Despite over 20,000 people coming together to sign a petition that had asked Netflix to cancel the series ‘Good Omens’, the show creator Neil Gaiman has no plans to call it a wrap.
The long-awaited adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s ‘Good Omens’ debuted on Amazon Prime Video in May 2019, with Gaiman himself serving as the screenwriter and showrunner. Before his death, Gaiman’s good friend Pratchett requested ‘Good Omens’ to be adapted as a TV show. However, for many, Gaiman’s tribute didn’t sit well as countless viewers frowned upon the drama’s take on Biblical themes. The protesters joined hands and launched a Christian campaign known as “Return to Order” to begin a petition for ‘Good Omens’ to be cancelled by Netflix.
Highlights —
- What is ‘Good Omens’ about?
- Why petitions to cancel it?
- Neil Gaiman’s take on petitions
What is ‘Good Omens’ about?
Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s fantasy novel debuted on May 31, 2019. It is a six-part series entailing a team-up between the demon Crowley, played by David Tennant, and the angel Aziraphale, played by Michael Sheen. They are both now accustomed to life on our planet Earth.
Why petitions to cancel it?
‘Good Omens’, for most viewers, was presented as a humorous take on the idea of angels and demons. But it didn’t make everyone laugh. Over 20,000 Christians who were offended by the show, signed a petition urging the show to be cancelled. Their reason? They think that the drama normalizes Satan, arguing that the show “presents devils and Satanists as normal and even good, where they merely have a different way of being, and mocks God’s wisdom”.
Neil Gaiman’s take on petitions
Even as Christians are fuming and frowning, Neil Gaiman is very much enjoying the petition. His social media response to the petition is proof enough that he is, in fact, “loving it” and is not offended at all. But this wasn’t Gaiman’s only tweet poking fun at the petitioners. The creator of the show first learned about the petitions via Twitter where there were more than 20,000 signatures from folks who wanted Netflix to cancel Amazon’s series.
Meanwhile, Gaiman hoped that the petition was “beautiful” and wished that nobody would tell the petitioners that they are mistaken. From his response, it seems that Gaiman has no plans to close the curtain on the show and the mini-series may return to screen with a second season soon.
In an interview with entertainment portal “Digital Spy”, Gaiman opened up about the possibility of the show’s return and said,
“I don’t feel like it’s done and dusted … You know, Terry [Pratchett] and I had plotted a whole other storyline. That would have been the second novel”.
But it’s not certain when the light-hearted drama will make a comeback as Gaiman is already balancing fatherhood with his books, comics, and other series.
“It’s definitely not a ‘never say never again’ situation … Everybody would love more”, he insisted. “And I am the problem, because there’s only 24 hours in a day, and I have a 4-year-old”, he explained. In our opinion, the petition may have guaranteed that even more people check out ‘Good Omens’ on Amazon as the effort gained a lot of social media attention after people learned that there was a group targeting Netflix for an Amazon show.
If you’re not one of the thousands who signed the ‘Good Omens’ petition, you can find all six episodes streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
