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04.08.2023
#Mira-Marathon | Good Omens
Serial Name: Good Omens | Season 1 | (2019) Production studios: BBC Studios, Amazon Studios, The Blank Corporation, Narrativia, Bang Post Production, Salt River Studios; Director by: Douglas Mackinnon; Screenwriters: Neil Gaiman, John Finnemore, Cat Clarke, Jeremy Dyson, Andy Nyman; Starring: Michael Sheen, David Tennant, Sam Taylor Buck, Adria Arjona, Jack Whitehall; Genres: Fantasy, Comedy; Running Time: One series – 55 minutes | All series – 5 hours, 30 minutes;
"Good Omens" is a series based on the novel by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, about a demon and an angel who try to prevent the coming of the Antichrist. This is a funny and exciting story with great characters and important themes.
My rating: 9/10
10.08.2023
#Mira-Marathon | Good Omens
I just noticed that I forgot to post about Good Omens season 2.
Serial Name: Good Omens | Season 2 | (2023); Production studios: BBC Studios, Amazon Studios, The Blank Corporation, Narrativia, Bang Post Production, Salt River Studios; Director by: Douglas Mackinnon; Screenwriters: Neil Gaiman, John Finnemore, Jeremy Dyson, Cat Clarke, Andy Nyman; Starring: Michael Sheen, David Tennant, Jon Hamm, Shelley Conn, Nina Sosanya; Genres: Fantasy, Comedy; Running Time: One series – 55 minutes | All series – 5 hours 30 minutes;
The series "Good Omens" is based on the work of Pratchett and Gaiman. The second season offers a continuation of the adventures of an angel and a demon who face new challenges, including the disappearance of the archangel Gabriel, which may lead to a new apocalypse. New characters, interesting plots and funny moments make this season exciting, but there are some confusing plots and jokes, which may not be to everyone's taste.
My rating: 8/10
Good Omens Season 2 - The Nice and Accurate Summary of everything we know so far
All of the official info we got about Good Omens season 2 in one place (for the unofficial stuff, like photos of the shooting I’ve got the gos2unofficial tag).
How long has S2 been in the making, plans, and the possibility of S3:
Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman started planning sequel to the book in 1989 - even before it has been published and came up with the story in Seattle in 1990. But because their careers took off and they had an ocean in the between them, it was never realized it in the 90s. In 2005 they made another plans to write in a year or so but in 2007 Terry was diagnosed with Alzheimer so again the plans did not come into fruition.
In 2010 Terry and Neil agreed to let people go forward with making Good Omens as a TV show, they talked about the shape of the show as a whole and where it would go.
Neil wrote the first season with the future seasons, second and third, in mind.
The purpose of the second season is to finish the story which Neil and Terry planned.
The sequel planned in 1989 is a hypothetical Season 3. Season 2 is how we get from the end of Season 1 to the place where we could start Season 3. Neil also said: Things from the sequel went into Season 1 and Season 2, but mostly to get things into position for Season 3 which would use the plot for the sequel as its template. or also: Season 3 is the story that Terry and I came up with in Seattle in 1990. Season 2 is what needs to happen in order to get us to the point of starting that episode, so I felt very unconstrained building it. I’d already started putting pieces in place in Season 1.
Three seasons is the plan - as Neil said ‘if Amazon and the BBC are up for the third’.
Neil stared plotting the second season in 2018, a year before the first season came out.
In August 2019 he told Amazon and BBC at fancy breakfast, This is the plot., and they said, Oh, we like that plot.
In December he and John Finnemore got together, at Alfie’s Roof Garden Cafe overlooking the Regents Canal, and Neil told him the plot and he said, That is a good plot, but how does it end?, Neil said that he doesn’t have ends until he gets there but John needed one so Neil said, How about this? and told him the end and John said, That’s a good end. And that is the end we’ve got.
The first scene of season two was written in pencil in a notebook on Skye in Summer 2020, the writing was finished in late summer 2021 (with small rewrites during the shooting). The season was greenlit, Neil: Basically on the 16th of September 2020. Although they didn’t actually get us an okay to start writing until mid December 2020. I had started writing already, and so had John Finnemore, and some key scenes from episode 1 had already been written, but we didn’t start properly writing until we knew it was a go.
Neil also said about S2: Season 2 is kind of quiet and gentle and romantic as opposed to season 1. And if we ever get to hypothetical season 3 it will probably not be quiet and gentle and romantic either but this is the soft, gentle, romance in the filling of the sandwich.
Cast and crew:
The casting begun in March 2020 with Suzanne Smith as the casting director.
Writing: Neil Gaiman and co-writer John Finnemore, with also Cat Clarke, Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman writing minisodes.
Director: Douglas Mackinnon
Showrunners: Neil Gaiman and Douglas Mackinnon (who directed and executive produced the first season) are going to co-showrun.
Executive producers: Neil Gaiman, Douglas Mackinnon, Rob Wilkins, John Finnemore and Josh Cole (BBC Studios Productions’ Head of Comedy).
Music: David G. Arnold, S1 music composer is returning and there will be new end credit theme song variations
Script Supervisor: Jemima Thomas is returning.
Director of photography: Gavin Finney is returning.
Production designer and head of the art department: Michael Ralph is returning.
Production: BBC Studios Productions, Amazon Studios, Narrativia and The Blank Corporation
The opening titles: are again being made by the Peter Anderson Studio, there will be new ones, even madder.
Storyboarding: Mike Collins is returning.
Cast:
Returning:
David Tennant as Crowley
Michael Sheen as Aziraphale
Jon Hamm as Gabriel
Doon Mackichan as Michael
Gloria Obianyo as Uriel
Derek Jacobi as Metatron
Elizabeth Berrington as Dagon.
Paul Adeyefa as Eric the Disposable Demon.
Maggie Service (Sister Theresa Garrulous in S1) plays a new character Maggie who runs a record shop which is beside Aziraphale’s bookshop in Soho, Mr. Fell is her landlord, shop passed through the generations. Her shop looks across shop where Nina works. She wears on her neck her great grandmother’s wedding ring, a heart pendant with an eye and a toucan pendant.
Nina Sosanya (Sister Mary Loquacious in S1) playes a new character Nina who works in the independent coffeeshop Give Me Coffe or Give Me Death, she is good with dealing with people in Soho who come in, not afraid of dealing with them. Wears great cardigans. Her character is quite grumpy.
Miranda Richardson (Madame Tracy in S1) plays a new character Shax, a demon that was sent on Earth as the replacement of sacked Crowley.
Mark Gatiss (Harmony in S1), Steve Pemberton (Glozier in S1), Reece Shearsmith (Shakespeare in S1) in roles ‘that span Heaven, Hell and Earth’ and Niamh Walsh (Greta Kleinschmidt in S1)
New:
Quelin Sepulveda as angel Muriel: a curious, gullible, well-meaning and chatty angel that spent 6000 filing in the same office in Heaven hoping that somebody would come in and the day would get more interesting and it doesn’t. She’s a 37th order scrivener, bottom of the pily, it’s her first time to Earth.
Liz Carr as Saraqael, an angel you don’t want to mess with, a very sarcastic angel.
Shelley Conn as Beelzebub (previously played by Anna Maxwell Martin who couldn’t make it), she requested a lot more flies. The difference in appearance is addressed in the show.
Donna Preston plays Mrs. Sandwich, and We’we never quite sure about Mrs. Sandwich’s profession but she’s definitely in Soho.
Tim Downie plays Mr Brown, chairman of the Whickber Street Traders and Shopkeepers’ Association.
Peter Davison (David Tennant’s father-in-law :)) plays Alastair.
Ty Tennant plays Ennon.
Andi Osho plays Sitis.
Abigail Lawrie plays Elspeth - a grave digger living on the streets in Victorian Edinburgh who digs up bodies for a local doctor to earn extra money.
Siân Phillips
Pete Firman (who is a magician in rl :))
Alex Norton
Beth Rylance
Andrew O’Neill they play a they/them person on the show
Not returning
Paul Chahidi (Sandalphon in S1) because he was unfortunately shooting something something else in the time they’d need him. Neil said: Fingers crossed for Season 3.
Jack Whitehall and Adria Arjona (Newt and Anathema in S1), Neil said: That doesn’t mean they won’t be back for the hypothetical Season 3 though.
Lourdes Faberes (Pollution in S1).
Ned Dennehy and Ariyon Bakare (Hastur and Ligur in S1). Neil said: Who isn’t to say they aren’t coming back in the hypothetical Season 3.
Anna Maxwell Martin (Beelzebub in S1) couldn’t make the filming (was in two shows and a stage play when they needed her).
Michael McKean (Shadwell in S1) was actually cast in S2 as a new character and was on the big script-reading Zoom call, but then world covid related issues meant that he wasn’t able to travel when they would have needed him, and they had to recast. Neil promised him that if ever we make a season 3 he’ll be in it.
When and where does the filming takes place:
The filming started on the 18th October 2021, at it was suppose to last for eighteen weeks with three weeks hiatus over Christmas, until the 11th March 2022. On the 20th February Neil said, ‘We’re in the last day of shooting.’ On the 1st March 2022 Douglas posted That’s a wrap. Then the post-production started and the series was handed in March 18 2023.
The entire second season was shot in Scotland - it’s based in Bathgate and the Central Belt of Scotland.
A big set was built in the studio in Bathgate to include for example Aziraphale’s Soho.
Outside the studio they were also filming in the Edinburgh Inverleith Park, Stirling and Old Stirling Town Cemetary, Hopetown House, Dumbarton, Edinburgh Stockbridge , Edinburgh Circus Lane, Edinburgh West Preston Street, Edinburgh Victoria Street and Bo’ness cinema Hippodrome .
How many episodes will S2 have
Six episodes. Each about 45 minutes.
When will it come out:
July 28, 2023. The six-episode season will be released exclusively on Prime Video on July 28 in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide. It was also announced in the Hillywood Parody and there is Neil, Daniel Mays and Maggie service,
The plot and more:
From Neil’s blog: There are so many questions people have asked about what happened next (and also, what happened before) to our favourite Angel and Demon. Here are, perhaps, some of the answers you’ve been hoping for. As Good Omens continues, we will be back in Soho, and all through time and space, solving a mystery which starts with one of the angels wandering through a Soho street market with no memory of who they might be, on their way to Aziraphale’s bookshop. (Although our story actually begins about five minutes before anyone had got around to saying “Let there be Light”.)
From Neil’s instagram: Game on! There are mysteries, histories, secrets revealed and Something Too Terrible To Be Revealed on the way. Also a cardboard box.
From the BBC website: The new season will explore storylines that go beyond the original source material to illuminate the uncanny friendship between Aziraphale, a fussy angel and rare book dealer, and the fast-living demon Crowley. Having been on Earth since The Beginning and with the Apocalypse thwarted, Aziraphale and Crowley are getting back to easy living amongst mortals in London’s Soho when an unexpected messenger presents a surprising mystery.
Neil said that ‘It will be set all over the world. Or at least, it leaves Soho occasionally. Sort of.’
When Neil was asked for some out of the context spoilers he answered: Wouldn’t you rather just go in ready to be surprised, impressed, upset, delighted, confused and amazed? - 6 adjectives, 6 episodes… perhaps they fit together?
We will learn more about Aziraphale’s Soho, more about the bookshop (like the upstairs) and how the books are filed and more about the Bentley’s music. We’ll see inside the coffee shop across the street. Tea will be drunk in the bookshop, and so will cocoa.
There will be a duck-feeding scene.
Neil said: In this season we get to have new adventures with old friends, to solve some extremely mysterious mysteries, and we encounter some entirely new humans (living, dead, and otherwise), angels, and demons.
Neil implied that the building opposite the bookshop is a pub.
Neil shared this small piece of the script saying: Aziraphale: … of the…ave you… / Crowley: Not one. / Aziraphale: Oh good. / Crowley: …
Neil about S2: It’s set in 2023. And there have definitely been lockdowns. There are a lot of tourists and people in Soho, some of whom wear face-masks and most of whom don’t. It’s set in late summer, very early Autumn, mostly.
There will be more on why Aziraphale has problem with French.
There will be “minisodes” – stories that begin and end within a larger episode, ones that dive into history: a solo-story set in biblical times (by John Finnimore), in Victorian times in Edinburgh 1827 - our favourite angel and demon get into a wee bit of a pickle there (by Cat Clarke), there’s little stint of body snatching in the era, and a story in London during the blitz (by Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman called it ‘very naughty’) which takes up much of Episode 4.
To the question if S2 and S3 are directly inspired aby any other works (the same as S1 was by The Omen) Neil answered: Not really. The Bible a bit. And possibly Jane Austen. then he said that we will learn a lot about Jane Austin we didn’t know before.
We will see a bit what was Crowley up to during WW2 in S1.
From S2 the episode 5 and 6 are Neil’s favourite episodes. Neil’s favourite scene from the S2 is in episode 6. The script editor said while reading the script episode that she was laughing while crying.
There are no rabbits in S2.
What’s something that’s Neil excited for us to see: The Whickber Street Traders and Shopkeepers Association monthly meeting.
There are some love stories in it.
There is a lot more Heaven, a lot more Hell.
About the improvisation in S2, Neil: There’s one improv line in GO2. It’s what Crowley orders from the barman when he enters the pub. I hadn’t written a line for him. Other than that it’s all from the scripts.
Neil shared some pixelated pixels of what looks like Crowley in Hell and of Victorian Crowley and Aziraphale.
Over the time Neil shared several words from the script: white, if, a, road, Mr, Bentley, Something, the, Sandwich, Erdnase.
There are Eccles cakes.
Neil was asked which episode does have the best outfit and said: Probably episode 5. There are some particularly excellent clothes in episode 5, and one particular outfit that’s amazing. There are some wonderful clothes all the way through, though, so this one is going to be up to personal taste. Still…
Entry of Aziraphale’s diary in 1820 here :).
About the CGI, Neil: I’d say there are about 1,500 CGI shots in Season 2, as compared to Season 1’s 1000 shots. But I think a lot of them are going to be harder to see as CGI.
There will be Terry Pratchett easter eggs ❤ .
Michael Sheen said that Jon Hamm (Gabriel) will be drinking from the angel mug.
David Tennant about Jon Hamm: Jon Hamm is back and plays very central role, actually, in series two, Jon was with us a lot, so that was great fun to have him around. And he is very very funny in series two, he gets to do some very excellent work. You’ll very much enjoy Jon Hamm.
Neil about Jon Hamm: There are things that I have done to Jon Hamm or had other people do or that have happened to Jon Hamm in the Second Season of Good Omens that while I am not at liberty to actually reveal what they are I will say that I’m in many ways glad he’s not sitting opposite me getting his own back.
There is some character who isn’t dating another character but wants to (neither of which is A or C).
There will be Queen songs.
Something that will only makes sense after watching the S2, Neil: The 1964 Doctor Who Annual.
Neil said that there are two passages of dialogue in the GO book that didn’t get used in Season 1 but fitted exactly in Season 2.
International Express Delivery Man won’t make an appearance.
There is around 400 000 frames in S2.
Douglas Mackinnon has a cameo there, Rob Wilkins had as well but unfortunetely it ended up on the cutting room floor.
So far no plans to make a S2 Script Book.
Whether Anna Lundberg and Georgia Tennant are in it, Neil: I’m afraid not. Anna was pregnant while we were shooting and being wisely away from people during Covid times, Georgia was offered a part but didn’t take it for reasons that reflect incredibly well on her. (She did some research into history as she would have been playing a historical person, and told us that the part should go to an actress much older than herself. And we did the same research she did and realised that she was right.) If there is a season 3 then I would love to cast both of them.
David about Crowley’s hair: My hair is still red and I do have a variety of different hairstyles. Throughout the episodes my hair will transform in several different directions.
David about his favourite moment from S2: It’s a line said by a small child,and it’s in Episode 2 about halfway through, and it’s in a scene with my son.
Summary of what we know about the epiodes here.
The fennec foxes:
In August 2021 Neil said to an ask: In Season 1 of Good Omens, the part of a demon named Crowley was played by actor David Tennant. Budget cuts in Season 2 mean that the part of Crowley in Season 2 will be shared between a glove puppet, a dear friend of the production manager’s named, I believe, Raoul, and five trained fennec foxes wearing an overcoat. Why fennec foxes? We figured nobody would notice the difference.
This joke keeps growing since then - We will make the fennec foxes ginger by special effects. Or perhaps just put the gingerest one on the top. - with wonderful fan art, comparisons and we learned from Neil that David will actually be there as a stuntman and will be set on fire to protect the foxes: For actual death-defying stunts we’ll have the actual David Tennant come in for the day and risk life and limb for us. I can promise that there will be no pyrotechnics anywhere near the fennec foxes. Apart from anything else, there are rules about that sort of thing on set. Whenever you see Crowley burning, it will be a lovely Scottish actor named David Tennant who will be in for the day in order to be set on fire, struck by lightning, immolated, or otherwise hurled into the blazing heart of an inferno. He seems to quite enjoy it.
You can check my five fennec foxes tag :).
Jaunty little hats:
Ask: VERY IMPORTANT good omens question that im sure you will break your no spoilers policy for, does anyone, including background characters, wear a jaunty little hat
Neil: Oh God you wormed it out of me. Yes. Yes. A jaunty little hat will be worn.
Comment: Careful, if jaunty little hat is not worn in the next season, you could get sued for false advertising.
Neil: We’re good. I just did a “jaunty little hat” watch to make sure, and there’s a jaunty little maroon hat in episode 1, a jaunty little brown hat in episode 3, a whole slew of jaunty little hats of all kinds and colours in episode 4, and one solitary fez-wearing moment early in episode 5 (it is a fairly jaunty fez, though) followed by the appearance of an extremely fancy little black number tipped with what looks like pink ostrich feathers about half-way through episode 5.Episode 6 is, I am relieved to say, entirely jaunty-little hat free. (x)
Merchandise:
So far we know of two:
Good Omens Tarot Deck and Guidebook - more info here
and
Good Omens Card Game - more info here
it seems that there will be more, but not announced yet :).
Trailers:
Nothing so far though at NYCC 2022 panel was shown a clip with a scene Nina, Maggie and Mrs Sandwich and then a scene with Muriel playing a constable in Aziraphale’s bookshop, Aziraphale not buying it and then Crowley coming with a box of plants. It is at the beginning of Episode 3.
Promos:
Poster:
(about details in the last poster here) Selection of promo and bts photos:
yayyy!!!!!!!!!
So – since it’s #NationalComingOutDay, I’d like to share my rather long, and quite personal, Good Omens story.
For the longest time, I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I was 41 years old, had an awesome partner, 2 awesome kids, inspiring work, and a generally incredibly lucky life.
Except - something inside me was broken.
I was unable get past platonic love. I could no longer stand the thought of physical intimacy, with anyone. I would get actively angry about being related to in an even remotely sexual way.
I hadn’t always been like this. I couldn’t pinpoint when this had started, or when I realised it was even a Thing, but it had grown over the years. My partner (an incredibly patient, gentle and loving person) never pushed me to talk about it - I couldn’t, I just had no words around these emotions - but I could feel his sadness when I’d shut any intimacy down.
For a long time, I thought maybe I had become asexual. That can happen. Maybe that’s what had happened. It didn’t feel completely right though. I still wanted, I just: couldn’t bring myself to be that way with someone without all these negative emotions bubbling up. And it wasn’t a physical thing - I wasn’t unhappy with my body, overly squishy though it is. So where did these feelings come from? These distant undercurrents of loathing and wrongness, this wild anger that would consume me at that thought of being thought of in that way, by anyone. Why did I feel like this?
Then one simple thing happened which literally changed everything for me.
I watched Good Omens.
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