Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share a virtual kitchen table with other readers of Daily Kos who aren’t throwing pies at one another. Drop by to talk about music, your weather, your garden, or what you cooked for supper…. Newcomers may notice that many who post in this series already know one another to some degree, but we welcome guests at our kitchen table and hope to make some new friends as well.
Please do not attack Democratic candidates or drag primary fights into our community.
It’s not often that one finds a perfect piece of filmmaking — but the Amazon series, “Good Omens”, based upon the book by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, seems to me to be just that. Neil Gaiman wrote the script so you know it has to be good. Every other element — from the casting to the effects and cinematography— fits. The result is a rich tapestry so chock full of detail that one can watch it again and again with no loss of interest.
And what a theme for the weird times we find ourselves in — fear of the End of the World! In Good Omens, we have an angel who isn’t perfect (but who is played to perfection by Michael Sheen) — he likes the sensual things of the human world (such as good food and wine) far too much for that. And we have a demon (the original Snake from the Garden of Eden, played by David Tennant) who has a soft spot in his heart for Earth and for his angelic friend, thus is not completely bad. And then there are a bunch of petty bureaucrats in Heaven and Hell, pretty much mirrors of each other, each and every one rigidly bound and determined the End Times are going to happen as writ. They are so certain that everyone has to die so one side can “win”. The whole dangerously polar situation that the angel and demon are trying to defuse reminds me again of that line from Rumi:
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
There is a field. I’ll meet you there.
Rumi
Being human, the angel says, is about being allowed to make choices. And so it is! Life is a learning process, after all.
Books can be (and have been) written about such great topics as good vs. evil. But this series is more irresistible than any tome. It is greatly entertaining and still makes you think. I’ve watched it twice so far and am looking forward to seeing it again.
The weekend begins now. Please come in be comfortable, and share your day, your weekend plans, your menus. And if it is hot as hell out there, stay in and watch Good Omens!
I may be late to the table tonight due to an afternoon appointment. Forgive me if I am not here on the dot — and carry on!