I’ve seen Good Omens between seven and nine times. What can I say, it’s a great show based on one of my favorite books. I love the way the show was able to stay so faithful to the original source material while still managing to incorporate new characters and plot points in a way that felt purely additive rather than superfluous. It is a fantastic adaptation.
Every time I watch, I notice something new! This started with me catching things like “wow, what a lovely job they did of dressing the set in this scene, I love the attention to detail,” and has more recently evolved into “I wonder what I can find if I pause during this fast-forwarded bit; after all, Neil Gaiman said that the whole series was condensed into this sequence!” These are definitely not all of the Easter eggs in the show, only the ones I stumbled upon by mistake.
Without further ado, here are some things I’ve found in Good Omens because I’ve watched this show too many times.
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Neil Gaiman’s Cameo in “Saturday Morning Funtime”
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On my most recent rewatch, I noticed for the first time that there was someone sitting in the audience with Crowley. I mean, I’d noticed him before, but I hadn’t stopped and thought about why he was there. “Wouldn’t it be funny,” I thought to myself, “if Neil Gaiman had an author cameo as the man passed out in the front of the theater?” Wait. I rewound the episode to get a closer look, and sure enough, it was Neil Gaiman! I took to Google to confirm my theory and found out that not only is Neil Gaiman sitting in the theater, he also voices Hastur and both of the rabbits in this scene!
- Tribute to Terry Pratchett in “The Doomsday Option”
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I’m sitting in my dorm, watching Good Omens. The fire alarm goes off. I slam my laptop shut and run out of the building. When I get back inside, I settle in to watch the rest of the episode. I open my laptop to find the show paused on a screen with an arcade game in the foreground and Death playing Trivia in the background. On the visible screen, we see a scoreboard with Death in all of the top positions, except for first place. The number one player is T. PRATCHETT, who even Death can’t beat. There are several tributes to Terry Pratchett throughout the series. The most notable being a coat rack in Azriaphale’s library that holds Pratchett’s actual hat and scarf.
- Newt’s Doctor Who tie in “The Book”
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As a long-time Doctor Who fan, I’m almost embarrassed at how long it took me to notice this. The tie is a tribute to Tom Baker’s costume as the Fourth Doctor, specifically his iconic long and colorful scarf. This is one of many Doctor Who tributes in the show, including Brian quoting the Dalek’s catchphrase, “Exterminate!” in a later episode. Also, Gaiman, Michael Sheen, and David Tenannt have all worked on Doctor Who at some point or another, which makes the tiny tributes to the show all the better for fans of both shows.
- Deleted Scene Left in Fast Forward Sequence in “Hard Times”
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It is embarrassing that I found this. This was the thing that made me realize that I’d maybe seen the show too many times. I was watching “Hard Times,” and I noticed in the fast-forwarded sequence after the opening title that there was this lingering shot of a red and grey boat that I couldn’t place anywhere in the series. I rewound the episode and was able to pause it at exactly the right moment. Sure enough, there was Pollution, standing on the deck of a small boat. Earlier that same day, I had rewatched a sequence of deleted scenes, including one where Pollution causes an oil spill by tampering with controls on a boat, a scene pulled directly from the Good Omens book. I guess that by the time that scene was cut, the fast forward sequence for “Hard Times” was already finished!
Even though the series is short, there is so much to discover with every rewatch! For anyone interested in watching Good Omens, it can be found on Amazon Prime Video and can be feasibly watched in one afternoon.