For those worrying about a decline in the amount of David Tennant/ Michael Sheen material on UK screens, no need to fear. Following hot on the heels of the final series of their hugely entertaining Zoom-based comedy Staged, comes season two of Good Omens.
That’s right, our favourite divine/demonic odd-couple – that is, the angel Aziraphale (Sheen) and the demon Crowley (Tennant) – are back for a second outing in this big budget Prime Video series.
Where the first series was based on the bestselling book by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, season two, written by Gaiman, breaks new ground by adapting the pair’s unfinished sequel into TV form. And what a sequel it is. Having averted the Apocalypse, you’d think it would be time for Aziraphale and Crowley to enjoy their well-deserved retirements – but no.
Instead, trouble arrives in the form of the Archangel Gabriel (Jon Hamm) who turns up at Aziraphale’s bookshop completely starkers, with only an empty cardboard box and a vague smile to his name. Oh, and it turns out he’s lost his memory, too.
As the forces of both Heaven and Hell do their utmost to try and track down the missing Gabriel, there’s another problem to contend with. Because it seems that, before he lost his memory, Gabriel was on a mission to tell Aziraphale some very important information about the end of the world… and time is running out.
That might seem like an awful lot of plot to be getting on with. The problem is, the show doesn’t think so. In fact, the show would far rather spend its time examining the will they/ won’t they relationship between our two heroes, and the will they/won’t they relationship between the two shopkeepers down the road from the bookshop, than moving the main action on.
Why? God only knows. It’s nice to see the Crowley and Aziraphale shippers given something to root for – although this basically takes the form of wistful glances, and both of them hotly denying that there’s anything remotely romantic about their partnership – and of course, Tennant and Sheen are stellar in their roles.
Sadly, the shopkeepers we’re required to spend so much time with, are far less memorable. No slight on Nina Sosanya and Maggie Service, who do the best with the slightly limited material they are given – but by episode four, Aziraphale is hosting a full-on Jane Austen style ball in his bookshop to try and get the pair to admit their feelings for each other. By then, enough is enough.
When Aziraphale is not playing matchmaker, we’re spending time in the past, via a series of flashback vignettes that have absolutely no bearing on the main plot, though they are great fun to watch. We see Crowley and Aziraphale get involved with grave digging in Victorian Scotland, try and stage a magic show in the Blitz, and we also get a look at the inner workings of hell (hell, as we all secretly know, is bureaucracy).
The end result is that poor Jon Hamm hardly gets to appear at all. It’s like the show doesn’t really know what to do with him – after episode one, he’s shoved to the background for the majority of the series, as is much of the main plot. As a result, the whole thing ends up feeling more like fanfiction than a genuine new addition to a hugely successful existing series.
It’s a shame, because I love this show, and desperately wanted it to work. And in some ways, it does. The story still romps along; Tennant and Sheen, years into their friendship, are obviously having a blast playing these characters. But the whimsy feels a tad forced; the plot, a tad thin. This is less of a highway to hell, or indeed heaven; it’s more of a B-road to somewhere in-between.
