Who Needs Omens when Things Always Turn Out Okay Anyway?

I realised last week the new season of Good Omens wasn't streaming week to week, as I thought, but had in fact premiered in entirety on the first day. So I worked my way through the rest of the six episodes over the past four days. It wasn't as hard as I dreaded, it does become a bit less saccharine after the first episode. I enjoyed the episode with Mark Gatiss as part of a trio of Nazi zombies and it was exciting to see Peter Davison as Job. Still, the show was overburdened with sweetness and light.

I went back and read my review for season one and was reminded how different Crowley and Aziraphale were back then. In season two, you get the impression that the demon Crowley had never intentionally done a bad thing and that Aziraphale is just plain dumb.

Crowley couldn't even bring himself to kill Job's goats. I'm not really sure what Gaiman and Finnemore were trying to say with their satire of the Book of Job. Either they're saying God worked through Aziraphale and Crowley to make Job's troubles less horrific, or they're criticising the bible for being cruel and wicked. Neither possibility is as satisfying as the complexity and emotion of the original work, which addresses the very real circumstance of a good person who suffers terribly.

But Good Omens 2 shows us a softer, kinder world where the virtuous are always found out and rewarded, and no-one truly dies.

Well, there's some permanent death in an episode that seems inspired by the Burke and Hare murders. Incidentally, one of David Tennant's first roles on Doctor Who, before he was cast as the Doctor, was playing a minor character in an audio play about the murders in 2004.

Like most stories about Burke and Hare, Aziraphale and Crowley's encounter with, in this case, a young woman who sells corpses to a surgeon highlights the moral ambiguities inherent in the tale. It's wrong to dig up corpses and sell them, yet medical science needed cadavers to save the living and the poor needed the money to be had by digging up corpses. When it came to murder, was it because the system pushed the criminal gradually and inexorably into that crime?

Aziraphale is bewildered at every turn, as though this is the first time in millions of years he's come across any difficult moral problem. But I guess that's the central joke of Good Omens, that all these characters, always and forever, act as though they were born yesterday. Except Crowley for some reason, who seems really bored this season.

The way he's always lounging around, half asleep, it's like you've invited your world travelling, adventuresome uncle to a 12 hour birthday party at Chuck E Cheese.

Good Omens 2 is available on Amazon Prime.

Heaven and Hell on a Cupcake

Everyone's favourite demon and angel duo are back in Good Omens 2, the second season of the series based on a Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett novel. It premiered on Friday with one episode. It's aggressively cute and occasionally funny.

Although it's new material, written by Gaiman and John Finnemore (Pratchett passed away years before the show was made), it hearkens back to the 1990s in many ways. I don't know if this was intentional or if Gaiman and Finnemore just need to get out more. There's a subplot about two women falling in love and one of them is considered odd because she has a store selling vinyl records. Do Gaiman and Finnemore really not know how popular vinyl records have become in the past ten years?

I suppose that could just be part of the deliberately unchallenging nature of the material. Crowley's supposed to be a demon but he doesn't exhibit any truly bad behaviour, for example. The worse he does is drive fast while listening to Queen. People who want to feel like rebels without actually stepping out of line can watch the show and feel like martyrs for owning vinyl Queen records.

I kind of wish Aziraphale would act more like an angel, too. When the amnesiac Gabriel calls Aziraphale and Crowley his "friends", it made sense when Crowley denied being his friend but I felt like Aziraphale would've said, "Of course we're your friends." I did really like the scene where Aziraphale, as her landlord, forgave the record shop owner for not paying her rent. If even a softball show like this is willing to lampoon the ridiculous rent prices in the western world now, maybe we're a little closer to real action.

The costumes and sets are all really adorable. The street and buildings constructed around Aziraphale's shop make even the show's "real" world feel like a fantasy, underlining the impression that all of this is set in some softer, sweeter plane of existence where angels and demons alike spend most of their time having adorably awkward dialogue. Even Crowley's choice of beverage at the coffee shop, just six shots of espresso in a cup, is like a child from the 1990s' impression of an unreasonably strong drink.

David Tennant and Michael Sheen as the two leads are both really good, particularly Tennant. John Hamm returns as the archangel Gabriel and his guileless innocence is very cute. He's introduced, this season, walking naked down the street to Aziraphale's shop and, in this adorable reality, a naked man in the street causes absolutely everyone to stop and watch him. I don't think I could binge this show, at least not without a drink stronger than six shots of espresso, but the show's being released one episode a week. And maybe one little drop of this super sweet confection, like a miniature cupcake buried in frosting and sprinkles, is enjoyable on a weekly basis.

If you like twee, this show is tweer than Lamb Chop copulating with a Care Bear on a bed of cotton candy.

Good Omens is available on Amazon Prime.

When Dalek Meets Cyberman

I seem to appreciate the Russell T. Davies era of Doctor Who a lot more than I did the first time I watched through it. I always liked it, though I generally disliked the season finales. But last night I watched the end of the Tenth Doctor's first season, "Army of Ghosts"/"Doomsday" from 2006, and loved it. Ten and Rose are so good together and I love seeing the Daleks wipe the floor with the revival era Cybermen.

Generally I prefer the classic series where the romantic chemistry between Doctor and Companion is understated if it's there at all but I've really grown to appreciate what Davies did. The revival era has often felt like commentary on the old series, something halfway between fanfiction and reinterpretation. There's much more focus on the Doctor as a character with him becoming almost a Christ figure in the Davies era while at the same time bearing the weight of his own sins. That's the kind of extreme focus you might expect from fanfiction. At the same time, Davies brings in the "domestic", an interpretation of what Doctor Who, the series, meant to a regular kid watching it growing up, and successfully transmutes it into meaningful experiences for the characters on the show.

By which I mean, it's not like the Doctor pulls clips from old episodes and asks companions to comment, or even nods and winks at the audience. Rose trying to explain to her mother how great it is to be flying around the universe instead of working in the shop is a moment that touches directly on what I mean.

Jackie, Rose's mother, is offended--"I worked in a shop, what's wrong with that?" She never had the opportunity Rose had. And Rose's point isn't that there's something wrong with a person working in shop, but there's also no sense kidding ourselves any one of us wouldn't be off in a TARDIS if we could. Admitting that is, inevitably, to admit life is fundamentally disappointing. So disappointing that most people don't want to acknowledge it. But the kind of kids who watched Doctor Who would think that way.

I felt bad for Jackie watching the episode again last night. She's so sure the ghost appearing in her flat is her deceased father. She even believes she can smell his cigars. She even taunts the Doctor a little, pleased for once to think she knows something he doesn't, but it turns out that's still not the case.

"Army of Ghosts" also has a nice moment referencing the Doctor's dislike for guns. Rose tries to stop him from leaving the TARDIS to confront a group of soldiers with rifles pointed at him:

ROSE: Doctor, they've got guns.

DOCTOR: And I haven't. Which makes me the better person, don't you think? They can shoot me dead but the moral high ground is mine.

I respect the Doctor a lot more for following his philosophy knowing full well it's impractical than in the recent season where circumstances around the Doctor are improbably rearranged to make the idea flawless. Though, in the instance in "Army of Ghosts", it is actually practical, if he has to go out and confront the soldiers at all--he'd never be able to gun them all down before they got him, the only reasonable course is to demonstrate they have no reason to shoot him.

It's strange how far the show has strayed from romance since the Davies era. Like I said, I like the classic series with its smaller focus on romance, but it's clearly a key part of what brought massive ratings to the show in the Davies era. It seems strange the show would be reverted in this regard to the format it was in when it was cancelled in 1989. Well, look, I've supplied you with another explanation for the show's decline in ratings. I suspect it's this much more than the Doctor being a woman now.

It's so bittersweet seeing Ten and Rose separated. David Tennant plays a young Doctor but you can always see the layer of experience underneath while Rose, as the dialogue about working in a shop demonstrates, feels very much like a young person feeling out her place in the universe for the first time. The 50th anniversary episode's interpretation of the Doctor becoming externally younger makes sense as a sort of psychiatric self-treatment, and his preference for younger companions would seem part of that, but it is nice watching him gradually realise there's something more genuine between him and Rose.

Twitter Sonnet #1204

Compared potatoes turn the tot to trust.
A timer burned the fries beyond the pan.
The larger spuds were painted gold and rust.
The stowaway turned out to be a yam.
Intimation surged in fortune's purse.
A slow deserving court remained to talk.
In better sleds the paintings still rehearse.
On harder snow the patients simply walk.
Encouraged stars repeat in storied lines.
As pearly dots emboss the books of sky.
A burning Braille becomes the harder signs.
The hand of God gave phones a second try.
Collected pegs create a cleat retreat.
Assorted socks will let the feet compete.

False Illumination

I remember seeing a lot of people wearing Rose Tyler's outfit from "The Idiot's Lantern" at Comic Con. A Tenth Doctor Doctor Who episode written by Mark Gatiss, it'd be hard to understand why young women would choose a costume that could really be a generic 50s outfit if you haven't seen the episode or were generally acquainted with this era of Doctor Who. Watching it again last night for the first time in years, I was struck by the unusual chemistry between Doctor and Companion. They're just so into each other, it's adorable.

She's so excited to be wearing that 50s dress; he's so excited she's so excited. She's so excited he's so excited that she's so excited. Who in their right minds would mistake this for a platonic relationship? Four and Romana were kind of like this sometimes but never to this extreme. Because David Tennant and Billie Piper are so charismatic and both are particularly good at showing unvarnished enthusiasm--without being even slightly obnoxious--their mutual appreciation is a real vicarious kick for the viewer.

He's just so dang happy to be in 1953, wow. That grin is going to split him it two.

Normally I'm not much of a fan of episodes written by Mark Gatiss but this one generally avoids his problem of writing scripts that make absolutely no sense. And the concept of televisions stealing faces from people works really well. I also like the sub-plot about the father who brags about fighting fascism in World War II only to be overbearing in his own home. The scene where his son tells him off is satisfying; "You fought against fascism, remember? People telling you how to live, who you could be friends with, who you could fall in love with. Who could live and who had to die. Don't you get it? You were fighting so that little twerps like me could do what we want, say what we want. Now you've become just like them."

Although the term "Idiot's Lantern" obviously refers to the television--apparently coming from a term writer Gareth Roberts remembers his father using--the idea of an electronic device in everyone's home that turns them into anonymous collaborators in a censorious mob certainly seems relevant to-day.

Another difference in the Russell T. Davies era from Steven Moffat's is how much more frequently people died. The episode features Ron Cook guest starring as assistant to the main villain--I'd just seen him recently playing Richard III in the great BBC Television Shakespeare series from the 80s. His role is relatively small here but I like how he's established as someone at the end of his rope financially and therefore easy prey for the malevolent spirit onscreen. Repenting near the end can't save him in the Davies era, though, however sad it might be. I also like how that fascist dad ends up not being painted as someone who deserves to be thrown away and forgotten.

Why couldn't Gatiss maintain this quality in his writing? Maybe Davies, as showrunner, generously edited the script to "Idiot's Lantern". Whoever's responsible, it's a good episode.

Recognising Beasts

"Tooth and Claw", an episode from the Tenth Doctor's first season on Doctor Who, feels like a Twelfth Doctor episode in a lot of ways. It's set in Scotland, it's a horror pastiche, and it features two instances where the Doctor's companion has to quietly inform him he's being rude. But there are several ways in which it is distinctly of the Russell T. Davies era. I'd forgotten how giddy the Doctor and his companions got, particularly Rose (Billie Piper), over meeting historical figures or famous fantasy characters. Sometimes it felt odd to me but I enjoy it in "Tooth and Claw". I also forgot how red David Tennant's lips could be.

One could also say it's like a Twelfth Doctor episode in that it has some disagreement over whether or not the Doctor is a good person. But while in the Twelfth Doctor era this questioning mainly came from the Doctor himself, in "Tooth and Claw" it comes somewhat unexpectedly from Queen Victoria (Pauline Collins) who, after ennobling both the Doctor and Rose, suddenly banishes them.

"I don't know what you are, the two of you," she says, "or where you're from. But I know that you consult with stars and magic and think it fun. But your world is steeped in terror and blasphemy and death and I will not allow it."

There's a tension between different perspectives on morality throughout the history of Doctor Who. Sometimes the Doctor will casually and adamantly use the word "evil", other times he chides others for using it too hastily to condemn an entire species or to judge the actions of an alien without examining its motives. In "Tooth and Claw", Rose, when confronted with the werewolf, immediately starts to ask him questions and offers help, thus continuing the fine tradition on the show that goes back to scenes like the Third Doctor's first encounter with a Silurian where he unhesitatingly offered the hand of friendship. It makes sense that Queen Victoria would not approve of the Doctor and Rose on moral grounds, though it would make more sense if it wasn't sprung suddenly at the end of the episode.

The difference between how this disapproval works in "Tooth and Claw" and how the moral quandaries are presented in the Twelfth Doctor era is that Victoria's stance is presented as a subjective judgement which the audience may or may not concur with. There's ambiguity over whether Twelve did the right thing in "Kill the Moon" by forcing Clara to make a decision without the aid of his foreknowledge. But in that case there's more of a sense of it being an attempt to find the real right thing to do than it is about the perspective on the right thing to do. Victoria's condemnation comes from a specific moral perspective and through it suddenly even the giddiness the Doctor and Rose feel over their adventures becomes suspect.

This follows after an image of the werewolf being crucified and the episode follows the Ninth Doctor's season and its prominent "Bad Wolf" thread. Since the "Bad Wolf" signs were shown without context, the emphasis was more on an implacable and strange moral force than on anything the Doctor had actually done, forcing the viewer to focus more on the motivations of that condemnation.

I often feel the series since its 2005 revival has been more of a reflection on the classic series than a continuation of it. Certainly the Doctor's moral ambiguity had been an issue before, particularly in the Sixth and Seventh Doctor eras. But through Davies I think we can see how a kid who feels different might have found comfort in the Doctor being friendly with monsters and also in the Doctor's position as a hero on the series who comfortably and deliberately makes choices that would be considered wrong by the prevailing morality. Davies injects a sense of vulnerability in this, that feeling of unprovoked betrayed when you've been palling around with Queen Victoria and she all of a sudden turns on you for doing something you thought was completely innocent and even now you can't understand why she thinks it's wrong. Since the Doctor does feel guilty about something, it makes sense if he might come away from an experience like that wondering if there's something fundamentally bad about himself he's not equipped to address.

I also love "Tooth and Claw"'s setting in that nice big old manor house which is apparently the origin of Torchwood. And it's always a joy seeing Tennant again.