Benedict Cumberbatch and Frances McDormand will not return for Good Omens’ second season
The full cast for the second season of the Amazon series has been announced
Aux News Frances McDormand
The full cast of heavenly and hellish characters for the second season of Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens has been unveiled, with a balance of returners and new additions. However, two familiar voices that will not be returning for season two are those of Frances McDormand and Benedict Cumberbatch.
Throughout season one, McDormand voiced the role of the almighty God, who served as the narrator for the apocalyptic tale. Cumberbatch voiced God’s counterpart, the 500-foot tall and absentee father Satan. It’s unclear if their roles have simply been written out of the new material in season two, or if they will be replaced by new actors.
Those reprising their roles include Derek Jacobi as Metatron and his I, Claudius co-star Dame Siân Phillips. More season two returners are Mark Gatiss (Sherlock), Steve Pemberton (Killing Eve), Reece Shearsmith (Inside No. 9), and Niamh Walsh. Cast newcomers include Tim Downie (Outlander), Pete Firman, Andi Osho (I May Destroy You), and Alex Norton.
Other confirmed returning cast members include Jon Hamm, Miranda Richardson, Maggie Service, Nina Sosanya, Doon Mackichan, as well as Gloria Obianyo, Liz Carr, Quelin Sepulveda, and Shelley Conn. It’s possible these cast members could take on new roles, or reprise their roles from season one.
“We are so thrilled that we were able to get so many fabulous actors to return to the Good Omens family. Some of them are reprising roles, some of them are playing completely new characters,” says Neil Gaiman, who serves as writer and co-showrunner. “And we are just as thrilled by the people coming to the Good Omens team for the first time. We have an ensemble cast of astonishing talent, and seeing what they’re giving us is a daily treat. I can’t wait until the rest of the world gets that treat, too.”
Gaiman continues to serve as executive producer and co-showrunner with Douglas Mackinnon, who has returned to direct. Gaiman co-wrote season one with John Finnemore, and the two are joined by new writers Cat Clarke, Jeremy Dyson, and Andy Nyman for the second season.
Michael Sheen and David Tennant will return as Aziraphale and Crowley for another potential apocalypse-avoiding adventure on some date not yet disclosed by Amazon.
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Mark Gatiss (Sherlock), Steve Pemberton (Killing Eve), Reece Shearsmith (Inside No. 9)
Times like these I wish the League of Gentlemen had crossed over to the US. Then I remember Papa Lazarou and I get why they didn’t.
Heeey Daaave
‘You’re my wife now.”
Reece Shearsmith became my favorite LOGer after seeing In The Earth. Portrayed unhinged and dangerous in such a fantastic way. I hope he gets bigger roles.
Also got Jeremy Dyson on writing duties, so they have the full set!
In the film The League’s of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse, Michael Sheen actually played Jeremy Dyson (the other Leaguers played themselves) so it’s cool they’re working together on this.
Also having one Pemberton and Shearsmith as from Inside No. 9 and the other not is perverse.What a show that is, by the way.
Mark Gatissis an odd one. His Sherlock writing was top notch. He acting is generally very good. His performance in the Doctor Who regeneration special was excellent. BUT his Doctor Who scripts are the dregs. All of them. Just awful. He wrote enough that one of them should have some merit but no. All shit.
I mean they’re a bit rubbish (he did the sleep in the eye one I think:) but I still wish he’d been made showrunner rather than Davis (again), .
The Eye Booger Monster may have been his nadir and that’s saying something… Since few, if any, of his scripts neither drove nor added to the season arcs, I have to wonder if he was just writing (what he thought were) fun little stand alone stories that happen to have The Doctor in them.
It’s a local show, for local people.
Gaiman initially said he didn’t want to make a second season, but I guess scads of Amazon cash helped him change his mind. I’m glad it did.The first season was a blast and I’m very much looking forward to a second one. Sheen and Tennant (or is it Tennant and Sheen?) are a great comedy team, almost to the point that they could take turns reading the phone book and have us rolling on the floor.
I believe it’s “Sheen and (that fucking liar) Tennant”…
Staged is just wonderful (the first season, particularly).
First series was great. Only got about halfway through the second, got distracted by… life… and never found the motivation to return.
You probably saw the best of it. The ending was a bit odd and not particularly funny.
“Gaiman co-wrote season one with John Finnemore, and the two are joined by new writers Cat Clarke, Jeremy Dyson, and Andy Nyman for the second season.”I’m pretty sure John Finnemore was only brought on board for season 2 and wasn’t involved with (the still excellent) season 1. I’m excited for this collaboration. Finnemore’s radio sitcom “Cabin Pressure” is legitimately one of the finest sitcoms ever written, and his radio sketch show “John Finnemore’s Souvenir Programme” is consistently very funny as well.It’s a shame to see McDormand go; less so Cumberbatch, whose contribution to season 1 amounted to doing a generic gravelly evil voice for all of 30 seconds in the final episode. I think they’ll manage. Thrilled that Jon Hamm is returning, and I hope they expand his role. Post-Mad Men Comic Character Actor Hamm is the best Hamm.
right? right, it’s like he realized that he’s an actor with that particular surname and he finally decided to just own it…
Now he just needs to find someone who would make a suitable partner…
You are so right about Jon Hamm. Don Draper has blinded people to the fact that he is a born comedic actor. He was great in this, and even better in UKS. I spent a lot of time with the interactive special for fear I’d missed one of his scenes. His twin takes on New York bagels were a highlight.
Granted, the context is very, very loaded, and that probably contributed to everything, but his delivery of the word “BANJO!” in whichever live episode of 30 Rock he was in had me rolling over.
He was also great playing himself (in a “surprise” reveal) in the little watched Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret
He is surreally funny in ‘Toast of London’, playing “himself”. There are times in it he seems barely human.(Also, I love the ‘ToL’ running gag that Toast has no idea who Benedict Cumberbatch is.)
you ever see him on Toast Of London, playing himself? Real funny.
Yeah, Finnemore didn’t have anything to do with Season 1. Word of him being brought on for Season 2 got a pretty big response on Twitter a few months back. Checking out the original article on Deadline, it’s pretty clear how the misapprehension happened. (It also demonstrates that this piece is more or less a sentence-by-sentence rewrite of their item.)
For the uninitiated, I can warmly recommend everything Finnemore has done. (All of it is available on archive.org: Cabin Pressure, Double Acts and JFSP. ) In particular, John Finnemore’s Souvenir Programme Season 9—which reimagines a full season of the sketch show as one massive family saga/dramedy told in roughly reverse chronology over 125+ years—was one of the best things to come out of the pandemic.
It does however require a pretty serious level of engagement to enjoy: in my experience you need to take notes (or look up guides online), be prepared to struggle through almost half the show before the pieces start to fit together, and ideally be familiar with the running jokes from the eight previous seasons to really appreciate what he and the cast are doing. Even then, some of the jokes have the punchline in the first episode and the setup in the last, so that they only register on a second listen.
I forgot Cumberbatch was in it. And I generally enjoy his performances but he didn’t bring much to this show.
Cabin Pressure is pretty much perfect. It has maybe four episodes that are under par and even those are perfectly good.Funnily enough John Finnemore likes to tweet along when the episodes are repeated on Radio 4/4 Extra and the ones that he thinks didn’t quite come together were the same episodes I think are slightly weaker (Cremona and Kuala Lumpa, for example).
Cremona is indeed a super cringey episode, but dammit if Cabin Pressure isn’t one of the greatest things ever. My sisters and I still play “yellow car!” to this day. The whole cast is bonkers incredible, but Anthony Stewart Head was the MOST delightful surprise. Finnemore being added to the writing team makes me a little excited for a second season of Good Omens – the first season was so perfect and wrapped up so wonderfully that I really can’t imagine what else they’re going to do.
Season 2 should be Sheen and Tennant’s characters more riffing banter and less everything else, except Jon Hamm. Hamm is delightful.
I imagine a major reason for MacDormand’s departure is that her role was entirely to spout witticisms from the book’s narration, which all felt far more Pratchett than Gaiman, and they didn’t want to try to recreate that without him.
No word on Jack Whitehall? If he’s not returning can we get a spinoff about the further adventures of Newton Pulsifer?
I found the first season underwhelming and am not too interested in this, but the presence of Sian “Don’t touch the figs” Phillips might get me to give it a whirl.OTOH, Clavdivs is on Hoopla, so maybe I’ll just watch that again.
Proof that God and Satan have abandoned us, because we’ve screwed up the Earth too much.
There aint no Devil, that’s just God when he’s drunk.
I have no idea if Gaiman is thinking this, but you could have fun by casting a different God every season. My pick for the next one would be Patterson Joseph.
Or maybe Johnny Lee Miller…