Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s Good Omens is coming back for a sequel season on Amazon Prime. The company announced today that it’s greenlit a sequel to its adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s fantasy novel, and that Michael Sheen and David Tennant will reprise their roles as the angel Aziraphale and demon Crowley, respectively.
The TV adaptation debuted in 2019 on Amazon Prime Video, and followed Aziraphale and Crowley as they contended with the arrival of the Antichrist and and the prophesied Armageddon. Of course, it was a bit more complex than that.
According to Amazon, this new season will “explore storylines that go beyond the original source material to illuminate the uncanny friendship between” Aziraphale and Crowley as they’re plunged into a new adventure when a messenger with a “surprising mystery” turns up.
Prior to the launch of Good Omens, Gaiman signed an overall deal with Amazon, and this new project is part of that. Douglas Mackinnon, who directed the first season, will return as director. The first season was a co-production between Amazon and the BBC, but this second season will go forward with Amazon on its own. It’s also not clear if Jon Hamm, Frances McDormand, or any of the other members of the cast from the first season will return to reprise their roles.
On his blog, Gaiman explained that after he and Pratchett published Good Omens, they plotted out a sequel to the book, tentatively titled 668—The Neighbour of the Beast, but as their respective careers took off, the pair never got around to writing it. “It’s been thirty-one years since Good Omens was published,” Gaiman wrote, “which means it’s thirty-two years since Terry Pratchett and I lay in our respective beds in a Seattle hotel room at a World Fantasy Convention, and plotted the sequel. (I got to use bits of the sequel in the TV series version of Good Omens — that’s where our angels came from.)”
Good Omens earned considerable acclaim from fans and critics — in no small part because of Sheen and Tennant’s charisma and the faithfulness with which it was adapted to screen. The series went on to earn a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form, in 2020.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the series will run for six episodes, and is expected to begin production sometime later this year in Scotland. Amazon hasn’t revealed when the series will debut on Amazon Prime Video.
The BBC Studios Press Office are saying it’s another co-production BTW. https://www.bbc.com/mediacentre/bbcstudios/2021/good-omens-blessed-with-sequel-season/
So we finally get the sequel that never was? I was filled with trepidation about this after the disaster of “The Watch, but I trust Neil to be true to his late writing partner’s share of the vision.
I don’t often say this, but {SQUEEEE!!!!!}
*Fingers crossed for canon queerness*
@@.-@ I would argue there is already canon queerness but queer humans would be nice, too. Though I understand that not everyone would agree with me.
They could do season 2 as a roommate comedy with no deeper themes at all and the reset button hit at the end of every episode and I would watch.
Hyperventilation and excess excitement commences!!!! Ceiling may be acquiring dents…
*puts head under pillow in denial*
*eventually emerges*
Drown it. Having finally talked myself into a fragile enjoyably-positive headspace regarding the book version of Good Omens (notably the Horsepersons), I avoided the show for fear that something in it will tip me back into the nightmares that plagued me for nine years (mostly about the Horsepersons and their apocalypse). The show’s first season is similar enough to the book that I’ve managed to participate in fandom groups of wonderful people. But once the second season airs, I’ll need to watch it, or else drop out of the fandom because I’ll really have no idea what people are talking about. It seems unlikely that the Horsepersons or their apocalypse will feature in Season 2, since they’re said to have been given even less attention in Season 1 than in the book. But I’m also not eager to watch any show that centers on a romance between any characters, because I’m an envy-afflicted romance Grinch.
/rant
The co-scriptwriter is to be one John Finnemore. He is best known in the UK as a comedy writer and performer for radio having written Cabin Pressure which starred a pre-famous Benedict Cumberbatch, the sketch show John Finnemore’s Souvenir Programme and two-handed individual playlets John Finnemore’s Double Acts. I don’t know what their availability is outside the UK but if you get a chance I cannot recommend them highly enough. He is thought by many to be the finest comedy scriptwriter and performer in the UK and seems to be a perfect choice for this project.
Not sure how to feel about this – why spoil a Perfect Game with extra time?
Meh. I found the show quite middling, having lost a great portion of its raisons d´etre (let’s not forget the original book was, mainly, a spoof of The Omen… who cares about The Omen nowadays? And with Pratchett dead, that’s two reasons to make the show out of two) and displaying a very shoddy execution, with Gaiman so intent on keeping all the jokes and scenes that worked well on page (in a misguided attempt to honor the memory of his friend, I guess) that he forgot he was penning a TV series. Only thing of note was, precisely, what was added from the book, namely, the great chemistry between Tennant and Sheen and their expanded backstory (best episode of the series by far). The rest was… there, I guess.