By Gwen Luga
After its successful debut and survival of an apocalypse back in 2019, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s favorite angel and demon duo comes back in another tenacious and much-awaited adventure.
BBC and Amazon Prime’s show ‘Good Omens’ tells the story of a rekindled friendship between an angel, Aziraphale (played by Michael Sheen) and a demon, Crowley (played by David Tennant), when it coincidentally falls unto them to save the Earth and its human inhabitants from the antichrist.
The book written by American Gods author Neil Gaiman and the late Discworld author Terry Pratchett in 1990 never completed a sequel, but Gaiman wrote on his Tumblr blog that if it ever reached the screen, Pratchett would have wanted it to continue. “Terry was clear on what he wanted from Good Omens on the telly. He wanted the story told, and if that worked, he wanted the rest of the story told,” his blog read.
Gaiman himself dropped the announcement on Twitter of a Good Omens renewal on June 29, 2021, along with a photo of Aziraphale and Crowley standing under an umbrella, adding, “What glorious (and dangerous) trouble will our favorite angel and demon find themselves in this time?”
Teasing selfies, ‘Fire’ and ‘Shades of grey’
The filming of the second season of Good Omens have further been confirmed by Sheen dropping a selfie in black and white, and tagged with “Shades of grey” along with an angel emoji on Twitter last October 14, 2021.
Mirroring his fellow actor’s hint, Tennant followed up with a selfie sporting a familiar red shade and tagged, “He’s like fire” with a demon emoji, posted by his wife Georgia Tennant on Twitter last October 19, 2021.
With both main actors undergoing these not-so subtle physical changes, production of Good Omens’ second season shows only good progress with these two’s reprisal of their roles.
In a cheeky reaction to the renewal of the series, Sheen commented, “Personally I’m against it, but the world isn’t going to just save itself, is it? If David and I can manage to not fall out too badly this time it may even have a chance of getting finished.”
"The return of Good Omens is great news for me, personally," Tennant said. "As I get to work with Michael again, and I get to say Neil’s wonderful words once more. It’s probably less good for the universe as it almost certainly means there will be some fresh existential threat to its existence to deal with, but you know– swings and roundabouts…" Tennant added.
Paying homage and theories; Premiere to be announced
Gaiman partnered up with John Finnemore as co-writer for the second season, with Douglas Mackinnon directing, accompanied by Pratchett’s assistant Rob Wilkins, and BBC Studios Productions’ head of comedy, Josh Cole as executive producers.
“I asked John if he’d be willing to work with me on writing the next round of Good Omens, and was overjoyed when he said yes,” Gaiman wrote on his blog. “We have some surprise guest collaborators too. And Douglas Mackinnon is returning to oversee the whole thing with me.”
Mackinnon had been instrumental in steering the production of the series in Scotland, with it establishing its reputation as an international production hub. “Taking Good Omens to my home country of Scotland to film a second season is an exciting dream come true for me. And with Michael Sheen and David Tennant returning as Aziraphale and Crowley, we really have an angel and a demon on our side,” the director said in a statement.
Though a lot of theories were left to be speculated by fans after the first season’s open-ended ending, Gaiman seems to be focusing more on the dynamic between Aziraphale and Crowley, being freed from the rigid limitations set by Heaven and Hell.
“There are so many questions people have asked about what happened next (and also, what happened before) to our favorite Angel and Demon. Here are, perhaps, some of the answers you’ve been hoping for,” Gaiman wrote.
Apart from basing the ideas he and Pratchett had made for the novel’s sequel, it was also a homage to the Discworld author who had passed even before the first season of Good Omens finished filming.
"It's thirty-one years since Good Omens was published, 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 Good Omens– that's where our angels came from," Gaiman said.
"Terry's not here any longer, but when he was, we had talked about what we wanted to do with Good Omens, and where the story went next. And now, thanks to BBC Studios and Amazon, I get to take it there,” he added.
The second season will see the familiar faces of Michael Sheen, David Tennant, Adria Arjona, Michael McKean, Miranda Richardson, Sam Taylor Buck, Jack Whitehall and Jon Hamm.
The first season of Good Omens is currently streaming on Prime Video, though Amazon has yet to release its second season’s premiere date.