Just came across this very entertaining British TV series on Amazon Prime. Reminds me of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, but with with Adam and Eve instead of Sci-Fi. The opening sequence of the first episode will be disturbingly funny to most of us here.
Apparently, God is a woman. Usher’s chronology is wrong, but just by 15 minutes. Dinosaur fossils are a joke God is playing on paleontologists (they don’t get it yet). Opening scene is the Garden of Eden in a walled off oasis. Now a demon and an angel are teaming up to prevent the apocalypse in present day.
Very entertaining. I’m curious what the Brits among us think, and addition to the YECs.
Not really the kind of thing that interests me to be honest. I may disagree with YECs and I may be prepared to correct them (robustly if necessary), but I still recognise that they are brothers and sisters in Christ and I don’t feel comfortable watching anything that mocks them. Psalm 1:1 and all that.
My first impression (from your description) is that, in the British context, such a series works only as a put-down, rather than a satire.
Last night on a live nature programme in torrential Scottish rain, a Welsh presenter said he’d met a man carrying planks, who said his name was Noah. My wife commented that it’s unlikely anyone under the age of 50 got the joke, and that’s true - you have only to watch University Challenge to realize that there is almost no cultural memory left of biblical matters.
Nobody here (apart from a few dinosaurs) has read a KJV for decades, nor has any idea of Ussher’s chronology… except, maybe, from scientistic programmes on evolution telling them that clowns in the olden days thought they’d pinned down the creation of the world to whatever time and date it was (whilst counting angels on the head of a pin, no doubt).
Even knowledge of the basic Genesis story is hazy (I’d say even amongst many churchgoers). So the drama seems simply to be driving home memes against what savvy people think they know of American Fundamentalism rather than satirizing any actual British religion (unless you see it as mocking a tiny minority, which would be unkind).
“Fundies will be really wild with a feminist God, that the KJV dates are wrong, that we’ve rumbled their “mock in the rock” theory of dinosaurs, and that original sin is called into doubt.” Except that there are about as many Fundamentalists like that in Britain as there are flat-earthers, so it seems to me the equivalent of a Roman TV series repeating the claim that Christians worship a crucified donkey.
Hey, but maybe it’s intended mainly for the US market, where at least you get the impression that Joe Public is vaguely acquainted with Christian teaching.
Just FYI for those trying to triangulate the relationship between the content and audience familiarity with the Bible, the original story was written 30 years ago. (I’ve read the book; not sure when I’ll have a chance to catch up with the show.)
I like Terry Pratchett’s books. Unfortunately, Pratchett’s works seem to translate poorly to the screen. Good Omens is probably the best attempt so far.
Neil Gaiman has been a bit luckier. I think his book, American Gods, is having a good run as a TV series.
If you’re interested in other comedies about angels, demons and the apocalypse, I think “Dogma” is near perfect. “Rapture-Polooza” is pretty good as well.
More than 20,000 Christians have signed a petition calling for the cancellation of Good Omens, the television series adapted from Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s 1990 fantasy novel – unfortunately addressing their petition to Netflix when the series is made by Amazon Prime.
Oh my. Who was responsible for drafting this? How did 20,000 people miss this?
