And Good Omens will make us feel fine
Good stories are almost always inspirational in some way. Although critics generally look down on it, fan fiction is a completely natural reaction to enjoying a book or a series of books. It can be difficult for new writers to start their own work—sometimes a familiar world with familiar characters can give someone a push out the door, allowing them to stretch their muscles and practice their art.
Other times, something new can come from something old, something that couldn’t have existed without the original work, something that adds to the story so strongly that it’s hard to imagine the original ideas without it.
While it might be surprising to some, much of the imagery behind Christian concepts of heaven and hell isn’t biblical. The character of Lucifer, his battles with God, the fall from grace, the garden of Eden, etc. aren’t described in detail in the holy book. Most of it comes from John Milton and “Paradise Lost”, while the general concepts of Purgatory and Hell come from Dante Alighieri and his “Divine Comedy”.
What are these books if not fan fiction? What is fan fiction if not ruminations on under-developed aspects of a story? Stories inspire stories. It’s just what they do.
In 1990, these stories inspired another story. Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman took what came before and added to it with “Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch”, a story about angels and demons and the end of the world. This week, Amazon Prime has released an adaptation of the novel as a miniseries.
The central conceit of Good Omens is that the world is really only around 6,000 years old, God’s Plan is largely ineffable, and that the world is largely fine. At least, it is for the angel Aziraphale, the former guardian of the gates of Eden, complete with flaming sword, and Crowley, the serpent demon who suggested to Eve that apples were really just fruit and doesn’t understand what’s wrong with understanding the difference between good and evil.
The pair have been crossing paths for aeons over the course of history, doing their thing, and by and large have become very comfortable on Earth. Suffice to say, they like it quite a bit. But all things come to an end eventually, and Armageddon is just around the corner. The Anti-Christ has been born and the Four Horseman are getting ready to ride. It’s just that this particular angel and the demon aren’t quite ready to do battle. They decide to avert the End of Days and generally do a terrible job of it.
If you can’t tell, Good Omens is a comedy. It’s a very British comedy, in fact. The cast is excellent, featuring David Tennant, Michael Sheen, Jon Hamm, Frances McDormand, and Michael McKean, among others.
It’s fairly faithful to the book and the decision to adapt the book into a miniseries rather than a multi-season show is a good one—American Gods, another Gaiman classic, has been adapted into a show and suffers from a plodding second season that doesn’t seem to go anywhere.
Good Omens keeps the pace up and moves along from scene to scene, episode to episode, without ever being boring. The adaptation is so good, in fact, that it suffers from some of the same problems that the book had, namely that it jumps through the plot so quickly that the characters themselves feel a bit flat.
This is forgivable, given the genre, but it leaves the audience wanting more, especially when it comes to understanding the systems that these characters operate in. But then, when dealing with matters of faith and the order of the universe, that’s largely true of our own reality as well.
Most of the scripts were written by Gaiman himself, which is likely why the miniseries seems so true to the books. It doesn’t suffer from the Game of Thrones syndrome where the writers are working with an incomplete story, where they need to fill in the blanks and lack the skill to do so adequately.
Overall, Good Omens is a satisfying experience for fans of the books, and likely a good one for those unfamiliar with the source material. It’s a good way to spend a Sunday afternoon.