Good Omens tv show

[sophia_sol]

I've loved Good Omens for many years, so when I heard there was a tv adaptation of it that had actually done a pretty good job, I was like, aw fuck, I guess I have to watch some tv then.

Watching tv is hard for me, between being Extremely Easily embarrassment-squicked and also finding plot stressful, both of which problems are greatly amplified by consuming narratives in audio-visual formats. And tv goes on for so much longer than movies, that it's just that much harder to actually make it through. (although movies are themselves challenging enough!)

So I've pretty much given up on watching tv shows in recent years. But. Good Omens!

So yeah I watched it.

By which I mean, I watched much of it. I did a lot of judicious skipping of scenes I was having trouble with, to ensure I actually FINISHED the dang show instead of getting hung up 20 minutes into the first episode.*

And it was worth the effort! I didn't love everything about it but I enjoyed it enough to have been glad to have watched it.

I'm possibly being unfair in some of my critical feelings towards the show, since I haven't read the book in AT LEAST a decade and possibly longer, so I'm not comparing the show to the book but instead comparing the show to what I remember liking about the book. Which is a different thing entirely.

But to me it didn't feel like Aziraphale and Crowley were the same people as in the book. Aziraphale was too nice, and Crowley......look, I've seen David Tennant in a few too many things, so what I was seeing was "David Tennant having a great time pretending to be Crowley" rather than "Crowley".

And watching David Tennant have a great time pretending to be Crowley, along with heart-eyes-Aziraphale, was truly fun! I liked them both a lot! It's just that they were a different Aziraphale and Crowley.

And I loved how much the show committed to showing how important the relationship between Aziraphale and Crowley is. This was absolutely amazing and I loved it a lot. And then the line in ep 3 where Aziraphale says "You go to fast for me, Crowley," oh dang I just about DIED, it was incredible. I had seen people on the internet freak out about this line already so I was in some respects expecting it, but I was NOT expecting it to be a) DIRECTLY IN RESPONSE TO A FRIENDSHIP OVERTURE and b) in the second half of the 20th century. Oh my god. Aziraphale!

So yes. Mostly I loved this adaptation for being an extremely charming story of the complicated relationship between an angel and a demon who love each other very much. Though I also have to put in a good word for whoever decided to use Extremely On The Nose choices of Queen songs throughout because that was A+.

The things I didn't like......eh, I don't really feel the need to get into it honestly.

But I will mention one thing that I have no idea if I like or not, which is that God uses they/them pronouns for Pollution. So that's....okay, like, nonbinary representation is nice, but making the only explicitly trans person in the entire show be one of the literal members of team apocalypse? Don't love it. I would be all over nonbinary Pollution if we had A N Y other trans people in the entire show! But.


* things I skipped:
the nuns
the birthday party
Newt
Shadwell
Madame Tracy
nearly every time Aziraphale went to Heaven's room of business to talk to the other angels

Comments

[skygiants]

Given the way the genders of the Them are designed to line up with the Team Apocalypse genders in the original, I am vehemently assuming nonbinary Brian and nobody can stop me. (But I also wish there had been enough of the Them for there to even be much of a Brian.)

[sophia_sol]

Oh hello yes I absolutely need nonbinary Brian in my life!!! I was actually surprised by how much I enjoyed the non-Adam parts of the Them, it really would have been great to have more of them. Especially if it involved nonbinary Brian!

[tei]

I think the nb Pollution thing was slightly odd to me because it didn't quite line up with much else that we'd been told, particularly in a (authorial) Word of God context, about gender for supernatural beings. Like... my understanding is that all of these beings are sexless and genderless, and they manifest in certain physical forms for convenience but they aren't the gender of their body, they're just angels/demons/whatever. Except for Aziraphale and Crowley, who have "gone native," and thus have settled into the human forms they like best, including gender and sexuality preferences of some sort. But if they really are outliers in that department... then it would have made more sense for all of the other supernatural entities portrayed in non-gendered ways, or in ways that shift depending on their situation. If Pollution is the only nonbinary being, that implies that War is actually a woman and Famine is actually a man, which I don't think is supposed to be the case. And yeah, if the supernatural beings really do have genders that they actively identify with, then it would have been nice for Pollution to not be the only nonbinary one (Archangel Michael? I don't remember how they were addressed...)

[aria]

I also had the "am I comparing this to the book or my memory of it" and immediately also did a book reread, after which I can report: I wish they'd kept some of the ways Aziraphale is slightly horrible in the book, because he is a bit too nice! but a lot of book Aziraphale is also faithfully there and I loved it! I agree that Crowley absolutely does suffer from some "David Tennant is having a great time pretending to be Crowley," what a good way to put it.

YOU GO TOO FAST FOR ME CROWLEY I keep thinking about that and clutching my chest.

And re: nonbinary Pollution, yeah, that was ... I had so many friends be so excited about it, and frankly: yay, sure, but Death and War and Famine are also genderless concepts! Why are we all so excited about this thing that isn't really representation?? I do love the idea of nonbinary Brian as floated by the other commenters, though, omg.