Even More Good Omens

So word just dropped that a sequel season to 2019’s Good Omens is in the works, helmed by Neil Gaiman himself, co-author of the original novel.

“Hit TV series gets sequel/renewal” ordinarily wouldn’t be surprising, but Good Omens isn’t just any show.

The Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch novel was published in 1990 by co-authors Neil Gaiman and Sir Terry Pratchett (who just happen to be two of my favorite authors of all time). The story follows an angel named Aziraphale and a demon named Crowley as they attempt to avert the biblical apocalypse. It’s a comedy of heaven and hell and modern society, and it’s fantastic. So when BBC and Amazon adapted the novel to a mini-series starring David Tennant and Michael Sheen, an adaptation actually written by Neil Gaiman, there was much rejoicing. It took nearly thirty years, but here was one of the funniest books out there transitioning to the screen with enough time, money, and talent to get it right.

And now they’re adapting the sequel to Good Omens, with the small problem that… there never was a sequel to Good Omens. Gaiman explained in his announcement that he and Sir Terry hashed out a rough plan for the novel (reportedly intended to be called 668 The Neighbor of the Beast,) before the first was even published, but their careers became too busy, and the project never made it onto the page. So now a much beloved novel lovingly adapted to the screen has had such wild success that it’s creating a sequel for the original that for three decades has been purely conjecture.

Such is the power of David Tennant acting with his eyebrows.

In all honesty, I’ve got all kinds of feelings about the news: excitement, trepidation, and several more feelings that I can best call “ineffable.” Best not to speculate on the ineffable, as a wise angel once said. I want very badly for this second season to capture the heights of the original. I worry due to the nature of the vast majority of sequels to ever exist. And that worry is telling me to sensible, and not to raise my hopes too high. But with a premise like this (a la Gaiman himself):

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”.)

…It’s hard not to see this as a very good omen.