(David Tennant Voice) Well… (/David Tennant Voice) some sacrifices. For instance, no mention of the rival gang to Adam and crew, so when he called the armies of Heaven and Hell a couple of gangs, it was out of the blue and not the visible outcome of the character’s story arc.
Ha- that was one thing I told my son, that he got to miss out on the Other Four, like G.B.H.!
But, it didn’t hurt the story, really, just got to miss out on a pretty funny bit.
I considered that but it would have involved a lot of extra screen time to give them sufficient context, for minimal benefit. That said, the omission meant that we didn’t get the revelation about the third baby.
I also wanted to see the reappearance of the US soldier at his parents’ home in America, but again that wasn’t crucial to the story.
Finished today and very pleased.
I read the book long enough ago that i don’t remember it too well but do remember thinking it wasn’t a great book for either of them, but fun enough. The show fares better.
Of course the things never happened bit gets all well timeywhimey …
I also just finished it.
Yep, it’s pretty good, but also falls apart in the middle a bit, much like the book. I think the adaptation is probably superior to the book, though I do remember enjoying the first 1/3 of the book quite a bit.
I hugely enjoyed it and I could watch Sheen and Tennant as Aziraphale and Crowley meeting up at various points in history for another few hours.
Sure, I missed some of the elements from the books that had to be cut out for time and cohesion (like the Four Other Bikers, Harvey’s letters, Aziraphale’s body-hopping 
), but overall was very happy with it.
The only thing I didn’t like was the change to Adam’s transformation from wrold destroyer to Armageddon stopper. He had already forced his friends to walk and stay where he wanted, disappeared their mouths and forced them to smile - had already taken away their free will. And then he changed his mind, sort of stopped controlling them, and had a breakdown when his friends and dog left. Why did he suddenly stop controlling them?
In the book it was a bit clearer to me:
(After distributing the world among his friends and saying he will keep Tadfield for himself.)"'I can have ‘em if I want,’ said Adam, his voice tinged with sullen defiance and his defiance edged with sudden doubt. ‘I can make them better, too. Better trees to climb, better ponds, better…’
His voice trailed off.
‘You can’t,’ said Wensleydale flatly. ‘They’re not like America and those places. They’re really real. Anyway, they belong to all of us. They’re ours.’
‘And you couldn’t make ‘em better,’ said Brian.
‘Anyway, even if you did we’d all know,’ said Pepper.
‘Oh, if that’s all that’s worryin’ you, don’t you worry,’ said Adam airily, ’ ‘cos I could make you all just do whatever I wanted-’
He stopped, his ears listening in horror to the words his mouth was speaking. The Them were backing away.
Dog put his paws over his head.
Adam’s face looked like an impersonation of the collapse of empire.
‘No,’ he said hoarsely. ‘No. Come back! I command you!’
They froze in mid-dash.
‘No, I din’t mean it-’ he began. ‘You’re my friends-’
His body jerked. His head thrown back. He raised his arms and pounded the sky with his fists."
To me, that’s a much better revelation for Adam, when just the idea of taking away his friends’ free will is enough. It fits better with him being quintesentially human. In my opinion, it also makes the baby-switching mistake seem like more of a part of the ineffable plan, as the very down-to-earth not-so-speacial nature of Tadfield and the close bonds Adam had with regular kids seem to play a crucial, if not the only, part in his ultimate rejection of his fate. Elements of all this were present in the adaptation, but it is much clearer in the book.
Also, if even my absolutely best friend took my mouth away, I would not just accept an apology.
I liked it.
The specific collection of books that’s been mentioned in some spoilers and shown in close-up was a favorite of my dad and his siblings, growing up. When Dad eventually found out the author was a woman, he said “oh, ok, guess I just found out who my favorite female writer is then.” Seeing those books was a very “awwwww” moment for me.
I find it weird that Anathema’s name is pronounced differently by her and by her mother, but that’s something I’ve noticed in several other series recently. Wouldn’t it be real weird if it happened outside of a movie? I mean, it seems like a strange dialectal difference when it happens between two people who talk to each other a lot. Am I the only person who’s bothered by stuff like that or something?
I particularly enjoyed the footage of Aziraphale dancing the gavotte.
I’ve only seen the first episode so far, and I’m enjoying it thus far.
Whoever’s doing the guitar work over the end credits is either Brian May or someone doing a damned fine imitation. Appropriate, what?
I’m about midway through. It’s more clever than engaging. I don’t really like any of the characters yet, and the juxtaposition of Apocalyptic and mundane (“It was the end of the world, a Tuesday, right about teatime”) gets grating fast. I love Neil Gaiman’s other works that I’ve watched or read, so I assume the cutesyness is Pratchett’s doing?
Oh god, that was hilarious.
They’ve said in interviews that the parts that everyone assumes Pratchett wrote were actually Gaiman, and vice-versa. So who knows which part was whose.
Death from the four horsemen more resembled Pratchett’s Death than Gaiman’s Death. So presumably Gaiman wrote that bit.
The thing I’ve always loved about the book, and it comes across equally well in the miniseries, is how Crowley was written to be far more MORAL than Aziraphale, it seems that A was quite content to follow “The Plans” whatever they might be, because he felt he was on the side of “good/righteous”, wheras Crowley had no problems breaking the rules if it benefitted Humanity, he seemed to be far more sympathetic to Humans and the Human Condition than A
no he wasn’t above the occasional “prank” (the ducks, the office “Team Building” episode), and he was more than happy to let Humanity doom themselves (the M25/tying up the cell network) but those required willing participation of humans (in the book, he was also impressed with how Humanity improved contracts/red tape, sending samples to Hell with a post-it attached simply saying “learn, guys”
it seemed the only real rulebreaking A did was giving his Flaming Sword to Adam and Eve to help them fend off the wild animals, after that, he seemed more than content to sit back and let the Plan go forward, until they realized it would destroy Humanity, only then did he start to consider undermining the Plan
it seems that Crowley was basically on the side of Humanity from the off…
Haven’t seen the adaptation. Loved the book.
The thing I most loved about the book is exactly that:
Armageddon is prevented because the Antichrist fell in love with a specific place.
I found it interesting that “Crowley” was pronounced almost “crawley”, because snake. I never got that-- I always pronounced it like the character on *Supernatural. *
He was named “Crawley” to begin with. He changed it to “Crowley” later. Some of his fellow demons persisted in using the old name though.
Crowley comes across as Chaotic Neutral (with Evil tendencies, particularly toward his houseplants) during the story. He does various evil things mostly because that’s his job and because he seems to enjoy the challenge and fun of it rather than out of sheer malevolence. Aziraphale is Lawful Good but occasionally edges into Lawful Neutral or Neutral Good due to The Arrangement (although whether breaking one rule to honour a different agreement makes you less Lawful is debatable) and occasionally to get a good table somewhere. By the end he’s definitely largely Neutral Good, having discovered that Lawfulness is not all it’s cracked up to be.
Disregarding established rules to follow one’s moral compass is pretty much the textbook definition of Chaotic.
I assume Pratchett was behind Funny Footnotes, which were not evident in the adaptation. He’s not the only footnote-snarker, but it is something he does A LOT and I can’t remember them clearly from the Gaiman I’ve read.
I also think he did the joke about all tapes in cars eventually becoming Best of Queen because he made that joke in one of his other books. But I guess he could have liked it so much if Gaiman wrote it that he stole it and reused it.
But yeah, other than those two things and Death’s overall Death-ness, I can’t tell who wrote what. Generally feel the same when I read The Talisman, my other favorite author collaboration.