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Entry tags:
NEW OMENS, PROBABLY GOOD ONES
WELL THAT CERTAINLY WAS A NEW SEASON OF A CANON THAT'S BEEN AROUND FOR QUITE A WHILE
Was it good? I think that depends on your definition of "good," and if you're looking for, like, a piece of media with the plotting and pacing of a television show rather than a fanfic, no, it's not good; if you're looking for a fanfic, it's got the 6000 Years Of Slowburn tag, as well as such delights as Regency AU, Amnesia, Surprise Gabriel/Beelzebub, and whatever the pithy tag is for when you're trying to get the two humans down the road to fall in love, but also, judged as a fanfic, it's kind of mid?; if the thing you're after is watching David Tennant and Michael Sheen have an absolute blast while being delighted to be in the same place as each other and making increasingly devastating faces, GREAT NEWS.
Which -- I think kind of covers my major feelings about it! It was a bafflingly-paced piece of television, it was a weird mélange of fanfic tropes, it was perhaps my favorite David Tennant situation ever? It was dark-ish comedy where the first season was satire, for obvious reasons, and not really to its detriment, I think, given the direction of the project, but it certainly contributed to feeling tonally like fic. I liked their use and deployment of John Hamm, let that man do more comedy! I was charmed by the decision to let Miranda Richardson, who'd already done a very good Aziraphale impression, get her demon on; I'm also glad they got Nina Sosanya again, and I loved how incredibly prickly coffee shop Nina was, especially in comparison to Sister Mary.
The "minisodes" sort of reminded me of the way they do flashbacks in the Highlander tv show, where it's like -- oh, by free association I have remembered something that happened to me in the past, we'll now go there, a place with light thematic relevance to the current situation but mostly just a space in which to further explore the history of these characters. Which is very fun! I found the flashbacks themselves variable, and I think I enjoyed them in descending order: I fucking loved the Book of Job section, all of Crowley's loopholes so he doesn't have to do murders, his incredible First Temptation of Aziraphale, "humans can arrive at any size," and of course tragic beat-up Peter Davison and phenomenally bitchy little Ty Tennant, fantastic. The bit with the Resurrectionists was fine, I guess; transcribing the conversation about the lunacy/ineffability of holy poverty into the Victorian age is, well, very Victorian, and I loved that they got it in, but Full Laudanum Crowley was a bit too panto for me, I'm so sorry, sometimes I'm too American for these things. Unsurprisingly, as I dislike Nazis, zombies, and the threat of public humiliation in fiction, Nazi Zombie Flesheaters was emphatically not my thing, but it still gave us Crowley panicking while attempting to not shoot Aziraphale, so I forgive them.
Let's see. Oh, I loved episode five so much, I love every Shopkeeper and Trader in this bookshop Regency ball, I love the business of the seamstress/"seamstress" conversation and how Good Place it was and how it was such a sweet little love note to Sir Terry, I love Maggie choosing to stay and help, I love Nina deciding to stay with her, I love that demons can't spell, I love the scene where Crowley confronts Gabriel and nearly gets Jim to jump out the window, it's just a fucking delight. I love that it's queers all the way down, I love the magic shop owner and his nonbinary spouse who was perfectly dressed for a Regency ball, I love the way they chose to conduct Maggie and Nina's not quite beginning of a relationship yet, I love that Beelzebub's been deliberately "they"d all along so even the Gabriel/Beelzebub business is another bit of queerness, and of course--
Like, it's just. Canon now. It's just canon now. It's been thirty-three fucking years, and also twenty since I discovered the book in high school, and in the book they were symbols that were fairly easy to see as shippable foils so we all did, and then the miniseries of the book was so lovely and loving and so firmly in the camp of "of course they love one another, but not really as humans do," and in a perfect world that would also be perfectly satisfying but in this one, where we all grew up queerbaited to hell and back, to get this-- Idk, man, I'm so glad queer media is a thing now, and also that kiss was one of the worst and most devastating things I've ever seen, I'm so happy, I can't stop making little wailing noises, THANKS GUYS. (As an aside, I'm kind of happy that the writers' strike helped David Tennant avoid all these interview questions about the nature of Aziraphale and Crowley's relationship, because I saw one where he was evasive as anything because he'd clearly been instructed to not spoil anyone, and oof, what a weird exhausting press junket that would've been!)
I don't really mind that it's a WIP and a cliffhanger, although I will be lowkey stressed until I know a third season is happening; the canon is still the canon, I would absolutely survive without resolution, but fuck do I want to see David and Michael act out the fix-it fic!! In the meantime: my first reaction to the ending was baffled indignation, because hmm Aziraphale is a mildly load-bearing character for me and I really wanted him to have done the work to divest from Heaven! I sort of held this reaction at arms' length because of aforementioned emotional loadbearing, and on a day's reflection I actually feel great about the end. Of course Aziraphale wanted to return when someone was kind to him! Of course he wants to fix the broken system because he wants it to be the promise of itself! Of course he wants Crowley at his side and can't imagine why anyone wouldn't want to be an angel again! I also suspect that, given we only got Aziraphale's report afterwards on the contents of the conversation with the Metatron, there's more in there we don't yet know, so I'm intrigued there. Also, I'd have to rewatch, but it occurs to me that both Crowley and we the audience know Gabriel was going to be memory-wiped for not wanting to restart Armageddon, but it's possible Aziraphale still thinks they were after him because he wanted to run away with Beelzebub? Again, I'd have to check, but Aziraphale might not have all the information -- not that it matters, really, I'm with Crowley that if "please stay with me" isn't going to cut it, that's answer enough (for now).
My spouse theorizes that the reason Heaven wanted to snatch Aziraphale back is that they're fucking terrified of how Aziraphale and Crowley together (a) somehow were immune to their punishments and (b) then collectively did a miracle that should technically only be performed by an archangel -- they're too powerful, together and uncontrolled, so either you get them both back or you separate them, either way, excellent. This gets into the speculative, but of course the next thing I'm going to do is go hunt down everyone else's reactions and speculations and then probably make a feverish storm of fanworks, because this season of television was messy and weird and tragic and absolutely fertile ground for us to have a screaming creative breakdown about it for the next while! YAY.
Was it good? I think that depends on your definition of "good," and if you're looking for, like, a piece of media with the plotting and pacing of a television show rather than a fanfic, no, it's not good; if you're looking for a fanfic, it's got the 6000 Years Of Slowburn tag, as well as such delights as Regency AU, Amnesia, Surprise Gabriel/Beelzebub, and whatever the pithy tag is for when you're trying to get the two humans down the road to fall in love, but also, judged as a fanfic, it's kind of mid?; if the thing you're after is watching David Tennant and Michael Sheen have an absolute blast while being delighted to be in the same place as each other and making increasingly devastating faces, GREAT NEWS.
Which -- I think kind of covers my major feelings about it! It was a bafflingly-paced piece of television, it was a weird mélange of fanfic tropes, it was perhaps my favorite David Tennant situation ever? It was dark-ish comedy where the first season was satire, for obvious reasons, and not really to its detriment, I think, given the direction of the project, but it certainly contributed to feeling tonally like fic. I liked their use and deployment of John Hamm, let that man do more comedy! I was charmed by the decision to let Miranda Richardson, who'd already done a very good Aziraphale impression, get her demon on; I'm also glad they got Nina Sosanya again, and I loved how incredibly prickly coffee shop Nina was, especially in comparison to Sister Mary.
The "minisodes" sort of reminded me of the way they do flashbacks in the Highlander tv show, where it's like -- oh, by free association I have remembered something that happened to me in the past, we'll now go there, a place with light thematic relevance to the current situation but mostly just a space in which to further explore the history of these characters. Which is very fun! I found the flashbacks themselves variable, and I think I enjoyed them in descending order: I fucking loved the Book of Job section, all of Crowley's loopholes so he doesn't have to do murders, his incredible First Temptation of Aziraphale, "humans can arrive at any size," and of course tragic beat-up Peter Davison and phenomenally bitchy little Ty Tennant, fantastic. The bit with the Resurrectionists was fine, I guess; transcribing the conversation about the lunacy/ineffability of holy poverty into the Victorian age is, well, very Victorian, and I loved that they got it in, but Full Laudanum Crowley was a bit too panto for me, I'm so sorry, sometimes I'm too American for these things. Unsurprisingly, as I dislike Nazis, zombies, and the threat of public humiliation in fiction, Nazi Zombie Flesheaters was emphatically not my thing, but it still gave us Crowley panicking while attempting to not shoot Aziraphale, so I forgive them.
Let's see. Oh, I loved episode five so much, I love every Shopkeeper and Trader in this bookshop Regency ball, I love the business of the seamstress/"seamstress" conversation and how Good Place it was and how it was such a sweet little love note to Sir Terry, I love Maggie choosing to stay and help, I love Nina deciding to stay with her, I love that demons can't spell, I love the scene where Crowley confronts Gabriel and nearly gets Jim to jump out the window, it's just a fucking delight. I love that it's queers all the way down, I love the magic shop owner and his nonbinary spouse who was perfectly dressed for a Regency ball, I love the way they chose to conduct Maggie and Nina's not quite beginning of a relationship yet, I love that Beelzebub's been deliberately "they"d all along so even the Gabriel/Beelzebub business is another bit of queerness, and of course--
Like, it's just. Canon now. It's just canon now. It's been thirty-three fucking years, and also twenty since I discovered the book in high school, and in the book they were symbols that were fairly easy to see as shippable foils so we all did, and then the miniseries of the book was so lovely and loving and so firmly in the camp of "of course they love one another, but not really as humans do," and in a perfect world that would also be perfectly satisfying but in this one, where we all grew up queerbaited to hell and back, to get this-- Idk, man, I'm so glad queer media is a thing now, and also that kiss was one of the worst and most devastating things I've ever seen, I'm so happy, I can't stop making little wailing noises, THANKS GUYS. (As an aside, I'm kind of happy that the writers' strike helped David Tennant avoid all these interview questions about the nature of Aziraphale and Crowley's relationship, because I saw one where he was evasive as anything because he'd clearly been instructed to not spoil anyone, and oof, what a weird exhausting press junket that would've been!)
I don't really mind that it's a WIP and a cliffhanger, although I will be lowkey stressed until I know a third season is happening; the canon is still the canon, I would absolutely survive without resolution, but fuck do I want to see David and Michael act out the fix-it fic!! In the meantime: my first reaction to the ending was baffled indignation, because hmm Aziraphale is a mildly load-bearing character for me and I really wanted him to have done the work to divest from Heaven! I sort of held this reaction at arms' length because of aforementioned emotional loadbearing, and on a day's reflection I actually feel great about the end. Of course Aziraphale wanted to return when someone was kind to him! Of course he wants to fix the broken system because he wants it to be the promise of itself! Of course he wants Crowley at his side and can't imagine why anyone wouldn't want to be an angel again! I also suspect that, given we only got Aziraphale's report afterwards on the contents of the conversation with the Metatron, there's more in there we don't yet know, so I'm intrigued there. Also, I'd have to rewatch, but it occurs to me that both Crowley and we the audience know Gabriel was going to be memory-wiped for not wanting to restart Armageddon, but it's possible Aziraphale still thinks they were after him because he wanted to run away with Beelzebub? Again, I'd have to check, but Aziraphale might not have all the information -- not that it matters, really, I'm with Crowley that if "please stay with me" isn't going to cut it, that's answer enough (for now).
My spouse theorizes that the reason Heaven wanted to snatch Aziraphale back is that they're fucking terrified of how Aziraphale and Crowley together (a) somehow were immune to their punishments and (b) then collectively did a miracle that should technically only be performed by an archangel -- they're too powerful, together and uncontrolled, so either you get them both back or you separate them, either way, excellent. This gets into the speculative, but of course the next thing I'm going to do is go hunt down everyone else's reactions and speculations and then probably make a feverish storm of fanworks, because this season of television was messy and weird and tragic and absolutely fertile ground for us to have a screaming creative breakdown about it for the next while! YAY.
no subject
Yeah, the thing about the pacing being slow and character-focused is that I'm not at all used to my genre tv doing that for a whole season but honestly I really loved it.
And hah you sound extremely similar to me at the end of TMA ("I cannot evaluate this objectively, they did a kiss and stab so to me it was perfect--") but yeah YEAH THEY ARE VERY SPECIFICALLY IN HORRIBLE QUEER LOVE AND IT'S VERY, VERY EXPLICITLY IN THE TEXT AND IT'S PERFECT