Good Omens

I’m sorry to admit that I don’t know much about the fiction of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. And it’s clear from this that I’ve been missing a hell of a lot. I was bowled over by this 6-episode Amazon series. I laughed out loud more times than I could count. Did you know that the Universe really is only around 6,000 years old, and all those old dinosaur bones are a joke God (the voice of Frances McDormand!) made which humanity just hasn’t gotten yet?

The story is of the reluctant friendship that develops between an angel and a devil, that goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden. Michael Sheen is Aziraphale, the one with the wings, a prim, prissy, moralistic nuisance. He is bookish, and in fact runs a store dealing in rare books. His opposite number is Crowley, who makes up in sleaze for all the aloof superiority of the angel. He drives a black 1926 Bentley like a bat out of Hell … which, of course, he is. He is played in a tour de force performance by David Tennant. I didn’t recognize him at first, and then was stunned to realize that this was the tortured detective that we enjoyed so much in the great British series, Broadchurch. Talk about the polar opposite. He has a real gift for comedy.

The story is so chock full of humor, both obvious and cleverly concealed, that I couldn’t even begin to give you an idea of it all. Please, try it. If you don’t like it in the first ten minutes, you probably won’t like it at all. But if you do, you have a blessed, hell of a ride ahead.