Novel → TV series · Direct adaptation
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch → Good Omens (2019-2026)
Season 1 adapts Pratchett and Gaiman's 1990 novel across six episodes, keeping or condensing 32 of the 34 scored source beats, and closes on an invented trial. Season 2 and the single Season 3 special, seven of the show's thirteen episodes, tell a story no published text covers.
Source
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch · Novel · 1990 · Two introductory sections ("In the Beginning," "Eleven Years Ago") followed by five day-titled sections, Wednesday through Sunday
Terry Pratchett (author), Neil Gaiman (author)
Gollancz (UK) / Workman (US)
Adaptation
Good Omens · TV series · 2019-2026 · 13 episodes across 3 seasons (6 + 6 + 1 special)
Neil Gaiman (creator, showrunner (Season 1-2); writer (Seasons 1-3, partial)), Douglas Mackinnon (director)
Amazon Prime Video / BBC Studios
TrueToPage 82 · Good Omens (2019-2026 Broadcast series) · v0.3censuscatalog score
The composite and the five source-facing axes (plot_structure, character, dialogue_voice, theme_tone, coverage) describe Season 1, the one season with a published novel to check against. Seasons 2 and 3 are screen-original and have no book to compare, so the whole-run composite averages fidelity to the novel against a restraint score computed over a run that is mostly not the novel.
The single 90-minute Season 3 special (May 2026) was completed after Neil Gaiman's departure from the production, which followed public allegations against him in 2024 that he has denied. Some of his earlier writing for the finale was reportedly retained. He is no longer credited as an executive producer or as the season's writer of record.
Two book beats, Anathema's unread second prophecy book and Crowley and Aziraphale's closing exchange about a coming Heaven-and-Hell war, could not be confirmed as present on screen from any live, reviewed source. Both are scored conservatively under the when-in-doubt rule, as omitted or as excluded from the count.
Fidelity
Higher = more of the source is still true. Fidelity is not quality.Season 1 (2019)
83
Season 1 adapts the novel's full seven-part structure across six episodes. In 2019 interviews the showrunner and the director described the production as setting out to translate the book rather than adapt it loosely. plot_structure (87), character (88), dialogue_voice (58), theme_tone (83), and coverage (94) are unchanged from the whole-run numbers, since only Season 1 touches a published text. Counting the four change-log rows attributable to this season, Gabriel's creation, the extended history sequence, the Heaven-office expansion, and the finale trial and body swap, against the same 32 source beats gives Season 1 its own additions_restraint of round(100 x 32 / 36) = 89, above the whole-run additions_restraint of 80. The mean of these six values, round((87 + 88 + 58 + 83 + 94 + 89) / 6), gives a Season 1 composite of 83.
Seasons 2 (2023) and 3 (2026)
—no source text
No published Pratchett or Gaiman text, including the sequel the two authors sketched and never wrote, covers this period of Aziraphale and Crowley's story. These two seasons are seven of the show's thirteen episodes, and both are the production's own continuation. The Season 3 special was completed after Neil Gaiman's departure. The era is marked unscored because there is no published source text to check it against.
Plot structure87The record carries 35 novel-derived mapping rows. One of them, Anathema's unread second prophecy book, carries low confidence and leaves the arithmetic per v0.3-census, which leaves 34 rows and 62 weighted points. Weighting each row by rough source length (1 to 3) and crediting kept beats 1.0 and condensed beats 0.7 gives 53.9 of those 62 points: plot_structure = round(100 x 53.9 / 62) = 87. The novel's five day-titled parts, Wednesday through Sunday, map onto six episodes. The largest condensed cluster is the Friday-into-Saturday stretch, where Shadwell's accidental banishment of Aziraphale, the bookshop fire, and Crowley's M25 chase fold together. The largest omitted unit is the novel's parody second Four Horsemen, cut for time. Seasons 2 and 3 have no published text to structure, so this axis measures Season 1 only. The full weighted table is in the REPORT.partial evidenceN = 34 beats, source weight 62
Character88Ten rows carry a character score, and their prominence-weighted mean (leads 3, supporting 2) is 88. The three leads score 100 for Aziraphale, 100 for Adam Young, and 89 for Crowley, whose one altered trait is his hair color, dark in the novel and red on screen. Four of the six supporting rows score 100: Newton Pulsifer, Madame Tracy, Agnes Nutter, and the Four Horsemen as one combined row. Anathema Device scores 80 on her raw tally, and the trait behind that, her unread second prophecy book, carries low confidence and leaves the arithmetic, so she enters this rollup at 100. Sergeant Shadwell scores 75 on the one attested detail this record could not confirm on screen: whether his ending with Madame Tracy is a marriage, as the novel states, or the unconfirmed domestic partnership the only reviewed finale synopsis describes. The tenth row is the novel's second, parody quartet of Four Horsemen bikers, cut from the show and held at 0 under the v0.3-census rule that omitted source people stay in the table. The archangel Gabriel does not enter this axis: per multiple reviewed comparisons the character does not exist in the 1990 novel in any form, so he is recorded with delta 'added' and excluded from the denominator. Full trait tables are in the REPORT.partial evidenceN = 10 people, weight 23
Dialogue & voice58Of twelve inventoried voice markers, the long-series minimum, seven are preserved: the deadpan understatement about apocalyptic events, the register contrast between Aziraphale's fussiness and Crowley's modern slang, Sergeant Shadwell's Scots-inflected witchfinder jargon, Agnes Nutter's archaic prophecy diction, the periodic omniscient commentary on human nature, Crowley's menacing addresses to his houseplants, and the overall deadpan tone of an apocalypse called off. Three markers have no direct visual-medium equivalent and are dropped: the novel's literal footnotes, its newspaper-pastiche interludes, and its extended digressive asides. Two are altered rather than kept or dropped: the dry third-person narrative voice becomes an onscreen narrator character voiced by Frances McDormand, and the corporate-bureaucratic register applied to Heaven and Hell is expanded into a staged office-comedy register. dialogue_voice = round(100 x 7 / 12) = 58. The full marker inventory is in the REPORT.partial evidenceN = 12 voice markers
Theme & tone83Of six inventoried thematic claims, five are preserved in Season 1: free will over inherited destiny in Adam's rejection of Satan, ordinary human life as the thing worth saving over abstract cosmic conflict, Good and Evil as institutional categories individual angels and demons can defy, cross-side friendship outweighing tribal loyalty for Aziraphale and Crowley, and accurate prophecy being close to useless without exact context in Agnes Nutter's book. The sixth is altered. No reviewed synopsis of the Season 1 finale confirms the novel's closing suggestion that the real coming conflict is humanity against a united Heaven and Hell, and the two further seasons instead follow individual angels and demons defying their own sides. theme_tone = round(100 x 5 / 6) = 83.partial evidenceN = 6 thematic claims
Coverage94At the novel's own seven-part granularity, two introductory sections, 'In the Beginning' and 'Eleven Years Ago,' plus the five day-titled parts Wednesday through Sunday, 32 of 34 scored beats appear on screen kept or condensed. The excluded beat, Anathema's unread second prophecy book, carries low confidence and leaves the arithmetic under v0.3-census: coverage = round(100 x 32 / 34) = 94. The two beats scored as absent in any form are the novel's parody second Four Horsemen and the leads' closing exchange about a coming Heaven-and-Hell war.partial evidenceN = 32 of 34 source units present
Additions restraint80Against 32 source beats that appear on screen in some form, the change log counts eight invented arcs and devices: the archangel Gabriel, the extended Aziraphale-and-Crowley history sequence staged most fully in the Episode 3 cold open, the office staging of Heaven's bureaucracy, the finale's trial by Heaven and Hell with its body-swap survival, Gabriel's amnesia-and-Beelzebub arc, the Nina-and-Maggie matchmaking subplot, Aziraphale's promotion to Supreme Archangel and the separation that follows, and the single Season 3 special that resolves it. additions_restraint = round(100 x 32 / 40) = 80, where 40 is the 32 source beats plus the 8 invented ones. The count covers the whole broadcast run, including the two seasons that adapt no published text.partial evidenceN = 32 source beats, 8 invented
Source-backed span: Season 1 (2019). Seasons 2 (2023) and 3 (2026) continue past the published source and are not scored for fidelity; their additions are carried by the restraint axis.
Ending
Side by side, in our words.On the page · Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
The novel ends with Armageddon averted. Adam banishes Satan and rewrites people's memories of the events, and the story moves on. Crowley and Aziraphale conclude that the cancellation was God's plan all along, and they speculate that the real coming conflict will be humanity against the combined forces of Heaven and Hell. Madame Tracy marries Sergeant Shadwell. Anathema receives a second book of Agnes Nutter's prophecies and burns it unread. The book does not say what happens to Crowley and Aziraphale as a consequence of their defiance.
On the screen · Good Omens
Season 1 closes on an invented trial. Heaven and Hell each sentence their own agent for treason, Aziraphale to hellfire and Crowley to holy water, and both survive because they swapped bodies beforehand. Both sides then agree to leave them alone, and the season ends with the two toasting 'to the world' at the Ritz. Season 2 (2023) ends with Aziraphale accepting Heaven's offer to become Supreme Archangel and returning to Heaven while Crowley stays on Earth. The single Season 3 special (May 2026), completed after Neil Gaiman's exit from the production, resolves that separation and closes out the series.
The two endings run together up to Armageddon's prevention. The trial, the body swap, and any account of what becomes of Crowley and Aziraphale afterward are invented for the screen, since the novel does not say. Seasons 2 and 3 then cover a screen-original story of an amnesiac archangel, a secret romance, a promotion to Supreme Archangel, and a reconciliation, with no published Pratchett or Gaiman text to compare against.
Mapping
37 rows. Every source unit, including the ones that never appear.| Source unit | What happens there | On screen | Notes | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| In the Beginning: the Eastern Gate | The angel Aziraphale, guarding Eden's Eastern Gate, gives away his flaming sword to the newly expelled Adam and Eve for protection, watched by the serpent Crawly. | Season 1, 'In the Beginning' (S01E01), cold open | kept | strong |
| In the Beginning: Crowley's fall | Crowley is established as a demon who 'did not so much Fall as saunter vaguely downwards,' with little enthusiasm for villainy. | Season 1, narration across the season | kept | partial |
| In the Beginning: six millennia of the Arrangement | Across recorded history, Aziraphale and Crowley keep crossing paths and drift into an informal non-aggression pact, doing small favors and covering each other's assigned miracles and temptations. | Season 1, 'Hard Times' (S01E03) cold open and recurring flashbacks | condensed and expanded into one continuous historical sequence (Noah's Ark, the Crucifixion, the Globe Theatre, the French Revolution, the WWII Blitz); the novel carries this history in scattered references rather than staged scenes | strong |
| In the Beginning: the bookshop | Aziraphale is established as a rare-book collector who runs an antiquarian bookshop and deliberately avoids selling any of his stock. | Season 1, throughout | kept | strong |
| In the Beginning: the Bentley | Crowley owns a 1926 Bentley that stays pristine no matter what happens to it and plays only what he wants to hear. | Season 1, throughout | kept | partial |
| Eleven Years Ago: the handover | Hell delivers the infant Antichrist to Crowley, with instructions to swap him with the newborn son of the American Cultural Attache, Thaddeus Dowling. | Season 1, 'In the Beginning' (S01E01) | kept | strong |
| Eleven Years Ago: the mix-up | The Satanic Chattering Order of St. Beryl mishandles the swap at the hospital; through an ordinary human mistake, the real Antichrist goes home with the Young family in Tadfield instead of the Dowlings, as Adam. | Season 1, 'In the Beginning' (S01E01) | kept | strong |
| Eleven Years Ago: Nanny and gardener | Believing Warlock Dowling to be the Antichrist, Aziraphale and Crowley pose as his nanny and gardener for eleven years so the boy grows up unable to fully choose Good or Evil. | Season 1, 'In the Beginning'-'The Book' (S01E01-E02) | kept | strong |
| Eleven Years Ago: Adam and the Them | Adam grows up an ordinary boy in Tadfield with his gang of friends, Pepper, Wensleydale, and Brian, known as the Them. | Season 1, 'In the Beginning' onward | kept | strong |
| Eleven Years Ago: the mistake goes unnoticed | Neither Heaven, Hell, Crowley, nor Aziraphale realizes the swap failed until Warlock's eleventh birthday nears. | Season 1, 'In the Beginning' (S01E01) | kept | strong |
| Wednesday: the wrong boy | At Warlock's birthday party, the hellhound meant to bond with the Antichrist fails to appear, and Crowley and Aziraphale realize they have spent eleven years watching the wrong child. | Season 1, 'In the Beginning'-'The Book' (S01E01-E02) | kept | strong |
| Wednesday: Agnes Nutter's execution | In 1656, the witch and prophetess Agnes Nutter is burned at the stake; she has packed gunpowder and nails into her clothes, and the explosion kills the witchfinder and the mob that condemned her. | Season 1, 'The Book' (S01E02), flashback | kept | strong |
| Wednesday: the book reaches Anathema | Agnes Nutter's book of prophecies has passed down to her descendant Anathema Device, who is using it to track the Antichrist; Crowley's Bentley nearly runs her down on the road. | Season 1, 'The Book' (S01E02) | kept, condensed | partial |
| Wednesday: Newton recruited | Newton Pulsifer, fired after breaking his employer's computers, answers a classified ad and is recruited as the sole private of the Witchfinder Army by Sergeant Shadwell. | Season 1, 'The Book' (S01E02) | kept | strong |
| Wednesday: Anathema in Tadfield | Anathema travels to Tadfield and meets Adam without realizing he is the boy she is looking for. | Season 1, 'The Book' (S01E02) | kept | strong |
| Thursday: Adam's subconscious powers | Adam reads Anathema's discarded occult and conspiracy magazines, and his subconscious reality-warping power begins triggering strange phenomena worldwide, from raised Atlantis to summoned UFOs. | Season 1, 'Hard Times'-'Saturday Morning Funtime' (S01E03-E04) | kept, condensed | strong |
| Thursday: the Four Horsemen summoned | War, Famine, Pollution, and Death each receive their summons and begin converging on England. | Season 1, 'Hard Times'-'Saturday Morning Funtime' (S01E03-E04) | kept | strong |
| Thursday: War the correspondent | War, posing as a glamorous war correspondent, personally engineers an international arms-fueled conflict. | Season 1, 'Saturday Morning Funtime' (S01E04) | kept | partial |
| Thursday: Famine's diet empire | Famine runs a diet-food and fast-food empire that quietly starves the people who consume it. | Season 1, 'Saturday Morning Funtime' (S01E04) | kept | partial |
| Thursday: the second Four Horsemen | A parody second quartet of bikers, taking names like Grievous Bodily Harm and Cruelty to Animals, follows the real Horsemen toward England as a comic subplot. | not present on screen | omitted; Collider reports the cut was made for time and budget | strong |
| Friday: the bookshop fire | Shadwell accidentally sends Aziraphale to Heaven via a summoning ritual and, separately, sets Aziraphale's bookshop on fire. | Season 1, 'Saturday Morning Funtime' (S01E04) | kept, condensed | strong |
| Friday: Newton reaches Tadfield | Newton drives to Tadfield to investigate the strange phenomena on Shadwell's orders, crashes his car, and meets Anathema. | Season 1, 'Saturday Morning Funtime'-'The Doomsday Option' (S01E04-E05) | kept, condensed | partial |
| Friday: Adam's dreams intensify | Adam's dream-driven changes to reality escalate and begin to worry his friends. | Season 1, 'Saturday Morning Funtime' (S01E04) | kept | partial |
| Friday: Crowley's M25 chase | Believing Aziraphale destroyed, Crowley drives frantically toward Tadfield through a ring of demonic fire encircling London. | Season 1, 'The Doomsday Option' (S01E05) | kept, condensed | strong |
| Friday: Hastur and Ligur dispatched | The demons Hastur and Ligur, sent to monitor and punish Crowley, are separately defeated: one dissolved by holy water, the other outmaneuvered through Crowley's resourcefulness. | Season 1, 'The Doomsday Option' (S01E05) | kept, condensed | partial |
| Saturday: Aziraphale inhabits Madame Tracy | Discorporated in Heaven, Aziraphale returns to Earth by possessing the body of the psychic medium Madame Tracy during a seance. | Season 1, 'The Doomsday Option' (S01E05) | kept | strong |
| Saturday: convergence at the air base | Everyone converges on Tadfield Air Base as the Four Horsemen begin a nuclear war by tampering with military computer systems. | Season 1, 'The Very Last Day of the Rest of Their Lives' (S01E06) | kept | strong |
| Saturday: the Them defeat the Horsemen | Adam and his friends defeat War, Pollution, and Famine by refusing to accept their roles; Death alone departs undefeated. | Season 1, 'The Very Last Day of the Rest of Their Lives' (S01E06) | kept, condensed | strong |
| Saturday: Adam rejects Satan | Satan begins to ascend to claim his son, but Adam, asserting his own humanity and free will, rejects and banishes him, preventing Armageddon. | Season 1, 'The Very Last Day of the Rest of Their Lives' (S01E06) | kept | strong |
| Saturday: Heaven and Hell both wanted this | Both Heaven and Hell are revealed to have wanted Armageddon equally and are frustrated by Adam's refusal to let it proceed. | Season 1, 'The Very Last Day of the Rest of Their Lives' (S01E06) | kept | partial |
| Sunday: the world resets | With Armageddon averted, the world returns to something like normal, and Adam quietly edits people's memories of recent events. | Season 1, 'The Very Last Day of the Rest of Their Lives' (S01E06) | kept | strong |
| Sunday: musing on a coming war | Crowley and Aziraphale muse that Armageddon's cancellation was God's plan all along, and speculate that the real coming conflict will be humanity against the combined forces of Heaven and Hell. | not confirmed on screen | omitted (unconfirmed); no reviewed synopsis of the finale describes this closing exchange surviving in this form | partial |
| Sunday: Shadwell and Madame Tracy | Madame Tracy marries Sergeant Shadwell, effectively disbanding the two-man Witchfinder Army. | Season 1, 'The Very Last Day of the Rest of Their Lives' (S01E06) | kept in substance; the only reviewed finale synopsis confirms the two retire together and does not use the word 'marry' | partial |
| Sunday: Anathema and Newton | Anathema begins a relationship with Newton Pulsifer. | Season 1, 'The Very Last Day of the Rest of Their Lives' (S01E06) | kept | strong |
| Sunday: the second prophecy book | Anathema receives a second book of Agnes Nutter's prophecies, but chooses not to read it and burns it instead. | not confirmed on screen | omitted (unconfirmed); no live, reviewed source confirms this scene airs in any season | thinnot scored |
| No published novel | Nothing in the 1990 novel, or in the unwritten print sequel Pratchett and Gaiman once sketched, covers this period of Aziraphale and Crowley's story. | Season 2 (2023), 6 episodes | no published source. Gabriel's amnesia, his demotion and memory-wipe by Heaven, his romance with Beelzebub, the Nina-and-Maggie matchmaking subplot, and Aziraphale's promotion to Supreme Archangel are all original to the show. | strong |
| No published novel | Nothing published by Pratchett or Gaiman covers this period. | Season 3 (2026), 1 special episode | no published source. The single 90-minute finale resolving Aziraphale and Crowley's Season 2 separation is original to the show, and it was completed after Neil Gaiman's departure from the production. | strong |
Change log
The argument. The mapping above is the evidence.- InventedThe archangel Gabriel is created for the show as Aziraphale's direct superior in Heaven. Multiple reviewed comparisons state he does not appear in the 1990 novel in any form.novel, no equivalent character → Season 1 onwardAdds a named Heaven-side superior and a recurring antagonist the novel does not contain. Gaiman has said the character was built in part from material the two authors sketched for an unfinished print sequel.Attribution: Neil Gaiman, per Syfy Wire and Collider interviews
- InventedAn extended sequence of Aziraphale and Crowley's six thousand years together is staged for the screen, most fully as the Episode 3 cold open, from a handful of scattered lines in the novel.In the Beginning → Season 1, 'Hard Times' (S01E03) and recurring flashbacksConverts backstory the novel carries in passing references into staged scenes, and makes the two leads' shared history a recurring structural device across the season.Attribution: Neil Gaiman and director Douglas Mackinnon, per Syfy Wire
- OmittedThe novel's second, parody quartet of Four Horsemen bikers, who adopt names like Grievous Bodily Harm and Cruelty to Animals, is cut from the show entirely.Thursday → no episodeRemoves a comic subplot that runs alongside the real Horsemen for a stretch of the novel. Collider reports the cut was made for time and budget.Attribution: unknown_production_decision, per Collider
- OmittedThe novel's device of Freddie Mercury's voice delivering messages from Hell through the radio of Crowley's Bentley is cut from the show.novel, recurring device → no episodeDrops a recurring device the novel uses to put Hell in direct contact with Crowley. Collider reports music rights as the reason.Attribution: unknown_production_decision, per Collider
- Identity / design changeCrowley's hair is changed from the novel's dark hair to red.In the Beginning → Season 1 onwardAlters one of the few physical details the novel states for Crowley, and it is the single altered trait in his row. Collider reports the change was made to give him a more hellish look.Attribution: unknown_production_decision, per Collider
- Tonal shiftThe Them's ducking-stool game in the novel is replaced with a tire swing in the show.novel, the Them's play scenes → Season 1Changes one prop in an incidental play scene while keeping the scene itself.Attribution: unknown_production_decision, per Collider
- InventedThe finale invents a trial in which Heaven and Hell each sentence their own agent to execution, and a body swap that lets both survive. The novel stages no such judgment and does not say what becomes of Crowley and Aziraphale after Armageddon is averted.Sunday → Season 1, 'The Very Last Day of the Rest of Their Lives' (S01E06)Supplies an outcome for a fate the novel leaves unstated, and stages a joint act of defiance by the two leads that the book does not contain.Attribution: unknown / production decision
- Kept, unflinchingAgnes Nutter's burning at the stake and the gunpowder and nails she packs into her clothes are kept in full as a flashback.Wednesday → Season 1, 'The Book' (S01E02)Keeps the full mechanism of her death and of the deaths it causes, including the explosion that kills the witchfinder and the mob.Attribution: unknown / production decision
- InventedHeaven is staged as a sparse, minimalist corporate office with a chain of command (Gabriel, Sandalphon, and others), where the novel treats Heaven's bureaucracy in scattered references.novel, scattered references to Heaven's bureaucracy → Season 1 onwardTurns an implied bureaucratic register into a staged visual one that recurs across all three seasons.Attribution: Neil Gaiman, per Collider
- InventedSeason 2 (2023) invents a mystery arc in which the archangel Gabriel arrives amnesiac at Aziraphale's bookshop, having been demoted and had his memory hidden inside a fly by Beelzebub after the two fell in love.no published text → Season 2 (2023)Builds a season of plot on a relationship and a punishment mechanism with no basis in any published Pratchett or Gaiman text.Attribution: unknown_production_decision, per Collider
- InventedSeason 2 invents a matchmaking subplot in which Aziraphale and Crowley engineer a romance between coffee-shop owner Nina and record-shop owner Maggie, including a Regency-themed ball at the bookshop.no published text → Season 2 (2023)Adds two named characters and a full subplot with no source basis.Attribution: unknown_production_decision, per Collider
- InventedSeason 2 ends with Aziraphale accepting Heaven's offer to become Supreme Archangel and returning to Heaven while Crowley remains on Earth. The two leads part with the separation unresolved.no published text → Season 2 (2023), finaleInvents a promotion, an offer, and a separation for two characters whose fate after Armageddon the novel does not address.Attribution: unknown_production_decision, per Collider
- InventedA single 90-minute Season 3 special resolves the Season 2 separation and closes out the series. It was completed after Neil Gaiman's departure from the production.no published text → Season 3 (2026), single specialCloses a screen-original storyline. Some of Gaiman's earlier writing for the episode was reportedly retained, and the finished version is credited to other writers after his exit.Attribution: Neil Gaiman (partial, pre-exit) and other credited writers, per Newsweek and CBR
- ReorderedThe novel's five-day structure, Wednesday through Sunday, is compressed so that book material is front-loaded into the first two episodes, while Episodes 3 and 4 place the original Aziraphale-and-Crowley history material ahead of some Thursday and Friday beats.Wednesday-Friday → Season 1, Episodes 2-4Changes the order in which the search-for-the-Antichrist plot and the two leads' backstory reach the viewer.Attribution: Neil Gaiman and Douglas Mackinnon, per Syfy Wire
People
Trait score = attested traits kept ÷ attested traits shown. Unstated traits are not rows.These tables roll up to 86 (prominence-weighted) against a character axis of 88. The right response to that gap is to dispute a row.
Aziraphale100
Every attested trait is preserved, from his angelic role to the bookshop to the Arrangement with Crowley. The show's romantic framing of the two leads is an addition against the novel's silence, not a counted miss.
| Appearance | A soft, fussy, immaculately old-fashioned Englishman-shaped angel with a fondness for tartan and bow tiesIn the Beginning; throughout | preservedstrong |
| Identity | An actual angel, formerly the guardian of Eden's Eastern Gate, who gave away his flaming sword to Adam and EveIn the Beginning | preservedstrong |
| Body / ability | Possesses angelic powers, including minor miracles and the ability to discorporate and recorporate, but is bureaucratically limited by Heaven's rulesthroughout | preservedstrong |
| Personality | Fussy, book-hoarding, food-loving, and easily flustered, with a secret fondness for small earthly indulgencesthroughout | preservedstrong |
| Moral code | Nominally serves Heaven's side of Good but privately questions Armageddon and increasingly acts on personal conscience over direct ordersthroughout | preservedstrong |
| Relationships | Maintains a millennia-long, informal non-aggression pact, the Arrangement, with the demon CrowleyIn the Beginning | preservedstrong |
| Vocation / role | Runs an antiquarian bookshop in Soho and deliberately avoids ever selling a bookthroughout | preservedstrong |
| Arc | Ultimately defies Heaven's demand to force Armageddon forward and helps stop the apocalypseSaturday | preservedstrong |
| Plot function | Is discorporated and must return to Earth by possessing the psychic medium Madame Tracy's bodySaturday | preservedstrong |
| Identity | The novel never states or implies a romantic dimension to Aziraphale and Crowley's relationshipThe show builds a romantic arc across its three seasons, including a Season 2 kiss. Under the identity rule this is an addition against the novel's silence, not a violated trait. · unstated throughout the novel | not depictedstrong |
Crowley89
Every attested trait is preserved except one: the show gives Crowley red hair where the novel gives dark hair.
| Appearance | A demon in a human-passing form, with the novel describing him with dark hairThe show gives Crowley red hair where the novel gives dark hair. · In the Beginning | alteredstrong |
| Identity | Originally the serpent who tempted Eve in Eden; 'did not so much Fall as saunter vaguely downwards'In the Beginning | preservedstrong |
| Body / ability | Demonic powers, including miracles and ownership of a preternaturally reliable 1926 Bentley that never needs washingIn the Beginning | preservedstrong |
| Personality | Outwardly cynical, fast-driving, modern in his speech and tastes, secretly sentimental about Aziraphale and about humanitythroughout | preservedstrong |
| Moral code | Nominally serves Hell but has never actually done much active evil, treating his demonic duties as a job rather than a callingthroughout | preservedstrong |
| Relationships | Maintains the millennia-long Arrangement with AziraphaleIn the Beginning | preservedstrong |
| Vocation / role | Poses as a nanny, 'Nanny Ashtoreth,' to the boy Hell believes is the AntichristEleven Years Ago | preservedstrong |
| Arc | Ultimately defies Hell's demand to prevent Armageddon's cancellation and helps stop the apocalypseSaturday | preservedstrong |
| Plot function | Drives frantically toward Tadfield through a ring of demonic fire on the M25 after believing Aziraphale destroyedFriday | preservedstrong |
Adam Young100
Every attested trait is preserved, including the mechanics of his power and his rejection of Satan.
| Identity | The actual Antichrist, delivered to the wrong family through a hospital mix-up and raised without either side realizing itEleven Years Ago | preservedstrong |
| Appearance | An ordinary-looking English boy growing up in the village of TadfieldEleven Years Ago | preservedstrong |
| Body / ability | Possesses a subconscious reality-warping power that grows stronger as Armageddon approachesThursday | preservedstrong |
| Personality | Curious, imaginative, a natural leader of his friend group, drawn to conspiracy magazines and adventureThursday | preservedstrong |
| Relationships | Leads a close-knit gang of friends, Pepper, Wensleydale, and Brian, known as the Them, and has a dogEleven Years Ago | preservedstrong |
| Moral code | When confronted with his friends' horror at his emerging destructive power, chooses his own humanity and free will over his infernal natureSaturday | preservedstrong |
| Vocation / role | An ordinary schoolboy with no assigned role beyond the one thrust on him by his parentageEleven Years Ago | preservedstrong |
| Arc | Rejects Satan's attempt to claim him and unmakes Armageddon on his own terms, then quietly edits everyone's memory of eventsSaturday; Sunday | preservedstrong |
| Plot function | Directly confronts and defeats three of the Four Horsemen with his friends at the climaxSaturday | preservedstrong |
Anathema Device80
Her identity, her personality, her relationship with Newton, and her role as the prophecy-book researcher are all preserved. The raw tally, 4 of 5 traits preserved, is 80. The fifth trait, the unread second book, carries low confidence and leaves the arithmetic under v0.3-census, so she enters the character axis at 100.
| Identity | A modern-day witch descended from Agnes Nutter, in possession of Agnes's book of propheciesWednesday | preservedstrong |
| Personality | Serious, practical, and environmentally conscious, with occult family hobbies like dowsingWednesday; Thursday | preservedstrong |
| Relationships | Begins a relationship with Newton Pulsifer, descendant of the witchfinder who burned Agnes NutterSunday | preservedstrong |
| Plot function | Uses Agnes's prophecies to track the Antichrist and try to prevent ArmageddonWednesday | preservedstrong |
| Arc | At the novel's end, receives a second book of Agnes's prophecies but chooses not to read it and burns it insteadNo live, reviewed source confirms this scene appears on screen in any season. · Sunday | omittedthin |
Newton Pulsifer100
All four attested traits are preserved.
| Identity | Descendant of the Witchfinder General who burned Agnes Nutter at the stakeWednesday | preservedstrong |
| Personality | Cursed with an unexplained ability to break any computer or electronic device he touchesWednesday | preservedstrong |
| Vocation / role | Recruited as the Witchfinder Army's sole private after answering Sergeant Shadwell's classified adWednesday | preservedstrong |
| Relationships | Begins a relationship with Anathema Device after being sent to investigate TadfieldSunday | preservedstrong |
Sergeant Shadwell75
His role, his personality, and his dependence on Madame Tracy are preserved. The one altered trait is the ending: the novel states a marriage, and the reviewed synopsis of the finale does not confirm one.
| Vocation / role | Sergeant of the Witchfinder Army, which in practice consists of only himself and his one recruitWednesday | preservedstrong |
| Personality | Gruff, penny-pinching, and deeply suspicious of witches, subsisting on tea and condensed milkthroughout | preservedstrong |
| Relationships | Lives above his neighbor and landlady, Madame Tracy, whom he berates as a 'jezebel' while depending on herthroughout | preservedstrong |
| Arc | By the novel's end, marries Madame Tracy, effectively disbanding the two-man Witchfinder ArmyThe only reviewed synopsis of the finale confirms the two retire together and does not confirm a marriage. · Sunday | alteredpartial |
Madame Tracy100
All four attested traits are preserved.
| Vocation / role | A self-described psychic medium who also offers paid personal services, derided by Shadwell as a 'jezebel'Wednesday | preservedstrong |
| Personality | Cheerful and warm, unbothered by Shadwell's insults and genuinely fond of himthroughout | preservedstrong |
| Plot function | Lends her body to the discorporated Aziraphale so he can return to Earth in time to stop ArmageddonSaturday | preservedstrong |
| Arc | Ends the story in a domestic partnership with Sergeant ShadwellSunday | preservedstrong |
Agnes Nutter100
All four attested traits are preserved, including the mechanics of her engineered death, in the Episode 2 flashback.
| Identity | A 17th-century Englishwoman and genuine prophetess, ancestor of Anathema DeviceWednesday | preservedstrong |
| Vocation / role | A recognized witch in her village, publicly known for prophecy before her executionWednesday | preservedstrong |
| Body / ability | Her written prophecies, collected as The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, are always completely accurate, if often maddeningly crypticWednesday | preservedstrong |
| Plot function | Deliberately arranges her own execution by packing gunpowder and nails into her clothes, killing the witchfinder and the mob that condemned herWednesday | preservedstrong |
The Four Horsemen (War, Famine, Pollution, Death)100
All five attested traits are preserved. The four are cast individually: Mireille Enos as War, Yusuf Gatewood as Famine, Lourdes Faberes as Pollution, and Brian Cox as Death.
| Identity | Four ancient personifications who ride out when summoned to enact the biblical apocalypse: War, Famine, Pollution (having replaced Pestilence after the 1936 discovery of penicillin), and DeathThursday | preservedstrong |
| Vocation / role | Each maintains a modern day job or guise: War as a war correspondent and arms-trade instigator, Famine as a diet-industry and fast-food tycoon, Pollution as a young drifting figureThursday | preservedstrong |
| Body / ability | Ride motorcycles as the modern equivalent of the biblical horses, each carrying or wielding an instrument of their officeThursday | preservedstrong |
| Plot function | Converge on the Tadfield air base and attempt to trigger nuclear war by tampering with military computer systemsSaturday | preservedstrong |
| Arc | Three of the four, War, Famine, and Pollution, are defeated and dismissed by Adam's friends; Death alone departs undefeated, since Death cannot truly be destroyedSaturday | preservedstrong |
Gabrieln/a
A screen-only character with no counterpart in the novel, recorded as added and excluded from the character axis under the v0.3-census rule for screen-only people.
| Identity | Gabriel does not appear as a character in the 1990 novel; multiple reputable comparisons state he was created wholesale for the TV seriesGaiman has said he built the character partly from material the two authors had sketched for an unfinished print sequel. · novel, no equivalent character | not depictedstrong |
| Vocation / role | On screen he is Aziraphale's direct superior, the archangel overseeing Heaven's side of ArmageddonThe novel names no superior for Aziraphale in this role. · novel, no equivalent character | not depictedstrong |
| Relationships | Season 2 gives him a secret romantic history with Beelzebub, Hell's rulerScreen-original. No published text contains an equivalent relationship. · novel, no equivalent character | not depictedstrong |
The Other Four Horsemen (parody bikers)0
Cut from the show entirely, for time and budget per reported comparisons. The row stays in the table at 0 as an omitted major.
| Identity | A second group of apocalyptic bikers who adopt invented names like Grievous Bodily Harm and Cruelty to Animals, following in the real Horsemen's wake as a parody quartetThursday | omittedstrong |
| Vocation / role | Ordinary Hell's Angels-style bikers who take on invented apocalyptic-sounding names for the occasionThursday | omittedstrong |
| Plot function | Provide a comic subplot pursuing the real Four Horsemen toward the air baseThursday | omittedstrong |
Creator stance
Time-stamped. Co-creators are never collapsed.Terry Pratchett
co-author of the novel
2014 (pre-production, via a posthumous letter)
Championed
In a 2014 letter written after his Alzheimer's diagnosis, Pratchett told Gaiman he had to make a screen adaptation himself, saying Gaiman was the only person who shared his own care and passion for the book, so he wanted to see it before, in his words, the lights went out.
Statement made before any production existed and before Pratchett's 2015 death; quoted publicly by Gaiman afterward. This is a pre-production stance on the adaptation being made at all, not a review of the finished result.
Neil Gaiman
co-author of the novel; creator, showrunner, and lead writer of the TV series (Seasons 1-2; partial writer, Season 3)
2018-2019
Participating adapter
Gaiman has described weighing every cut scene against what Pratchett would have wanted, saying that when a scene was distinctively Terry's, he kept it in even where the runtime was tight, and that he made the whole project because his late friend asked him to.
Neil Gaiman
credited writer, Season 3 finale (contribution made before departure)
2024-2026
Silent
Following public allegations of sexual assault in 2024, which he has denied, Gaiman stepped back from production; his executive producer credit was removed for Season 3, though some of his earlier writing contribution to the finale's storyline was reportedly retained.
A production and credit change, not a public creative stance on the finished season; he has not spoken publicly about the finale's fidelity to his and Pratchett's original plans.
Rob Wilkins
Terry Pratchett's former personal assistant, now head of the Pratchett literary estate; executive producer
2023
Championed
Wilkins has said Pratchett would have been fully open to changes like the show's more diverse casting, recalling Pratchett's own comment that he would write a character differently today, and has described the estate's decisions on the adaptation as effectively trusting Gaiman's judgment.
Douglas Mackinnon
director (Season 1, all six episodes; Season 3)
2019
Participating adapter
Mackinnon has said he approached the two authors' contributions to the novel as a single, unified text rather than trying to separate out who wrote which part, and described the production as prioritizing fidelity to the book alongside Gaiman's vision for the screen.
No other adaptation of this source is catalogued.
Sources
Every score note points here. Wikipedia is a lead, not an authority.- referenceGood Omens (Wikipedia)
Novel publication facts, full plot summary, and the sequel/second-prophecy-book details - secondaryGood Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett Plot Summary (LitCharts)
The novel's seven-part day-titled structure used as the mapping granularity - referenceGood Omens (TV series) (Wikipedia)
Season 1 and Season 2 episode counts, credits, cast, and the Season 1 finale synopsis - primaryNeil Gaiman on honouring Terry Pratchett's last request (Irish Times)
Terry Pratchett's 2014 letter and creator-stance quote - productionTerry Pratchett Would Have Been 100% Open to Diversity in Good Omens (Den of Geek)
Rob Wilkins creator-stance quote and estate context - primaryInterview: Neil Gaiman and Douglas Mackinnon talk Good Omens and Terry Pratchett (VODzilla.co)
Gaiman and Mackinnon creator-stance quotes on fidelity - primaryNeil Gaiman on the Biggest Good Omens Changes for the Amazon Adaptation (Syfy Wire)
Gaiman and Mackinnon's account of the Episode 3 history sequence and Episode 1 cuts - secondary'Good Omens': The Biggest Differences Between the Show and the Book (Collider)
Gabriel's creation, the omitted second Horsemen bikers, Freddie Mercury radio device, Crowley's hair, the ducking stool, and the invented body-swap ending - secondary'Good Omens' Season 2 Ending Explained (Collider)
Season 2's Gabriel/Beelzebub arc, the Nina-and-Maggie subplot, and the Season 2 finale separation - productionGood Omens Season 3 Release Date Confirmed By Prime Video (ScreenRant)
Season 3 release date, single-episode format, and writer/director credits - productionPrime Video Brings Back Emmy-Nominated Show for Surprise Final Season (Newsweek)
Season 3 release date, format, and Gaiman's reduced involvement - productionNeil Gaiman Exits 'Good Omens' Production Role After Assault Allegations (CBR)
Details of Gaiman's exit, his prior writing contribution, and his removed executive producer credit
Record good-omens-novel-to-amazon · schema 0.2 · scoring 0.3-census · completeness census. Fidelity is not quality; the score is not a review.