Good Omens ends not with a bang but with a single 90-minute episode, and that is the first thing worth saying about it. The show began in 2019 as a co-production between Amazon MGM Studios and BBC Studios, created by Neil Gaiman from the 1990 novel he wrote with Terry Pratchett. It ran three seasons and 13 episodes. The last one aired on 13 May 2026. In between, the series changed shape twice, and the second change was not a creative decision.
Trailer, via Prime Video AU & NZ.
Aziraphale, Crowley, and the Antichrist Nobody Can Find
The premise is the show’s best joke. Aziraphale is an angel. Crowley is a demon. Both have lived on Earth long enough to prefer it to their respective head offices, and both have agreed, quietly, not to let the war between Heaven and Hell ruin a good thing. Then they learn Armageddon is scheduled. The armies of Good and Evil are amassing. The Four Horsemen are ready to ride. Everything is going according to the Divine Plan, except that someone has misplaced the Antichrist.
Michael Sheen plays Aziraphale. David Tennant plays Crowley. That pairing is the engine of the whole thing, and it is the reason the show survived longer than its own premise should have allowed. Sheen’s angel is fussy, bookish, and stubborn in a way that reads as genuine rather than cute. Tennant’s demon is loose-limbed and amused, and he plays fondness as a kind of fatigue. They are not opposites so much as two people who have been at the same job too long.
The first series follows them as they try to find the boy and stop the end of the world. It is a comedy about bureaucracy and friendship that happens to be dressed as theology.
Jon Hamm, Derek Jacobi, and a Very Deep Bench
Good Omens does not lack for names. Gaiman’s ensemble includes Jon Hamm, Miranda Richardson, Michael McKean, Derek Jacobi, Brian Cox, and Frances McDormand as the voice of God, who narrates. Benedict Cumberbatch voices Satan, a character rendered in CGI.
Casting rolled out over roughly eighteen months, which tells you how much of a production this was. Sheen and Tennant were announced on 14 August 2017. Nina Sosanya, Ned Dennehy, and Ariyon Bakare joined the main cast in September 2017, followed within days by Jack Whitehall, Michael McKean, Miranda Richardson, and Adria Arjona. Jon Hamm came aboard in October 2017. Derek Jacobi was confirmed as the voice of the Metatron on 15 December 2017. Frances McDormand was announced as God and narrator at Amazon’s San Diego Comic-Con panel on 20 July 2018. Cumberbatch’s Satan was confirmed on 13 February 2019.
That is a lot of talent for a show that is, at heart, two middle managers bickering.
Douglas Mackinnon and the Look of the Thing
Douglas Mackinnon directed the series, and Gaiman served as showrunner. The show is a fantasy comedy with Christian themes and figures, and it treats both Heaven and Hell as corporate. That is the satirical spine. Armageddon is a project. The Antichrist is a deliverable. Aziraphale and Crowley are the two employees who actually like the client.
The tone is lighter than the novel’s reputation suggests, and the series leans on McDormand’s narration to carry the voice that the book handled in prose. It mostly works. When it doesn’t, the show is coasting on the charm of its leads, which is a real resource but a finite one.
Gabriel Loses His Memory
The second series, released on 28 July 2023, changes the question. The Archangel Gabriel arrives at Aziraphale’s bookshop without his memories. Aziraphale and Crowley have to figure out what happened to him and hide him from Heaven and Hell, both of which want him back.
This is a smaller story than Armageddon, and a better fit for the show’s actual strengths. It is a mystery about a guest who cannot explain himself, and it puts the central relationship under pressure rather than under threat. The first series asked whether the world would end. The second asked what the two of them are to each other. The second question is harder, and the show knows it.
The Final Episode Nobody Planned
Good Omens was renewed for a third and final series in December 2023. Then, after multiple sexual assault allegations against Gaiman, it was announced in October 2024 that he would leave the production and the third series would be reduced to a single 90-minute episode. That episode was released on 13 May 2026.
This is the fact that hangs over any assessment of the show now. The final season is not the season that was planned. It is a compressed ending, made under circumstances the production did not choose, and the result is a conclusion that has to do the work of a full arc in a fraction of the time.
What the Show Got Right
The show’s reputation rests on Sheen and Tennant, and that reputation is earned. The series was well received among critics, with praise for their performances, and the pairing is the reason the premise sustains itself across three seasons. Two immortal beings who have quietly gone native is a good idea. Two actors who can play centuries of familiarity in a glance is what makes it land.
The supporting cast is deep enough that no episode feels thin. Jacobi’s Metatron, McDormand’s God, Hamm’s presence in the second series — these are not stunt bookings. They are the show’s texture.
Where Good Omens falters is in the middle distance. The show is often funnier in concept than in execution, and the satire of Heaven and Hell as bureaucracies is stated more often than it is dramatized. The first series in particular spends a lot of time assembling pieces that the ending does not quite pay off.
The Score
Good Omens is a good show with a great central performance pairing and a final season that no one planned. It is worth watching for Sheen and Tennant, and worth thinking about for what happened to it. The show’s 6.6 out of 10 reflects a series that is consistently likable and inconsistently sharp — a comedy that knows its best asset and sometimes forgets to build around it.
The hard numbers behind that verdict:
- Title: Good Omens
- Created by: Neil Gaiman, based on the 1990 novel by Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
- Network: Prime Video
- Seasons: 3
- Episodes: 13
- First aired: 31 May 2019
- Last aired: 13 May 2026
- Second series released: 28 July 2023
- Final episode runtime: 90 minutes
- Metacritic score: 66/100
- Published critical score: 6.6/10
- Lead cast: Michael Sheen as Aziraphale; David Tennant as Crowley
- Narrator: Frances McDormand as the voice of God
How the three runs compare:
| Run | Released | Central question | Key figure |
|---|---|---|---|
| Series 1 | 31 May 2019 | Can Armageddon be stopped? | The misplaced Antichrist |
| Series 2 | 28 July 2023 | What happened to Gabriel? | The Archangel Gabriel |
| Series 3 | 13 May 2026 | How does it end? | Aziraphale and Crowley |
The first run is the premise. The second is the relationship. The third is a 90-minute compromise. Ranked by what the show was built to do, the second is the strongest and the third is the one that carries the least of its own intentions.
Good Omens is available on Prime Video. Score: 6.6 of 10.
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