{"id":139037,"date":"2019-06-05T23:05:39","date_gmt":"2019-06-06T05:05:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=139037"},"modified":"2019-06-05T23:05:39","modified_gmt":"2019-06-06T05:05:39","slug":"tv-review-good-omens-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2019\/06\/05\/tv-review-good-omens-2019.html","title":{"rendered":"TV Review: “Good Omens” (2019)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Finished up this evening the Amazon Prime adaptation of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s delightful novel of the Apocalypse,\u00a0Good Omens.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Gaiman had committed to Pratchett that it would be adapted to TV, but only if it could be done well. He kept his commitment. We all had tremendous fun watching it.<\/li>\n
  2. I have no idea how well it will play for folk who have never read the book (an activity I can heartily recommend). (James has only gotten 2\/3 of the way through, but he enjoyed it, beginning to end.)<\/li>\n
  3. As someone who has (multiple times, and as a prelude to watching the series), I found the translation between media — what was taken away, what was added, what was de-emphasized, what was focused on, what was changed — to work pretty damned nicely. The novel is heavily laden with interior voice and backstory and trivia, which is a delight to read, but a challenge (met) to render on television. Making it more, but by no mean solely, about Aziraphale and Crowley, is part of what makes it click for a TV setting.<\/li>\n
  4. A special shout-out to having the nerve to include the final set of lines in the promos for the series. And they are even more delightful in context.<\/li>\n
  5. Michael Sheen and David Tennant\u00a0are<\/em> Aziraphale and Crowley. Brilliant.<\/li>\n
  6. I don’t agree with all the decisions for visualization, voices, or character design … but it feels a very English<\/em> production for all that, and it’s a delight.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Gaiman has kept his word to Pratchett to make this a production to be proud of.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":139051,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[36,40],"tags":[1781],"class_list":["post-139037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media-books","category-media-tv","tag-goodomens"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/good-omens-series.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":130442,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/04\/16\/there-will-be-a-good-omens-tv-mini-series-after-all.html","url_meta":{"origin":139037,"position":0},"title":"There will be a "Good Omens" TV mini-series after all","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 16-Apr-16 9:13am","format":false,"excerpt":"Neil Gaiman had declined previously, as he and the late Terry Pratchett had agreed only ever to work on the material together. But Pratchett wrote a letter to Gaiman before he died, asking him to see the project through. It's a sad thing, but a happy one, too. Good Omens:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":138130,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2019\/03\/09\/good-omens-drops-on-may-31.html","url_meta":{"origin":139037,"position":1},"title":"“Good Omens” drops on May 31","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 9-Mar-19 5:20pm","format":false,"excerpt":"It's the end of the world as Gaiman and Pratchett knew it, and I feel fine. https:\/\/youtu.be\/hUJoR4vlIIs I can't expect the series to live up to the full onslaught of drollery, witty theologizing, and general amusement that was the original book -- the difference in media alone stands in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-books"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/8220-good-omens-8221-drops-on-may-31-hUJoR4vlIIs.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/8220-good-omens-8221-drops-on-may-31-hUJoR4vlIIs.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/8220-good-omens-8221-drops-on-may-31-hUJoR4vlIIs.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/8220-good-omens-8221-drops-on-may-31-hUJoR4vlIIs.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/8220-good-omens-8221-drops-on-may-31-hUJoR4vlIIs.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":49815,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/03\/12\/rip-terry-pratchett.html","url_meta":{"origin":139037,"position":2},"title":"RIP, Terry Pratchett","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 12-Mar-15 10:35am","format":false,"excerpt":"His writing never quite clicked for me, aside from his collaboration with Neil Gaiman on Good Omens. But a lot of folk I know adored and respected him, and I think his body of work will live on for some time.(h\/t +Les Jenkins) Fantasy author Pratchett dies aged 66 View\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":45005,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/09\/07\/looks-like-good-omens-on-bbc-radio.html","url_meta":{"origin":139037,"position":3},"title":"Looks like "Good Omens" on BBC Radio","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 7-Sep-14 4:33pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I dearly love this book. It's absurd, it's profound, it's sacrilegious, it's deeply moral ... and it's a damned good read. I hope the BBC Radio adaptation is lengthy enough to do justice to the book. (Which I've read aloud to the family on car trips, so I feel like\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":132585,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/01\/19\/like-the-apocalypse-good-omens-is-coming.html","url_meta":{"origin":139037,"position":4},"title":"Like the Apocalypse, "Good Omens" is coming","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 19-Jan-17 11:18am","format":false,"excerpt":"Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's comic novel about the End of the World is going to be an 8-part miniseries on Amazon Prime (in the US), produced by BBC Studios, with a script written by Gaiman himself. This is very cool news.One of the neat things to have changed in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":134320,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/08\/20\/devilishly-good-casting.html","url_meta":{"origin":139037,"position":5},"title":"Devilishly Good Casting","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 20-Aug-17 2:54pm","format":false,"excerpt":"David Tennant playing the demon Crowley in the upcoming BBC\/Amazon series of Good Omens?\u00a0 That sounds brilliant (and apparently right in line with one of late Terry Pratchett's desired castings). Tennant is best known for his turn as the Tenth Doctor in\u00a0Doctor Who, though he also popped up in\u00a0Harry Potter\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Doctor Who"","block_context":{"text":"Doctor Who","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/media-tv-doctor-who"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/cb0353fc1736d6f8f986e2dc4394d5e7-david-tennant-fan1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139037"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":139052,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139037\/revisions\/139052"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}