Good Omens - Amazon

JP Liz V1

Agent Coulson wrote: »

Good Omens

Neil Gaiman to Adapt Novel ‘Good Omens’ as Amazon Series

Amazon Studios will adapt Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s novel “Good Omens” into a six-episode limited series, the studio announced on Thursday.

The 2006 novel takes place in 2018 when the Apocalypse is near and Final Judgment is set to descend upon humanity.

Set to debut in 2018 on Prime Video, “Good Omens” will consist of six one-hour episodes entirely written by Gaiman, who will also serve as showrunner. (Veteran fantasy writer Pratchett died in March 2015.)

This marks the latest Gaiman novel to get turned into a TV series. Starz will premiere its adaptation of the best-selling author’s “American Gods” later this year. In addition, “Hamilton” producer Jeffrey Seller and his producing partner Flody Suarez are producing an adaptation of Gaiman’s “Interworld” for Universal Cable Productions.

According to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter Witch — the world’s only completely accurate book of prophecies, within the universe of “Good Omens” — the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. Just before dinner.

So the armies of Good and Evil are amassing, Atlantis is rising, and tempers are flaring. Everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan. Except Aziraphale, a somewhat fussy angel, and Crowley, a fast-living demon–both of whom have lived amongst Earth’s mortals since The Beginning and have grown rather fond of the lifestyle–are not actually looking forward to the coming war. And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist.

http://www.thewrap.com/neil-gaiman-to-adapt-novel-good-omens-as-amazon-limited-series/

JP Liz V1 wrote: »

Michael Sheen, David Tennant, John Hamm join the other previously cast Adria Arjona, Nina Sosanya, Jack Whitehall, Michael McKean, Miranda Richardson, Ned Dennehy and Ariyon Bakare

Nick Offerman joins

http://variety.com/2018/tv/news/parks-and-recreation-nick-offerman-amazon-neil-gaiman-good-omens-1202719109/

Zaph

I can't wait for this, Good Omens is one of my all-time favourite books, and if the TV series is half as funny as the book it's going to be brilliant.

fitz

I still lament that the Gilliam version with Robin Williams/pre-Pirates Johnny Depp as Aziraphael and Crowley fell apart. Would have been incredible.

This should be good though... Solid casting.

JP Liz V1

Frances McDormand to voice God

https://tvline.com/2018/07/20/frances-mcdormand-voice-god-good-omens-amazon/

Mr E

Hopefully she uses her Minnesota accent from Fargo.

The Black Oil

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZSXlNRRoGU

Looks pretty good...

TheIrishGrover

Everything I hear about this has ticked my boxes. Gaiman heavily involved, the pretty damn good trailer and....

That......

CAST!!!

That is the most perfecting casting I've ever seen on a show. First out of the gate: Tennant and Sheen. Amazeballs (As was the fashionable statement of the time)

Tennant
Sheen
John Hamm
Derek Jacobi
Paul Kaye
Nick Offerman
Jack Whitehall
Miranda Richardson
And did someone say Franses McDormand?

Jesus, you know casting is good when you can identify the characters they are playing if you know th source material.

I remember following Lord of The Rings closely when it was being made. I didn't know Orlando Bloom previously or Merry/Pippin actors but I knew the rest of the actors from previous stuff. The only thing I wasn't gone on was Stewart Townsend as Aragorn. Thought he was too young and pretty. Shortly after production began he was replaced with Mortensen and I thought? "The quiet guy from Witness? Yeah, he could do that". Same with the Harry Potter roles, whatever about the main trio there is no doubting that the adult casting was fantastic.

Goes to show how important casting is. Can you imagine Sean Connery as Gandalf? (First choice). Shudder!

wench

Release date announced, 31 May 2019

https://www.radiotimes.com/news/on-demand/2019-02-14/good-omens-release-date-confirmed-amazon-prime-video/

And as if the cast wasn't already good enough, Benedict Cumberbatch will be Satan...

Basq

Thought this would air earlier than that!

Agent Coulson

Agent Coulson

Brian Cox will voice Death.

Drops on Amazon on May 31st.

First trailer.

pixelburp

Do we know if this is already marked as a Limited Series, or indeed will track the entire course of the book? Wasn't a particularly long novel, and given it revolves around a literal chase against the End Times, I can't see the story stretching that far into multiple runs.

wench

One series, six episodes, that's it done and dusted.

pixelburp

Good to hear; 6 episodes sounds about enough to cover the novel faithfully...

pixelburp

Well that's a bit ... weird.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Boz7rHYLj6s

pixelburp

pixelburp wrote: »

Well that's a bit ... weird.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Boz7rHYLj6s

I thought of Monty Python straight off whilst watching that! Wonder if Gilliam is involved after all!

corkie

Reminder: Airing on the 31st May!





Selection of New TV shows and returning shows. Just a small collection! (incl. up to 28th July).

Agent Coulson

Watched the first two episodes and enjoying it.

Only 6 episodes in total.

pixelburp

This is on Amazon IE yeah?

EoinMcLovin

pixelburp wrote: »

This is on Amazon IE yeah?

Yep

icdg

It’s due to get an airing on BBC Two later on in the year too.

FunLover18

Very disappointing IMO, which is a shame considering the cast. The narration was far too heavy handed, at times literally explaining what characters on the screen were doing. Either trust your audience to follow what's going on or find a better way to show it. The captioning of locations and how long until the end of the world also got really annoying,

secondrowgal

icdg wrote: »

It’s due to get an airing on BBC Two later on in the year too.

Great, don't have Amazon

Any idea of when?

Basq

secondrowgal wrote: »

Any idea of when?

Not another 6 months by the looks of things..

According to Gaiman it will then air weekly on BBC2 in the UK around six months later.

Source

weemcd

Thought this looks absolutely rubbish myself

pixelburp

Only caught the first episode and I enjoyed it, despite the very intrusive narration. Some of it to be fair was quite funny, but most completely superfluous and felt like someone sitting beside you, stating the bleedin' obvious. The "swap" at the nunnery did not need a voiceover, and the worst example of the lot.

Skerries

Loved Tennant in this, he chewed up the scenery

MargeS

Just finished the 6 episodes.
I think Tennant and Sheen carried this.

mewso

A very British piece of whimsy. I enjoyed it. Some of it worked, some not so much. The kids didn't work well for me at all and it got really bad when

Adam held them prisoner in the forest.

The voice over was very Hitchhikers Guide (Pratchett was very much the Adams of fantasy to me back when I read the Discworld novels so its not surprising) but then it's one I never read so maybe the book had this kind of narration. I don't know.

Highlight for me was the episode

showing the two main characters meeting up throughout the ages

. Would have liked more of that.

FunLover18

mewso wrote: »

A very British piece of whimsy. I enjoyed it. Some of it worked, some not so much. The kids didn't work well for me at all and it got really bad when

Adam held them prisoner in the forest.

The voice over was very Hitchhikers Guide (Pratchett was very much the Adams of fantasy to me back when I read the Discworld novels so its not surprising) but then it's one I never read so maybe the book had this kind of narration. I don't know.

Highlight for me was the episode

showing the two main characters meeting up throughout the ages

. Would have liked more of that.

I agree about it feeling very Adamsy, the thing with THHG though is that in the tv and radio adaptations they were able to pass these little tangents off as excerpts from the titular book whereas here it's someone butting in. A lot of the narration is unnecessary, I think when Hastor and the other Demon first appear there's a bit about how they lurked and then lurked some more. AFAIK this is a direct lift from the book where it works because it's describing a scene the reader cannot see with a bit of humour whereas in the show we can see them arrive, we can see them lurking. It was like a weird audio description for the blind.

opus

MargeS wrote: »

Just finished the 6 episodes.
I think Tennant and Sheen carried this.

Just finished it as well, would agree. A lot of the rest of the characters didn't really hold my interest but a friend who's a big Terry Pratchett fan said it's stuck fairly close to book so guess that's just his style.

bnt

The reviews are all over the place, but I quite enjoyed the series - just finished it now. The story is streamlined from the book, but the essentials are there. I'm surprised at one omission: when the Four Horsepeople meet up at the biker café, they have a run in with four other bikers - Hell's Angels. When one of them asks which chapter they're from, Death answers "REVELATIONS. CHAPTER SIX". :eek: The Four Groupies of the Apocalypse then try to follow the Four Horsepeople, but come to a fishy end:

Thud. Thud. Thud.
Splat.

Some American reviews see the ending as setting things up for a sequel, but I can't see where they got that idea. Newton asks Anathema "do you want to be a descendant for ever?", and in the show we also see her burning the new batch of Agnes Nutter's prophecies to end the cycle. Gaiman has said there will be no sequel:

I think even talking about a sequel is wrong in some ways because the way I want people to see Good Omens isn’t, “Ah it’s the first season of Good Omens.” I want them to see Good Omens and get the idea that basically what we set out to make is a six hour long movie.

steve_r

Fairly disappointed with this, and found it a bit of a chore.

Felt Sheen and Tennant were decent but everyone else was fairly poor.

I don't think 6 episodes was the right way to tell this story. Everything felt really compressed and we didn't spend that much time with the secondary characters.

Narration didn't bother me as much as others but I can absolutely see how it would have annoyed others.

is_that_so

FunLover18 wrote: »

Very disappointing IMO, which is a shame considering the cast. The narration was far too heavy handed, at times literally explaining what characters on the screen were doing. Either trust your audience to follow what's going on or find a better way to show it. The captioning of locations and how long until the end of the world also got really annoying,

Thought it was OK when they were in it but very flat in places otherwise. Suffered from pacing and plotting issues IMO but at least it was only 6 episodes.

sky88

finished the 4th episode last night and god its just a big load of meh really. i dont really care how it ends seems to have really wasted a good supporting cast with jon hamm etc. Obly bit of enjoyment is when tenant and sheen are on screen together

very dissapointing

Sonics2k

I enjoyed it over all, which surprised me considering Good Omens is in my top 3 favourite books.

Casting was well done and the scenes were well placed.

This article however gave me great amusement.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jun/20/petition-netflix-cancel-amazon-prime-good-omens-christian-neil-gaiman-terry-pratchett

Mr E

I was just going to post that. What a story. Not one of them has seen it I'd say.

pixelburp

Well that's my favourite story of the week; what utter, pearl-clutching morons

As to the show, I've enjoyed it but it has been a little rough in places; the narration settled down eventually but it could have done with some bettering pacing.

Oh and the FX were surprisingly terrible in places, really poor CGI here and there. Wonder if this was finished in a rush...

The Black Oil

Heh.

https://twitter.com/PrimeVideo/status/1141829004560723969

jester77

Sonics2k wrote: »

I enjoyed it over all, which surprised me considering Good Omens is in my top 3 favourite books.

Casting was well done and the scenes were well placed.

This article however gave me great amusement.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jun/20/petition-netflix-cancel-amazon-prime-good-omens-christian-neil-gaiman-terry-pratchett

hmmm, or maybe just a bit of very clever marketing!

Sleepy

Watching this with the kids and enjoying it so far (only one episode in).

TheIrishGrover

Apparently Netflix stated they would stop production and Amazon stated they would stop production of "Stranger Things"

As for the show: I thought it was OK. I was a big fan of the book and I missed the other Horsemen as mentioned above.

I thought it was....... OK. I don't know why I didn't think more. Sheen and Tenant were perfect in the parts as well as John Hamm

"I'm the Angel F*cking GABRIEL!

. I don't think it gave enough time to Pulsifer and Anathema Device was distractingly attractive. You know, everyone was relatively normal looking and then you have this American model thrown in there.

The kids barely featured and it missed one of my favourite lines from the book:

Base Guard as the kids cycle past:"Hey, did one of those kids have what looked like a friendly-looking turd in his basket?"
Pulsifer:"No"
Base Guard:"Then they are in some SERIOUS trouble!"

Maybe I was just expecting too much as I loved the book and knew it so well.

JP Liz V1

icdg wrote: »

It’s due to get an airing on BBC Two later on in the year too.

BBC 2 on Wednesday January 15th at 9pm

Harry Palmr

bump for tonight. Should I bother?

Zaph

I'm a big fan of the book and I really enjoyed the series. As much for Sheen and Tennant as anything, they're perfectly cast.

pixelburp

It's only 6 episodes long, so not a huge investment It loses a lot of its momentum and kinda stumbles to its end, but is fairly faithful to the original book. The casting was spot on.

Harry Palmr

Weird to have cast an American for the narration, as the script is colloquial British English.

nuttyboy79

It's getting a 2nd season

https://journal.neilgaiman.com/2021/06/really-bloody-excellent-omens.html?fbclid=IwAR2IA4HHvC8zxrymYqfIxTDimur8T047cF8Rg7vQhTdXU1dfuEVX69FbnUc

nuttyboy79

nuttyboy79 wrote: »

It's getting a 2nd season

https://journal.neilgaiman.com/2021/06/really-bloody-excellent-omens.html?fbclid=IwAR2IA4HHvC8zxrymYqfIxTDimur8T047cF8Rg7vQhTdXU1dfuEVX69FbnUc

Interesting. I must be one of the few people that really enjoyed the show after reading the book.

nuttyboy79

Niner leprauchan wrote: »

Interesting. I must be one of the few people that really enjoyed the show after reading the book.

I thought it was great too. Obviously it could have had been better just with the inclusion of the Hell's Angels that become the 4 groupies of the Apocalypse would have made it for me.

pixelburp

At first blush I was disappointed to hear this; I don't think we needed a second series. But then the actual adaptation kinda ran out of steam a little so maybe unburdened by maintaining accuracy to the novel could free things up a little.