Sandman TV Series

[oshii]

Anyone else watched it?

I've seen the first 3 so far and am in two minds about it. 

I'm liking Tom Sturridge.  He's certainly got the look of Morpheus down.  When he relaxes and stops over-enunciating every word, he's pretty much spot on, which is no mean feat

There's something about the general tone of it that just feels a little too in awe of it's source material (like Synder's Watchmen), and there's an air that its extremely keen to emphasis how grown up it is by parachuting in the odd bit of tactical swearing.  It reminds me a little of "Angel" at times. 

It's following the order of the comics very closely (basically an episode per issue so far) which should in fairness mean that once it gets past the opening issues which were fairly traditional (hero embarks on quest to regain powers and show audience what his character is) and into the interesting stuff post "The Sound of Her Wings", it could really take off

The decision to set it in a non DC universe is a good one  (but then keeping Cain and Abel seemed fairly pointless for an audience not familiar with DC lore.).   

I hope it does well as it's obviously had a very large amount of money and love poured into it. 

[Leigh S]

Only watched the first episode.

To declare my bias - I have only read a couple of random issues that I picked up for 10p in a Waterstones in 1990/91, so am not familir with the story.  I am familiar with Gaiman as a personality rther than a writer, and to be honest, I have a had to elucidate low burn dislike of him - I say this as a Tori Amos fan!

My problem with the first episode, ironically, is that it needed to be less pedestrian and more "dreamllike"?  The story feels like it needed a more fairy tale "feel" rather than a real world one?  The direction(?) seems to ground everything in the real world, but it clearly isnt any real world we know.  I feel it needed a more heightened reality vision to sell the concept? at the very least,  the stuff in the dream world and featuring dream world characters needed something to distinguish them as "not of this world" more?

Might watch the second episode, but so far, it feels like an exercise founded on them finding a guy who really fitted the main character lookwise and building from there without a clear "artistic" vision that might have sold this one on me.

[pauljholden]

As a counter point to this, let me just say, I thought it was great. (I’ve watched all of it). Casting decisions all seem. spot-on. I like the dip in to the wider scale of the comics in the first season that will probably play out over a few seasons (or, I dunno… season 7 if it gets that far).

I’ve read the entire run of sandman, though I came to it quite late (read a chunk of it about 15 years ago, but then last year read the entire run via library digital downloads) and overall I prefer the tv series.

[Jim_Campbell]

Only up to Ep2. I’m on record as very much not being a fan of the original series, but I’m enjoying the TV series a lot.

[Colin YNWA]

Not read the comics in years. Love them as a kid , but since returning to comics many moons ago never really felt like digging into them again. Though the curiousity to find out why that is has meant I've got close, of that makes sense. Anyway having watched the first episode of this I suspect I might know why.

It was so ponderous and comes across so self-satisfied I found it distant and unengaging. I'm going to give it to 'Hope in Hell' - well i hope - to see if it can catch alight, but I'm not optimistic after that one. It was fine, there is just too much out there to settle for fine for too long!

[Jim_Campbell]

Verrrry odd to have been a lone voice shouting that the Emperor is naked* right through the monthly run of Sandman, only to now be be in the exact opposite position with the TV series…

*I actually had a magazine piece spiked by editorial circa 'Season of Mists' on the grounds that, and I quote: "You can't say that about Sandman."

[oshii]

Only up to Ep2. I’m on record as very much not being a fan of the original series, but I’m enjoying the TV series a lot.

Out of curiosity, what didn't you like about the comic, Jim?

[Tomwe]

I'm very much enjoying it and the inclusion of certain characters point to them hoping it goes the distance. I also thought it quite otherworldly and dreamy throughout to be honest, like I thought there was sometimes a warp over peoples faces that harks back to the stretched photocopying effect people like Chris Bachalo would use.

[sheridan]

I gather The Sandman is the top Netflix streamed show in around eighty countries - so it's only a matter of time before the announcement is made that the second series has been greenlit...

[sheridan]

I gather The Sandman is the top Netflix streamed show in around eighty countries - so it's only a matter of time before the announcement is made that the second series has been greenlit...

54 out of 89 markets, according to this website (the majority of the other markets it's in 2nd or 3rd place).

[Jim_Campbell]

Out of curiosity, what didn't you like about the comic, Jim?

I enjoyed the first dozen or so issues but, as the series wore on, Gaiman just seemed to get ever more pleased with his own cleverness whilst progressively less and less actually seemed to happen.

There's a point in 'Season of Mists' where Lucifer gazes out over his realm and muses: "Better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven…"

Rather than trust his readers to spot a quotation from Milton, he has a minion say "Whatever you say, my lord…" solely so that Lucifer can reply: "I didn't say that, Milton did…"

But this isn't enough for our Neil — oh, no! The full line is: "I didn't say that, Milton did. And he was blind."

Oh! A little biographical detail as a cherry on top of this little dollop of self-congratulation.

In isolation, it seems like a petty thing to nit-pick, but he was doing it all the bloody time and it got right up my nose.* I made it to the end of 'Season of Mists' feeling that it wasn't really worth the effort and bailed completely early on in 'Game of You', I think.

I get that this is probably just me, but it really grates.

*He doesn't seem to have got any better. I decided to read the Neverwhere novel, having actually quite enjoyed the TV series. Then I got to a sentence where he describes Vandermar's voice as being "oleaginous" — good adjective, Neil, I thought. Apposite, and slightly onomatopoeic. And then he adds "as sump oil." Just in case we don't know what "oleaginous" means, or failed to appreciate what a good word it is.

Oh, do fuck off, Neil, I thought. :-)

[IndigoPrime]

We’re four episodes in so far. Mrs IP is very much enjoying it. I like it a lot too. It feels (suitably) very dream-like, although it does also feel a bit detached and empty (in terms of locations), like the entire thing’s been filmed on green screen without any extras. The delivery also often feels more like a stage play than telly, but that’s OK.

Gwendoline Christie was interesting as Lucifer from a casting perspective (and Mazikeen looked superb). I was less convinced with Jenna Coleman as Constantine. She kind of had the right attitude, but seemed a bit fragile, and the visual was just odd to me. Although I imagine newcomers won’t bat an eyelid. (Still, why Joanna Constantine? Surely she should have been a Joan?)

[SmallBlueThing(Reborn)]

You're not alone, Jim. Sandman read to me like a series altogether too pleased with itself. Back then, you could "spot Dandman readers, by the fact that they never read any other comics". Which I suppose is good, in a way. But all the ones I spoke to were tedious A Level English students who barked with laughter at all other comics.

I did read the first three or four trades- and still have them- but they were equally as tedious as the people who read them, I thought.

I'm not a fan of Gaiman at all. He's very much the epitome of everything I dislike about the 90s (to current) British 'Dark Fantasy' scene. And also, he's not very good and altogether too impressed by himself. Maybe I never got over the fact that he didn't serve his time at 2000AD, I Don't know. 

It's too late to alter my perception now anyway, and I very much doubt I'll ever read Sandman again. I was always a Hellblazer/ Swampy Vertigo person anyway.

As for the TV show- your praise on Facebook has been the only thing that makes me maybe want to watch it. My wife has expressed an interest, but she eats up Netflix series with a voracious appetite, so I imagine she will watch it with or without me. I also expect her considered opinion will either be negative, or it will be "alright, I guess", like with most things.

SBT

[sintec]

I can't help but feel there's a whole raft of comics that suffer from trying to be too clever around this era. You've got Mills banging out Slaine epics that mostly seem to exist to show off his research of <insert historical epoch here>. Moore is producing From Hell with it's extensive appendicies of notes detailing all his research into the ripper and victorian London. And Cerebus is left in a holding pattern while Dave Sim shows us his literary nerd credentials/aspirations with Melmoth (and that only gets worse with Form and Void and Going Home with their notes/rambles about Hemingway and Fitzgerald).

As someone who came to this stuff later in life it does feels a lot like (some) comics writers in the 90s had a chip on their shoulder about not being considered "proper" writers and over compensated.

[wedgeski]

I love the comic and liked the first episode of the adaptation. The latter didn't blow my socks off. Between styling and performance, the lead actor is spot-on.