Netflix's the Sandman

[Scott Taylor]

I felt that 24/7 dragged quite a bit. It evoked the sense of dread and Sartrian existential fear that was needed but I felt that the dialogue and what was actually shown was too safe for one unfamiliar or unimaginative to know what was going on. The episode walked closely around what was happening and I know why since the other kind of approach, which works in an adult comic, would no way get approved for TV. But these stories need to be more direct.

Just watched the new episode and was a bit underwhelmed. Cats needed to be a bit more surreal and dreamlike in appearance and really could have been much longer to fill an entire episode. Calliope was better, but again like the Cafe scene mentioned above it suffers from being cleaned up for TV and loses something that makes the comic series stand out so much.

[Zero Hunter]

It is crazy with how good this season was and how many people are watching it that it still might not get a season 2. I have a bad feeling with how cheap Netflix is getting they might not see future seasons as worth the money.

[Kirby101]

Gaiman says a way to get a second season is for people to binge. (Nteflix loves when there is no drop off between eps) So when you go out turn on the tube and let it run.

[thwhtGuardian]

That this wasn't green lit immediately is nuts.

[Kirby101]

That this wasn't green lit immediately is nuts.

Netflix, where algorithms make all the decisions.

[Mark Trail]

Gaiman says a way to get a second season is for people to binge. (Nteflix loves when there is no drop off between eps) So when you go out turn on the tube and let it run.

IMO, binging is what's killing Netflix. No chance for shows to build buzz and, worse, people can binge a particular show, cancel and then sign back up.

[BeastieRunner]

I enjoy their all at once format BUT think they should tweak it to like half a season at a time.

[j9ac9k]

Am I the only one look looks at the Corinthian and thinks Gary Busey in Lethal Weapon?

I kept thinking he looked like Damian Lewis ("Homeland", "Billions")

[Thomas Crown]

You sound like ItsAGundam or Ripperverse on that part about Death.

Who?

but she was still good in the role.

I beg to differ. I just couldn't see Morpheus and Death together. It was just Morpheus...and some random girl.

[j9ac9k]

It's probably good that I read the graphic novels so long ago I'm not bothered by their choices for most of the characters or how they adapted the storylines, but I can't help but be a little disappointed in all the Endless. They all seem too human to me. I don't know if being chalk white would have helped, or black eyes with little white irises for Dream... maybe a little makeup for all of them ... something to convey how inhuman they all are. Despair was especially boring. Death was okay, but with only one episode so far, she needed to really leap out and make a huge impression like she did in the comics. Whether it was the performance of the direction, I found her less than impressive. Hob taking over the second half of that episode was more engaging.

And I am in the camp of finding the first half really slow. It was a chore for me and I would not have kept at it if I didn't love the comics. It's not that there was anything wrong with any individual scene, but all the episodes before the Vortex storyline, it seemed that with each... scene... the ... pacing ...was... so ... laconic ... in... the ... same ... way. I was beginning to wonder if this was actually the first big budget asmr tv show - that it was meant to put us to sleep. (which is a crazy idea for a show about the lord of dreams)

[Exodus]

Loved the first half and plot of the series, disliked the rest. I hate when the quality is so mixed in one season...

I came back for the special episode and really enjoyed it again.

[j9ac9k]

This might just be me, but I wish they hadn't cast Patton Oswalt (or maybe let him do a different voice like he originally attempted) - when I hear his voice, I just picture him and it takes me out of any scene he's in.

Re: Calliope, I don't remember the original story, but it kinda seems like Dream's punishment of Ric wasn't something he should have been able to do -- affecting a man while he's awake. Torturing him every night when he's asleep is one thing, but flooding someone's brain with too many ideas while he's awake actually seems like something Calliope could've done decades ago. (but I guess there'd be no story then) I figured we'd see him tormented in his sleep over the course of a week or two before getting him to break, but it happened a bit too fast, imo. There's some possible meta-commentary about the writers creating a story about Calliope being violated for decades only to be rescued by Dream, where we get to see him exact justice on her behalf and show mercy to someone who vowed to never speak to him again, where this is just a setup for Dream's story about freeing Nada because this is about his personal growth that's somewhat problematic to me, but I won't get too into it. But it's there.

[Jim Kelly]

I haven't been able to get the bonus episode yet, so I can't comment on it. But I know in the comics that Dream is represented as a cat in "A Dream of a Thousand Cats."

In another episode of the series, we saw (briefly) Dream in an African form (Kai'ckul). But I don't think there was enough of this in the series. It's an idea that is slow to develop in the comics, but that's probably because Gaiman didn't have a complete picture of how the Endless work when he started out on THE SANDMAN.

The series has the benefit of knowing all this and could have exploited these discoveries earlier in the series. It's not just Desire that is non-binary--so are all the Endless. Mythological and abstract concepts are not bound to one gender--even though gendered languages may assign masculine or feminine declensions to abstract nouns.

If they had shown that humans see Dream and Death in divergent forms, that would have gone some way in dispelling the idea that the actors playing them don't "look right" in the role. For example, when Dream and Death are walking around London together, in "The Sound of Her Wings," if they shifted points of view to show us how individuals saw them--maybe the penny would drop for the audience.

It probably wouldn't quiet everyone who believes the series is off-base with which actors are cast for which characters, but it might help some of the audience. I had to force myself to think this through, every time that I didn't like how Tom Sturridge appeared as Dream. I had to remind myself that this is just one viewpoint and Dream isn't confined to the body of Tom Sturridge (that's an actor playing an open concept).

With Gault they made this point more clearly. How she appears in the Waking and how she appears in the Dreaming are completely different.

In the comics, I read all the angels as androgynous and asexual. That includes Lucifer, the fallen angel. I look at Gwendoline Christie, in the role of Lucifer, as playing someone who is neither male nor female.

[CSTowle]

Am I the only one look looks at the Corinthian and thinks Gary Busey in Lethal Weapon?

I saw it too. I'd also agree with Mr. Kelly above that it would have been nice to see Death and the other endless more from people's perspectives and as other beings, both for meta casting reasons and to show how otherworldly they are. I'll also agree with j9ack9k that Despair was a bit of a disappointment.

All that said, this show was much better than it had any right to be. Say what you will about how they botched Preacher (and boy, did they botch Preacher), but at least that had a fairly simple storyline to follow that lent itself to a screen adaptation. Forget "Watchmen", to me this was the truly unfilmable comic book story. And danged if they didn't get it right. Sure, changes here and there but the tone is right and there's more again that is on point than there likely should have been.

I had my doubts when I found out it was going to be on Netflix, which has had a lot of duds these past few years. And after Preacher and Y the Last Man (blech) I didn't have much hope. But I'll be waiting for Season 2 now, and trying to push it on people not familiar with the story. My only concern is a few friends of mine who aren't comic readers but love superhero movies watched the pilot and were bored. I tried explaining this isn't Superman or Guardians, but it might suffer from skewed expectations.

[Scott Taylor]

In the graphic novel, Death pretty much always looks the same though. Right? The goth girl. It was kind of a goofy way for an Endless to appear considering it was to everyone from old Jewish men to teenage drug addicts. If I die and a goth girl shows up, I'm not complaining. But still ....