Pssst, want to check out The Sandman in our new look?
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Siskoid
Though I wasn't sure one could or should adapt Neil Gaiman's The Sandman for television, I think they did a pretty good job with that first season. It's legit, despite some clunky dialog here and there (word choice, mostly - I don't want to blame Goyer, but well, why is his name on everything anyway?). I know the story beats from Sandman's first couple arcs, but there are enough changed details to keep it interesting, and the show doesn't compromise on some of things TV would normally consider, well, anti-TV. For example, we totally get a whole episode of Dr. Dee in the diner, a long chat with Death based on "The Sound of Her Wings", flashbacks dealing with Hobb's immortality, and a Dream who is a pompous, self-centered git. Almost makes me believe they'd do all the interstitial short stories in due course (almost). Some of the changes are rather interesting, especially giving us a modern-day Joanna Constantine (they say ConstanTYNE rather than TEEN, which does drive me batty) played by Jenna Coleman to replace John Constantine, and she's so badass, you'd think they were already thinking of a spin-off. Visually very strong, there are moments that, while not reproducing the comic in any way, have that Dave McKean feel (yes, he did little beyond the covers, but they were the one constant). Very faithful despite the changes, and part of that is not trying to cater to a cast who would have to be in every single episode the way other shows feel they must. Everybody's kind of like a recurring guest star, except for Dream.
20/08/22: The Sandman dropped a bonus episode this week, and my first reaction was to gasp - "Are they going to do the stand-alone stories that separated the story arcs?! Is the show going to be THIS faithful to the comic?!" - and by Jove, yes, that's exactly what they did. It's very clear that one comic = a half-hour of television, but the show insists on packaging them two at a time to reach the full hour. I don't know why they can't just be "as long as they need to be" in this era of streaming. Some executive at the top needs to wake up and smell 2022. In any case, Episode 11 contains both "Dream of a Thousand Cats" (animated) and "Calliope" (live action) and both are successful. Though Cats is one of my favorite Sandman stories, I perhaps know it too well for it to offer any surprises (except in the voice acting, see if you can identify then - Neil Gaiman himself plays a character, but there are some huge cameos), so it's Calliope I most enjoyed, and which felt more of a piece with the rest of the show. Derek Jacobi, Arthur Darvill, a wicked short story twist, I mean, I'm not made of stone. Now I wonder how many of these will actually be made, given that there are a LOT of them, and entire "arcs" (like World's End) made up of such stories. In the short term, I have a feeling the Midsummer Night's Dream story will be incorporated into the series itself (as we saw Shakespeare there) and that the Element Girl story relies too much on the larger DC Comics universe and will have been cut just like the Justice League, Infinity Inc. etc. We'll see, but I'm well impressed by the commitment to the original material. 1 year 8 months ago -
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Siskoid
Note: Though the IMDB link points to the show, the information (runtime, date, etc.) is all wrong. 1 year 8 months ago