The problem here is that none of it feels very relevant – either politically or socially, let alone theologically or spiritually. Gaiman has adapted the novel himself with great reverence to the relationship that he and Pratchett had. In the present day, the warmly affable relationship between the angel and the demon – they’ve realised that humanity needs little help to be either good or evil and that their efforts essentially cancel each other out so why bother? – is thrown into disarray when the it emerges that neither of the children is who Heaven or Hell thinks they are.

Michael Sheen (bleached blond) is the angel Aziraphale, slightly absent-minded lover of sweet things, and the louche redhead Crowley ( David Tennant), the serpent who offered Eve the fateful apple in Eden, now on Earth to foment evil but increasingly his heart isn’t in it.Įleven years ago, Crowley took his eye off the ball and placed the baby antichrist – intended for the American Ambassador ( Nick Offerman) and his wife (Jill Winternitz) – with a clichéd English couple (Daniel Mays and Sian Brooke) so the little time-bomb goes to live a delightfully middle-class childhood in the bucolic Suffolk village of Tadfield, not realising he’s the key to the final battle between good and evil, the end of the world, Armageddon itself.

Good Omens is about two basically decent civil servants, forced by fate to be on opposite sides in the battle for dominance over humanity that has been raging for millennia. I’m especially glad that I waited until the end of Good Omens, the new BBC/Amazon Prime adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s 1990 comic fantasy novel, because its ending managed to pull off none of those things and left me feeling very flat – especially as I had just binged four hours of the show to get to that disappointment. Not just wrapping up loose ends but cementing or confirming themes, supplying satisfying twists or just explaining the previously unexplained. A good ending can make all the difference to the success of a show.

Yesterday, I mentioned that I don’t like to review a television series until I have seen it all the way through to the end. Michael Sheen and David Tennant in Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s Good Omens.

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