Martin Carr reviews the fourth episode of Good Omens…
To discover in a moment of stress and anxiety that good people are just fallacies is nothing short of devastating. That the Almighty is also not really working towards a specific goal or has anyone’s best interests at heart, is likely to get people, especially most people quite worried indeed. Combine epiphanies of that nature with the sudden and quite unexpected arrival of aliens, Atlantis and demonic answerphone incarceration and you can imagine things are not going well. As seas begin to boil, scaly sea monsters force their way into reality and duck billed alien occupants lecture passing motorists you could say Good Omens is gathering steam.
Conjoining witch finder privates and career driven occultists in waiting might seem like an odd place to start, but then ‘Saturday Morning Funtime’ fails to offer up anything more obvious. With hell getting suspicious, heaven equally curious and our dynamic duo far from sensible, it would be fair to say things may soon be going south like the proverbial hellish hand cart. You see our eleven year old Anti-Christ is beginning to flex his considerable influence upon a world far from prepared for the whims of a pre-pubescent. Although to call his affect whimsical might be understating things slightly as titans are rising from the depths, lost civilisations are immerging and God’s movements are decidedly more mysterious than usual. Meanwhile our cameo quota must have peaked as both Brian Cox and Derek Jacobi put in an appearance alongside Tennant and Sheen.
As panic grips angel and demon alike you might begin to wonder where this whirlwind of causality might be leading. Apart from the obvious realisation that things are definitely not leading in a good or even favourable direction, there is the secondary problem of those devilish minions hamstringing our central protagonists. Their devious devotion to maintaining a status quo might be considered admirable by some, but in the great grand celestial scheme of things war is about winning not taking part.
Which is where both Crowley and Aziraphale have come a cropper as their indifference combined with some staggering miscommunication, has led to an upturned Robin Reliant and Carry On copulation beneath a brass bedstead. As those final deliveries usher in the arrival of the final horsemen you can’t help but be overwhelmed by the joyous whimsy of an impending apocalypse.
Martin Carr
