The Sandman

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Persona
Joined: Wed Mar 07, 2018 1:16 pm

The Sandman

#1 Post by Persona » Wed Aug 10, 2022 11:31 am

So, I wouldn't call myself a huge fan of the comics, but I certainly like them a good bit. If you've read them and didn't care for them at all, the show likely won't change your mind.

And some fans of the comics might find the show, while relatively faithful compared to many such adaptations, to be a little too soft and conventional-- inevitably lacking the stark visual impact of the graphic panels but also some of the more esoteric or hard-edged qualities of the storytelling.

I have to say, though, I am four episodes in and a bit agog at how well the show works. It's very much a Netflix*TM show but also, so far, a damn good one. The core ideas and world that made the comics so intriguing and provocative still shine through in this format, all while a number of narrative tweaks have helped give the show its own sort of kinder, wiser perspective plus an effective dramatic impetus. The casting is by and large very good (they probably couldn't have done any better than they did with Sturridge as Dream) and certainly a lot of effort and money went into the visual aspects of the show.

Most of the reviews have been quite positive though there seems to be a fairly common consensus that the section of this season that covers The Doll's House story (apparently the last 4 episodes) is not as strong, but at any rate I am just happy to be watching a SANDMAN TV show that somehow isn't awful.

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Persona
Joined: Wed Mar 07, 2018 1:16 pm

Re: The Sandman

#2 Post by Persona » Sun Aug 14, 2022 6:32 pm

So, yeah, the last 4 episodes suffer compared to the first 6. Just felt scripted and directed in a way that wasn't nearly as strong, though there are still a lot of interesting concepts at play.

Still, I hope this gets a season 2.

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brundlefly
Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2014 12:55 pm

Re: The Sandman

#3 Post by brundlefly » Fri Aug 19, 2022 3:00 pm

Rory, no!

They dropped a surprise episode today, starting into Dream Country. So to add to my initial take here, this is a little what a Sandman fantasy anthology series might look like. Largely self-contained stories where the Dream King only instigates, adds revelation, or wraps things up. A pleasant enough short animated version of “A Dream of a Thousand Cats” (which thankfully did not look like this and a very, very timid version of “Calliope.”
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I’d wondered if they’d do the latter at all as it is inherently rapey and this show has already shown how violence-averse it is. There’s a legitimate argument against the need to show violence toward women, but the show has a problem showing things in general. It would rather talk. Per traditional tv. (Could not even cut the line “I walked on” during the cat’s trek in “Thousand.” ffs.) Forget the rape itself – implied as understood ("You know how!"), evidenced only by a scratch on Madoc’s cheek. They don’t even want to show Madoc as a threatening character. We see him struggling with his role as captor, we’re exposed to the pressures behind his actions, but we don’t see him as an aggressor, as a taker. Don’t show me a Reddit page to communicate how desperate the guy is.

Perhaps the thinking was that the idea of captivity was so inherently horrific that bolting a supernatural being in a comfortably furnished room was enough. Sure has been for the anti-lockdown folks during the last couple years. We never saw Dream raped, of course, when he was captured; but we saw him naked and trapped and we watched eras pass and I’m still not sure the show well communicated him as anything more than a question mark biding its time.

Maybe the model they wanted to follow was that of The Collector, but that does not start out like a conflict-free prison transfer, does not end well, and was built to entertain more back-and-forth between its characters. Something this episode certainly could have done! Unconstrained by word balloons, have her argue for her agency, call out his pathetic impotence, show him for the monster he is instead of handing her a hashtag at the end. Off to “re-write the laws.” Fry's & Madoc's transgression was supposed to be fundamentally different than all the other abduction stories that this show perhaps feared repeating. It's transactional, inspirational, a violation of creation. There’s no sense of power at all in this show.

Richard – sorry, Rick – Madoc’s horrific scrawl of ideas looked mostly like “Ralph Steadman Was Here.” Arthur Darvill, though, somehow looked exactly like Madoc? And Derek Jacobi was… kind of not very good? Is that possible? And man alive, instead of deftly slipping him in, Orpheus gets a FULL PAGE AD here via the Fates. Also functionally bizarre that they did not establish on-screen that we were in the era when Dream was trapped at the start of "Calliope;" weird mid-episode, "Oh this takes place then, then."

I’d wondered if they might skip over Dream Country completely as they started teasing Season of the Mists at the end of “Lost Hearts.” I’m glad they did not despite the results. Some of the best Sandman stories are one-offs; these two and “Midsummer Night’s Dream” are classics. I want to see the Shakespeare done if only for the chance that Sturridge will look into camera when he says, “The price of getting what you want is getting what once you wanted.”

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Persona
Joined: Wed Mar 07, 2018 1:16 pm

Re: The Sandman

#4 Post by Persona » Sat Aug 20, 2022 5:41 pm

I have to disagree a little. Maybe my expectations are too low for TV in general, but all in all I thought these "bonus" episodes were a nice enough treat and adaptation and left a better taste in my mouth as a finish to this season than the awkward Doll's House section. I hope that the show continues to take these sort of weird narrative risks because that's a big part of the comic's appeal.

I do agree in principle with some of the negatives you pull out but grading on a curve this season of TV is well ahead of many of its peers and compared to any remotely recent fantasy/comic book adaptations, film or television, it's top of the class, for sure.

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brundlefly
Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2014 12:55 pm

Re: The Sandman

#5 Post by brundlefly » Sun Aug 21, 2022 9:01 pm

I'll agree insofar as to say that, were one want to dip a toe into the series, the 16-minute "Dream of a Thousand Cats" is not a bad stand-alone short. And if you let it run, "Calliope" has been turned into a passable Night Gallery episode.

The first issue of Sandman a friend shoved into my hands was "Ramadan,' and when I went to start into the books I fortuitously grabbed Season of the Mists (probably because Harlan Ellison's name was on the cover) instead of Preludes & Nocturnes. But if someone really wants to sample Sandman I would send them to their library, not to Netflix. I just can't see turning something great into something occasionally competent as a feat.

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Persona
Joined: Wed Mar 07, 2018 1:16 pm

Re: The Sandman

#6 Post by Persona » Mon Aug 22, 2022 12:16 pm

Fair enough! For me I got a real high out of watching fairly excellent TV episode versions of Hope in Hell, 24/7, the Sound of Her Wings, Dream of a Thousand Cats... so to each their own. For me the highs have been worth the more mediocre moments, and I appreciate the show's surprising amount of faithfulness to Gaiman's stories because it's a good reminder of how interesting and imaginative those stories were/are.

Certainly the comics should be read because there's something about how these esoteric narratives work within that art form that no show or movie could replicate.

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