Good Omens Is Returning With The Same Cast, But There’s A Catch
Good Omens is returning for a second season with the same cast. But there is just one catch with it. Hard to imagine they can pull this off
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Good Omens was a hit for both Amazon and BBC when it released its first season a couple of years ago. The hair-brained story about an angel and demon teaming up to stop the coming of the Antichrist and save the world from Armageddon was the perfect tongue-in-cheek approach to such a theoretically devastating series of events. It helps that the source material from which it was adapted is A+, and the second season is right around the corner. While this next set of Good Omens stories is gearing up to be another ramp through the book of Revelations, there is an interesting twist this time around. It seems that while some actors and actresses are returning from the first season, they won’t be playing their original characters.
SlashFilm had some of the breakdown on the second season of Good Omens and noted, of course, that Michael Sheen and David Tennant would be returning to their starring roles as Aziraphale and Crowley respectively. Not much change there. But then it’s the list of the rest of the cast that is somewhat surprising. Paul Adeyefa, Michael McKean, Gloria Obianyo, Miranda Richardson, Maggie Service, Reece Shearsmith, and Nina Sosanya are all back. But based on the events of the final episode of the first season, we know that not everyone is in their previous role. For starters, Good Omens has already shown that the human form of someone isn’t necessarily their core being. Heck, Tennant and Sheen did a little body-swapping as their characters once already. Others can be brought back in the same body/ different roles just as easily. Series creator and writer Neil Gaiman had this to say about the different actors and actresses returning:
“In this season we get to have new adventures with old friends, to solve some extremely mysterious mysteries, and we encounter some entirely new humans (living, dead, and otherwise), angels, and demons. We were lucky in the first season to have so many outstanding actors taking part, so I took pleasure in inviting people back, wherever we could, some in the roles they played originally, some in new parts written just for them.
Because Good Omens is dealing with the population and characters around Heaven and Hell, the human form of particular characters need not hold to fast and true rules. Crowley and Aziraphale, in the terms of the show, have existed since the beginning of time, having been present in the Garden of Eden itself. Their appearances have changed over time, but they are still a demon and an angel on the “inside”. It’s perfectly reasonable for characters to switch up here in the context of the overall story. In fact, it’s likely to be a lot of fun. And considering the darkly comedic nature of the show, and the book as well, this all makes a lot of sense. The “rules” here are very fast and loose.
Good Omens is adapted from the Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett novel of the same name. Gaiman scripted the show and acts as showrunner. He’s back in those roles again for the second season. The first season was met with critical acclaim, sitting at 84% on Rotten Tomatoes. It was also nominated for its costumes and musical direction at the Emmy Awards. Filming for the second season of Good Omens began a few weeks ago, in mid-October. Like its first go-around, the expectation is there will be another six episodes and is likely to release on Amazon sometime in late-2022.
