Good Omens

Diverting and mostly pleasurable. ... The BBC Studios production is studded with piquant performances by veteran actors, mostly British.

Gaiman manages the not-inconsiderable feat of capturing his narrative’s race-against-the-clock propulsion, all while making plenty of time for an overstuffed cast of characters and numerous detours, rewinds, asides and demented flights of fancy. Good Omens boasts an assured sense of tone from the very start. ... Good Omens wouldn’t soar without its two leads, who are so perfectly (mis)matched that they immediately elevate the series to must-see status.

The story itself falls apart and reassembles several times per each hour-long episode, but when viewed as a collection of clever sketches by master performers it’s a fun frolic — and with a cast of biblical proportions.

The end result is a feel-good romp and creative triumph that is easily digestible and never flags in search of entertainment.

Good Omens soars when it focuses on the buddy comedy between Aziraphale and Crowley, who are tasked with keeping mortals on the straight and narrow and luring them away from it, respectively, neglect their duties, either by aiding the first couple cast out from Eden, or by partaking of the many wonderful things humans have created. ... It’s when the series looks elsewhere for its drama and humor that it starts to falter.

With Gaiman at the helm, and with an ample amount of time to do the book’s nuances justice, Good Omens succeeds much better than any recent Gaiman (or Pratchett) adaptation in memory. But we’re still ultimately left with a screenplay that faithfully emphasizes Good Omens’ plot rather than its profundities or literary flourishes.

Good Omens is frivolous in tone to the point of being glib, while its recurring jokes recur so often that they run out their welcome (Crowley gets scenes scored to virtually every track in the Queen songbook, while Aziraphale’s story lines frequently feature his obsession with eating). What sets the series apart is the relationship between two polar opposites who end up realizing, as the best antagonists do, that they’re not that different after all.

When Gaiman and Mackinnon return to those actors [Sheen and Tennant], the series becomes the compelling story of an unlikely friendship, a sort of undefined rom-com between two immortals with the end of the world as a quirky backdrop. That’s the “Good Omens” worth watching. The rest of it’s not bad—not world-ending, but not exactly heavenly, either.

The Lord really does work in mysterious ways in Good Omens, which -- given the recent abundance of apocalyptic series -- is surprisingly good, and even when it lags, considerable fun.