A new promo for the second season of Good Omens was released by Amazon Prime Video, then promptly deleted after the ensuing backlash. More than that, fans of the show have done a pretty good job making it hard to see what the image is in general—for good reason. Fans have been dedicated to this series, fallen in love with these characters, and for this spoiler (which I won’t detail here) to just be posted without a care in the world is not a great look!
Neil Gaiman and fans of the series were furious at the promo for the spoiler, and that has been compounded by the likelihood that it was so badly mishandled due to Gaiman being out of the loop on marketing as studios continue to refuse to negotiate a fair contract with writers to end the WGA strike. Personally, if I were in charge of cutting a promo trailer for this series and saw this potential spoiler, I would definitely know to maybe not include that!
It is a show of how much people do not understand fans, our excitement for these things, or the hard work that goes into making them, because Gaiman and company do not deserve to have their show spoiled all because no one stopped to think hard enough about what was being shown in a trailer. We can hope that maybe the brief clip is a misdirect and not the spoiler it seems to be, but it seems like a bad idea either way.
Gaiman took to Tumblr to talk about it, talking about his control over the cut of the promos normally and what would have been asked of him if the strike weren’t happening.
But as Gaiman said: Amazon knew better and it still went out. It was either someone’s misguided idea of getting people excited or it was someone who just simply did not care who they were hurting in making the promo.
Fans are rightfully angry
Many have taken to the internet to refuse to share the promo, warning other fans to avoid it. No one wants to spoil their friends. The series has such a dedicated fan base that this move is just baffling in general. Why anger those who are willing to wait years between seasons?
It’s honestly not fair for fans of the series. We’ve been waiting for years, and this wasn’t the move of some random leaker. It was Prime Video sharing a spoiler in their ads. Normally, we have to somewhat accept that information in official promotional material will be discussed, but with Gaiman on strike and objecting to this along with fans, this isn’t a normal situation.
I get it; I really do. It’s hard to promote something without spoiling it, but this just feels like a mess on the part of whoever cut that trailer and posted it. And it’s not fair. Gaiman’s anger comes from a deep love for this story (which he co-wrote with the late Terry Pratchett). This move feels mean and almost evil to Gaiman and the fans of the show.
Season 1 was released in 2019. We’ve waited almost four years for a new season of the show, and this is just a weird move all around. We don’t know whether it was on purpose or just an accident, but it just sucks.
(featured image: Prime Video)
