The soundtrack to the season finale of Good Omens, "The Nightingale Sings in Berkeley Square", is also the soundtrack when Colonel Truejack invites Colonel Jack to dance in the Doctor Who spin-off The Torchwood Group. It was that night, the night we met
There was magic in the air
Angels dining at the Ritz
Nightingales singing in Berkeley Square
The moon hovering over the City of London
Poor moon, frowning tightly
How could he know that we're so in love
The whole damn world is turned upside down by it
─"When the Nightingale Sings in Berkeley Square" [1]
May in Europe and the US saw the endgame of The Avengers, witnessed the collapse of the Iron Throne, and the elevator in The Big Bang Theory was finally fixed! . The heroes who sheltered us growing up saved the day once more and for the last time, and they left the stage with bleary eyes and flames burning in the eyes of the dragon's mother, butchering the adoration of their "fans". Ending a story is always harder than starting one, and all stories end. This May, the hero's story came to an end, the fantasy journey ended, and the grandiose fantasies of mankind were shattered, leaving a trail of falsehoods in their wake. It seems that just like that, some richer, more diverse era ends, and we can't even rely on our own imaginations, and the stale narratives of Pikachu and Aladdin can't salvage the boredom and silence that fills the air.
So this May, the big hits were "Chernobyl," about the sins of mankind, and "Years and Years," about a future where the end of the world is near. In this May of lost epics and wonders, artists prophesy the end of the world, the world is in a state of disarray, and people feel as if a tsunami is coming, and no one will be spared. Then the Brits said, what the hell, let's tell a retro, romantic, silly story, and that's what Good Omens is.
The original Good Omens was written in a time when humans were a little better off than we are today. Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett were said to have spent nights on the phone with each other just to "make each other laugh". So it's hard to define what it is: science fiction? Fantasy? Or a children's book? But soon the world was amused - at a time when witticisms were still in vogue and the world was expected to change for the better. When it was released nearly 30 years later, it poked fun at allegory and apocalypse itself, as heavy-handed and heartbreaking as Chernobyl was, as absurd and desperate as Year by Year was, and as moving as Good Omens was in its reaffirmation of human values. With a certain late-20th-century silliness, unquestioning, rampant, and mincingly nagging at your ears, it grabs the audience by the shoulders and shakes them hard: human beings are inconsequential, but, being born human, "knock on wood."