual thing. They mostly just used it as a reason to meet up and play bridge every week.
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