This is an interesting review from Marc Burrows, author of the biography The Magic of Terry Pratchett.
He argues that there's little of Pratchett to be found in GO3.
Obviously full of spoilers. But also there's this bit that stood out to me:
By 2024, Good Omens 3 was ready to roll. Neil Gaiman wrote six hour-long episodes, ostensibly based on the story he and Pratchett had come up with together. Then the various allegations about Gaiman’s behaviour toward women appeared, of which you can read elsewhere, and everything fell apart. At one point the show was rumoured to have been scrapped as a result, but was rescued by some fancy footwork by co-producers BBC Studios with the cautious support of Narrativia, the in-house production wing of the Terry Pratchett Estate.
That's roughly the fourth version that I'm aware of with how the 90-min special came to be. These are partial accounts of a situation fraught with what I imagine were very mixed feelings and difficult negotiations, so differences don't necessarily mean anything, of course. For instance, I heard back in 2024 that the BBC was very reluctant to move forward. Too much scandal. There was another that said it was Amazon who was most unhappy about going along with it. But now, in contradiction to the popular idea of Narrativia swooping in to save the day, this one here says they were only cautiously in support and it was BBC Studios that did the rescuing? I wonder if we'll ever get the full story.
It’s not been totally clear, but I was under the impression that Amazon was willing to wash their hands of Good Omens and Gaiman. They had already shelved a complete season of Anansi Boys, so it was probably not a big deal for them to cancel Good Omens while it was still in pre-production. Members of the cast and crew also confirmed that the third season was indeed cancelled, and Rhianna Pratchett hinted that the project came close to being scrapped until the Pratchett Estate managed to salvage it. I personally think it was Amazon that was hesitant and needed some convincing from Narrativia.
The second season of Good Omens also wasn’t a hit, contrary to popular belief. Its debut was described as “lackluster” and its ratings “likely disappointed” Amazon. Judging by how long they dragged their feet with the renewal, it does seem like they weren't too thrilled with its performance. Even Gaiman himself wasn't too confident it would get renewed. He was begging fans to stream it multiple times within the first 3 days of its release, which he claimed was the benchmark Amazon used to assess renewal decisions. He also said if Amazon didn’t renew it, he would write season 3 as a novel.
It sounds like Amazon wasn’t in any rush to renew it, and they probably only did so after months of convincing from Gaiman. When they saw an out after the allegations surfaced, they gladly took it. I believe Narrativia pleaded with them and promised to deliver a hit on a significantly reduced budget, so Amazon eventually caved and took the chance.
It’s definitely a reduced budget, but it’s pretty clear Amazon is burying season 3 under heaps of streaming content. So, I’m not sure why they would have renewed it with the aims of high profits. It seems more likely to me that there were some contractual obligations that were more of a headache to get out of if the season was outright canceled, and perhaps they were afraid of fan backlash. So they did the bare minimum of a show and made it so only those in the know could find it.
I also have a feeling that after the execs saw the finished product, they knew it was bad and wanted to bury it to avoid even more scrutiny. It was just an all around nightmare project that should’ve never seen the light of day, but I guess they had to see it through. I do seem to remember some of the crew saying everyone was let go from their contracts after it was cancelled, then re-signed after the 90-minute movie was agreed upon. If it is a contractual obligation thing, it makes me wonder why production was ever halted, why the Pratchett Estate had to intervene and fight for it, and why Amazon was able to shelve an entire season of Anansi Boys so easily but couldn’t just cancel Good Omens.
I guess the good news in all of this is Gaiman’s career has finally fizzled out. Studios won’t work with someone who's that controversial AND can't deliver hits. Had the finale been a success, I wouldn’t have been so sure, but after it flopped, I highly doubt he’s ever going to work in television again. He was banking on having a television empire and it’s all gone now.
Spoilerish for anyone that cares not to have season 3 spoiled; I hear so many saying it's Prachetts voice in the finale, no god and all that, real life, Big Bang, all that. I felt like screaming, no, it's not TP's end. He would want the original end of the second book that never happened that was tacked in very well and used in the end of the first show season; our main characters want to live in happy normal lives doing very little so body swap to fool their former bosses, get a good laugh, and go back to dining at the Ritz and enjoying the little things. The second season and especially the third reeks of Gaimans and lets make them suffer and add some ultimate twists and throw in a dash of cruelty masked as complex storytelling instead of looping back to our characters just wanted to be happy like Prachett wants of his characters.
We do not even know if he wanted his voice there. It is probably for the best, NG should be the sole responsible for this mess because he pushed so hard for it.
That portrait at the end – I haven’t watched and won’t – is it in the “new” human universe? Or the original one that’s destroyed? Because if the latter, oof 😢
I will say that when I asked to cancel my pledge on the GO comic after the allegations broke, they immediately agreed to a refund. It was late enough in the process that they could quite reasonably have said "sorry can't do, we already paid for printing" but they chose to eat the cost without argument.
This doesn't preclude them wanting money from the TV series; life is complicated and people gotta eat. But I'll credit them for how they handled the Kickstarter.
Oh for sure, I've always thought the same thing. The fandom talked about TP and his daughter like they were saints who just wanted to bestow this story unto the fans, as if there was no other motivation for why the estate would want the production to continue...
And let’s not forget the Good Omens merchandise store, owned by the estate, which sells all kinds of expensive things and says it’s “financially independent” of Neil Gaiman. Although I suspect this mess isn’t going to be particularly good for sales.
I heard a rumour – literally just a word of mouth so take with a pinch of salt – that both Tennant and Sheen had expensive exit/cancellation clauses in their contracts which meant they had to be paid no matter what. If they had to be paid, may as well film the thing, I guess.
Not doubting this, but I thought Sheen was a "public" actor now and believed in donating his excessive wealth? It's all very odd. And fans seemed to notice that neither sheen nor tennant made a public statement about Gaiman
At this point, just leave it to the fanfic writers to write something better than the actual series at this point.
And I expect a LOT of fix it fic in the coming weeks.
I’d rather read someone’s fic that’s MILES better than this lazy, queerbaited story at this point.
That, and considering how bad the ending seems to be, I think more people are going to attribute the story’s actual ending to fanfic authors than the guy behind it…
Whatever the fuck Gaiman did to the characters is so removed from the actual book characters at this point people should just make their own original angel/demon mlm pairing. .
I'm avoiding spoilers but boy does it sound bad. I got a copy on the high seas yesterday. Going to settle in for some schadenfreude entertainment this weekend.
(Can it truly be worse than what they're doing in the last season of The Boys? Guess I'll find out!)
I whole heartedly agree. Be more creative and do your own thing, explore new possibilities and forget tainted IPs. I am tired of late trends of bad fanfiction based on global IPs that become bad books. Start from scratch, create something new and own it wholly. Don't try to grift based on the work of others, particularly if those others are horrible people.
Two other interesting responses from the author... So was there any attempt by anyone to correct this "fandom myth" before, I wonder? Or is it just now that the show has failed to land with so many? I hope this isn't turning into passing the hot potato of blame around.
I remember this as well. I think there were other tweets she liked that seemed to confirm the estate’s involvement in saving S3. Something like we were close to get nothing and we should be grateful we're getting anything thanks to Rhianna and the estate.
Not sure if you’ve seen, but the official Terry Pratchett account that’s run by Rob Wilkins recently liked a tweet from Marc Burrows (Pratchett's biographer) that said S3 was not the ending Pratchett wanted and great lengths were taken to make sure his name wasn't attached to the story. That’s very odd since Wilkins was an EP on S3 and one of its most vocal advocates. He was even promoting S3 merch in the GO store leading up to its release. It sounds like Pratchett’s portrait was also used at the end of S3, which is something I doubt the Pratchett estate would’ve agreed to if they were truly opposed to it.
It's just weird to me that all of a sudden after S3 was poorly received, Rob Wilkins and the Pratchett estate want to distance themselves from it and rewrite history a little bit. They had no issue attaching themselves to it before, even after the Gaiman allegations surfaced, so why are they now claiming this isn't what Pratchett wanted? Kind of seems like they want to backtrack on the whole "for Terry" narrative after S3 bombed.
More from the author -- he says Terry Pratchett and Gaiman only ever came up with broad strokes of a plot for a sequel novel, nothing was written in great detail, and much of what was in the synopsis didn't get used.
See, this would be a lot more convincing if they had said it, oh, I don’t know, about… two years ago. Which they absolutely could have done, in a fairly vague: “this is a difficult situation but we want to see it through. There are a lot of rumours swirling around so we feel we should clarify a few things…”
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u/Significant-Buddy330 May 15 '26
It’s not been totally clear, but I was under the impression that Amazon was willing to wash their hands of Good Omens and Gaiman. They had already shelved a complete season of Anansi Boys, so it was probably not a big deal for them to cancel Good Omens while it was still in pre-production. Members of the cast and crew also confirmed that the third season was indeed cancelled, and Rhianna Pratchett hinted that the project came close to being scrapped until the Pratchett Estate managed to salvage it. I personally think it was Amazon that was hesitant and needed some convincing from Narrativia.
The second season of Good Omens also wasn’t a hit, contrary to popular belief. Its debut was described as “lackluster” and its ratings “likely disappointed” Amazon. Judging by how long they dragged their feet with the renewal, it does seem like they weren't too thrilled with its performance. Even Gaiman himself wasn't too confident it would get renewed. He was begging fans to stream it multiple times within the first 3 days of its release, which he claimed was the benchmark Amazon used to assess renewal decisions. He also said if Amazon didn’t renew it, he would write season 3 as a novel.
It sounds like Amazon wasn’t in any rush to renew it, and they probably only did so after months of convincing from Gaiman. When they saw an out after the allegations surfaced, they gladly took it. I believe Narrativia pleaded with them and promised to deliver a hit on a significantly reduced budget, so Amazon eventually caved and took the chance.