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Good Omens
I wasn't ready for this. How can anything be so completely wonderful?
It should also be noted that MY WHOLE FAMILY loves this show. From the 13 year old to the Highly Critical Film Maker (who declared it truly excellent, which is so rare that I'm still in shock). We have watched it twice. (A family friend came to stay last weekend and when finding out that he hadn't watched Good Omens we just put it on. Because no one should be without it.)
I've watched the show 2.5 times (so far). Also bought and read the original novel and am now making my way through the script book.
And everything is just beautiful. I don't even know how to describe it. Usually there are niggles. 'This is nice, but...' or 'Not bad, but a, b and c could have been done better'. But this is, basically, a perfect adaptation. But with... more? I mean, the book is lovely. It is great and inventive and funny and sort of all the things. And they could easily have done that - a straight adaptation, a funny story about Armageddon, with a big cast of enjoyable characters. Instead they did this:
They added *love*. They took a story that would be marked down as 'Gen' on AO3 and created a love story that quite simply glows. It's like turning something 2-dimensional into something 3-dimensional. (Except far more than 3 dimensions. Not only the amazing performances, but also the music and the imagery and the casting and all the sets, crammed full of Easter Eggs and symbolism and so on and on. There are endless layers. ETA: And everything is meant!)
Anyway, it amuses me that the reason we got our love story was very mundane. I keep trying to work out how to describe it, the way they took a single strand and just magicked it into something so completely wonderful; like casting a spot-light on a tiny little seedling and it flowers into something far beyond your wildest dreams. And yes, it's a shift in focus - the novel evenly distributes its attention in a very democratic way. Whereas the tv show is a story about an angel and a demon - heaven and hell and all the wonders of the world and the end of times a backdrop to the tale of how they finally decide that they're on their own side. I absolutely believe that the 'Ineffable Plan' was God pushing Crowley and Aziraphale together.
The best analogy I have come up with is that the novel is like a really good Classic Who story - City of Death maybe - a story that basically can't be improved. The show is like whatever your favourite New Who Doctor moment is; when the Doctor is so human it *hurts*, when love and loss and pain and beauty all combine to something that the old show couldn't dream of - and that quite simply wouldn't fit - even though they are anchored in the same soil. (What I am trying to explain is how - to pick the most obvious example - Aziraphale saying 'To the world' is in a realm beyond what the book could ever do. And how impossibly grateful I am that we have it.)
One day I may get my meta brain back and write something about the whole 'religious' aspect, for now suffice to say that it's essentially a fairy tale and bears very little relation to any sort of theology. And currently I'm just wallowing in everything and watching vids and reading fic so fluffy that it's like injecting candy floss. ♥
Thankfully, my friends have already stepped up, so here is Owls with *exquisite* meta:
META: Mirrors in Good Omens
And
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
purplefringe has already done two vids:Mass In B Minor
Killer Queen
ETA: I forgot to mention how wonderfully gay it is. And I'll take this opportunity to re-recommend this meta (book based, written before the show aired):
Meta: Why is Aziraphale so gay? by
dictionarywrites.In conclusion: A nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.
♥
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(I will be making an ENORMOUS rec post at some point, although honestly just go on Tumblr once you've watched it all and there will be ALL THE THINGS.)
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I really want to write some myself, might get around to it over the next few days :)
It's the first show in a long while to make all the other options available seem dull by compsrison, I just love the love and hope in it. Shows filled with hope and kindness are in, grimdark is out (for me, anyway)
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