Good Omens 2

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

So, the Gods have blessed us - for their own ineffable reasons - with a teaser trailer for Season 2:

Spoiler

• Tennant and Sheen are back with their inimitable chemistry, though seeming a tiny bit strained. Will not please the Crowleyphale 'shippers.
• What will please them is adding Jon Hamm to their ineffable love triangle. The arrogant idiot archangel Gabriel hasn't so much fallen (or sauntered downwards) as... fallen for someone? But in the process, he seems to have taken a hit to the head and has no memory of who he is, how he got to Earth, or his phenomenal cosmic powers. 
• While our dynamic duo had the Nice And Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, and several thousand years of other apocalyptic predictions to go on - right now they're as much in the dark as we are. All we know is that they have to protect Gabriel. Or Bad Stuff might happen. Gaiman has described this one as more of mystery tale, and that sounds cool.
• We also add some new characters, including Quelin Supelvida as - apparently - a totally innocent junior angel Muriel, and Miranda Richardson as stylish demoness Shax (and possibly also returning as Madam Tracy from the first series.)
• They've also released the new title sequence which may well hold more clues - but what the heaven, hell or herring's going on, I have no real clue about. And that's GOOD.

 

 

So what the ineffable do you lot think?

[Frostbiter]

I'll watch it. So far most of the adaptations of Gaiman's works have been pretty good. Although I don't think I finished American Gods because who has Starz anymore?

[Skyhawke]

Loved the first season, will definitely be giving this one a go.

[TheOtherTed]

Cautiously optimistic as usual.  All the stuff is there, but we'll see if round 2 of Neil's little Miller-Urey experiment will spark up something new.  My only concrete reservation at the moment is that I'm not sure if a deliberately one-dimensional character from the first season can work as the plot focus of the second.

 

I am very curious, though, if this is something that Gaiman and Pratchett discussed before the latter's passing.

 

Regardless, I probably won't see it for a while.  Amazon has a lot to live down before I give them another dime.

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

On 6/8/2023 at 8:34 PM, TheOtherTed said:

I am very curious, though, if this is something that Gaiman and Pratchett discussed before the latter's passing.

 

Yes. Neil and PTerry had been good friends since straying onto each others' book tours some time back, and had a habit on that book of trying to mimic or mock each other's styles. (So the dark gothy and horrible stuff in the book is frequently Terry, and the ineffable wisdom, dad gags and snarky footnotes are often Neil.)

 

After the genuine breakthrough success of the first book, Neil and Terry were frequently bothered by their fans, publishers and bank managers about a sequel, a movie or both. And so they had multiple drinking sessions discussions about where they could run with it. Some of the ideas found their way into Series 1 along with some wholly new stuff, and some for Series 2.

 

(And some, particularly any that were mooted by helpful Whollyodd executives who wanted to "make it relevant to wider audiences", have been vitrified and buried under the South Downs, guarded by trained ninjas, ancient runes and a small but enthusiastic dragon, never to see the light of day).

 

Bearing in mind that this is from very old interviews and Neil's website comments...

Spoiler

The story is said to begin five minutes before anyone said "let there be light". The concept also looked at what angels are, where they came from, and what they did before they took sides and started bothering Earthlings about stuff like good, evil, poetry, tax returns, enlightenment, mindfulness tapes, and coffee (which both sides claim as their own.)

 

Edited June 11, 2023 by ThaOGDreamWeaver

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

So, after Aziraphale and Crowley were left on a cliffhanger and breaking up with each other...

...unfortunately, so was the production team. For reasons.

 

I'm not going to rehash the news here. It's an easy Google.

I will say, on a personal level, that I've never before been through that unique kind of heartbreak when you find out your heroes are total POS.

The Great John Scalzi has much to say on the subject, much of it as NSFW as I'd like to post here, and I'm pretty sure he's not done anything perverted*.

 

The upshot  is that we do not get Season 3. Instead, we get a "Season 2.5" feature-length movie, co-written by PTerry's faithful sidekick Rob Wilkins and some hired guns, and run by BBC Head Of Comedy Josh Cole. NG will not be credited, and anything he wrote for the show will go through script surgery first.

 

In related news:

• Sandman S2 is effectively dead at Netflix. Which I'm okay with, since they got through most of the good bits in S1.
• The much-delayed Anansi Boys adap at Amazon is in Dev Hell, and may wind up being Batgirl'd out of existence.
  I'm mildly gutted about that, since it would have suited Delroy Lindo to a tee. 
• Dead Boy Detectives cancelled, but it was twee even for my tastes, and on Netflix so probably doomed anyway.
• Graveyard Book adap at Disney is dead. Deader. Oddly appropriate.

_{*Except to burritos. If you're reading this, Scalzi, your crimes against God and culinary science WILL BE JUDGED.}

[Frostbiter]

14 hours ago, ThaOGDreamWeaver said:

So, after Aziraphale and Crowley were left on a cliffhanger and breaking up with each other...

...unfortunately, so was the production team. For reasons.

 

I'm not going to rehash the news here. It's an easy Google.

I will say, on a personal level, that I've never before been through that unique kind of heartbreak when you find out your heroes are total POS.

The Great John Scalzi has much to say on the subject, much of it as NSFW as I'd like to post here, and I'm pretty sure he's not done anything perverted*.

 

The upshot  is that we do not get Season 3. Instead, we get a "Season 2.5" feature-length movie, co-written by PTerry's faithful sidekick Rob Wilkins and some hired guns, and run by BBC Head Of Comedy Josh Cole. NG will not be credited, and anything he wrote for the show will go through script surgery first.

 

In related news:

• Sandman S2 is effectively dead at Netflix. Which I'm okay with, since they got through most of the good bits in S1.
• The much-delayed Anansi Boys adap at Amazon is in Dev Hell, and may wind up being Batgirl'd out of existence.
  I'm mildly gutted about that, since it would have suited Delroy Lindo to a tee. 
• Dead Boy Detectives cancelled, but it was twee even for my tastes, and on Netflix so probably doomed anyway.
• Graveyard Book adap at Disney is dead. Deader. Oddly appropriate.

_{*Except to burritos. If you're reading this, Scalzi, your crimes against God and culinary science WILL BE JUDGED.}

 

😢

 

That's a shame because I was looking forward to an adaptation of that work terrifying generations of children to come.

[Seed22]

15 hours ago, ThaOGDreamWeaver said:

Sandman S2 is effectively dead at Netflix. Which I'm okay with, since they got through most of the good bits in S1.

I can’t find anything about this. Production seems to be going steadily from what I googled

[TTRPGWhiz]

4 hours ago, Seed22 said:

I can’t find anything about this. Production seems to be going steadily from what I googled

 

That's because it's bad info. They just announced some new castings, post-Gaiman allegations (literally within the last 3-4 weeks), which typically isn't something shows do when they're 'dead'. Accurate reporting here: https://www.vulture.com/article/neil-gaiman-allegations-adaptations.html

(also Gaiman himself has said that the Sandman story didn't feel to him like it hits its stride until Death shows up, so there is quite a bit of good story left to mine from the other 67 issues)

Edited October 25 by TTRPGWhiz

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

They don’t normally make flashy EPKs for dead shows either. 
 

My info may be wrong… or just premature.

[Seed22]

1 hour ago, TTRPGWhiz said:

 

That's because it's bad info. They just announced some new castings, post-Gaiman allegations (literally within the last 3-4 weeks), which typically isn't something shows do when they're 'dead'. Accurate reporting here: https://www.vulture.com/article/neil-gaiman-allegations-adaptations.html

(also Gaiman himself has said that the Sandman story didn't feel to him like it hits its stride until Death shows up, so there is quite a bit of good story left to mine from the other 67 issues)

Thats what I was thinking.