Monday, November 15, 2021

Other Doctor Lives: Good Omens: Season 1, Episode 1 – “In the Beginning” (2019)

Series 13, episode 1 of Doctor Who aired last night, but as of now, Amazon Prime still doesn’t have it available. At first I thought maybe it had aired in the U.S. yet, but iTunes has it for sale. Aggravatingly, though, I’ve already purchased the whole series from Amazon Prime, so I’m stuck waiting for it to drop. So instead, we’ll do Other Doctor Lives today and (hopefully!) get to the even-more-belated Sunday Who Review tomorrow.

Okay, so I know I already wrote about Good Omens quite a bit after I first watched it, late though I was to board the bandwagon. But while I talked about the show, both main characters, and their relationship with one another, I didn’t give it the episode-by-episode review treatment, and there was only so much I said about David Tennant’s performance as Crowley, which, naturally must be remedied. And after I reviewed Staged, it’s only fitting that I swing back around to revisit this other show that brilliantly takes advantage of Tennant and Michael Sheen’s fantastic chemistry together. (Side note: a second season has been announced and just officially starting filming, but I didn’t want to sit on these reviews until then, so we’ll just return to the Good Omens love whenever the new episodes air.)

Aziraphale and Crowley have been on Earth since the Beginning, as it were. Working on behalf of their “sides” (Heaven for Aziraphale, Hell for Crowley,) they’ve gotten very used to life on Earth over the millennia, and when Crowley is called on to help deliver the Antichrist child who will one day bring on Armageddon, he’s not quite ready for the world to end. Crowley urges his old pal Aziraphale to help him prevent the apocalypse, but stopping the wheels now in motion may be harder than either the demon or the angel anticipate.

This episode introduces the major players, the miniseries’ dry and offbeat sensibilities, and the celestial/demonic state of affairs. I like the odd mix of the supernatural and the mundane, and the ongoing narration by God (voiced by Frances McDormand) guides us along with wry humor. Also, the aesthetics on this show are just wonderful. The costuming for both Aziraphale and Crowley are great, and I love the stylistic flourishes in the direction and the pervading sense that every design choice is very deliberate and thoughtful.

I’m not getting too much into the basics here, since this would otherwise cover a decent amount from my original review. For other actors who appear in this episode, we get Nina Sosanya (who I’ve come to realize has appeared in no fewer than four projects alongside Tennant,) Jon Hamm as the angel Gabriel, Anna Maxwell-Martin (Esther from a really good adaptation of Bleak House) in a truly-gruesome makeup job, and a clinch appearance from Nick Offerman (Ron Swanson!)

But of course, the only reason most of us are here are for the Aziraphale and Crowley of it all. We meet them at the moment when they meet each other, in the Garden of Eden, and Sheen and Tennant are instantly magic together. And after the opening, when the scenes fast-forward thousands of years, it’s easy to fall into the rhythm of their now long-established relationship, two supernatural beings who are supposed to be enemies but who like each other a great deal and know one another better than anybody else. Whether it’s Crowley pressing Aziraphale to break the rules and get involved in stopping the Antichrist or Aziraphale aggravating Crowley with his utterly-pure love for Earth magic, you don’t want to watch anything else when they’re onscreen. In this episode, I especially like the scenes of Crowley reminding Aziraphale of all the earthly delights he’ll lose if the world is destroyed. Before moving onto Tennant, I want to reiterate from my original review that Sheen is just splendid as Aziraphale, all lightness and goodness, not quite as weak-willed as others might think him to be, and while he’s awfully beholden to the rules, he’s not beyond convincing that sometimes doing what’s right isn’t the same as doing what’s correct.

I’ll be honest: Crowley is the role that kind of unlocked David Tennant for me. I’d always liked him well enough, and if Ten was my least-favorite new Who Doctor, it was mainly because I just loved all the others so blame much. But even as I saw him in other things and recognized his acting talent, he didn’t fully “wow” me. Then I saw him as Crowley, and it all kind of clicked.

Because Tennant is really good here. I could go on and on about how excellently he plays off of Sheen, but the performance as Crowley himself is also great. You quickly see how he’s a demon who’s bored of this whole “eternal war between Heaven and Hell” thing, who’s gone “native” and would prefer not to see the earth get roasted. He carries himself with such fluidity, sometimes languid and slouching as he barely bothers to disguise how much he doesn’t care, at others electric with purpose as he races to avert disaster. I also like how one of the centra; pillars of Crowley’s relationship with Aziraphale is that he questions things and Aziraphale doesn’t. While Aziraphale is fine handwaving things as part of God’s Ineffable Plan and doesn’t want to step out of line, Crowley continually wonders. He asks why knowledge of good and evil should be forbidden to Adam and Eve, and he ponders the nature between him and Aziraphale. In short, Aziraphale accepts, Crowley thinks, and Crowley’s efforts to bring Aziraphale over to his way of seeing things is a big part of what makes them such a compelling pair to watch.

All right, “first” impressions (not really, since I’ve already seen the whole miniseries/first season once, but it’s my process, so I’m not about to deviate now!)

Accent Watch

Fairly RP, posher than I often hear from Tennant but with just a hint of an extra flavor in there.

Recommend?

In General – Yes. Weird, wild, and wonderful. It’s the sort of madly-inventive series that I’m endlessly drawn to.

David Tennant – For sure. Even looking only at what we see in this first episode, it’s clear that this is going to be a great performance.

Warnings

Violence, language, drinking, blasphemy, gross-out images, and strong thematic elements.

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