The Sandman 2022

So happy to finally witness a tv success from Neil Gaiman. Sandman is one of my favourite comic books ever and this show fully respects the atmosphere and the solemnity of the Endless. We all were orphans of the greatness of the first season of American Gods, the only other tv product that truly expressed Gaiman's language, but this time it was much more difficult due to the original medium.

I'd like to spend a few words about the theme of diversity. I'll admit it, when i saw Kirby Howell-Baptiste casted as Death I was a bit disappointed at first and in general the high diversity of the full cast, because I was very afraid that Netflix forced the production - as it often does - to smash tokens on scripts only in order to avoid any racism allegation, but my judgement was obviously suspended because I trust Neil. And I'm happy to confirm that my expectations were satisfied, there's plenty of characters that have been casted with black actors but none of that felt forced or changed the balance of the story, imho for one simple reason: because the original comic was years ahead of its time and was already very inclusive. He already was successful in narrating the wide range of people living in metropolises, telling us the deep thoughts and feelings of the human being regardless of gender, ethnicity or age.

There's a huge difference between changing the ethnicity of a character in an adaptation because you need diversity and changing it because it doesn't f'ing matters .

Chapeau Neil, you did it. I love you.

P.s. If you appreciated this first season go and buy the comics, you definitely won't regret it.
P.p.s. I so want to hear from other people, really would enjoy a good chat over the show!

The series is amazing. Well acted, shot, written! It's quite frankly the best show I've seen this year by far. The main storylines are satisfying and they lay some pretty good grounds for future seasons, even without the last scene which is amazing btw!

And you know what's funny... Rose's storylines would feel pretty rushed up in any other series especially near the end, but somehow, it felt really natural the way they did, it got some urgency. I just wish they had some time to build up some characters better, or show off more, like Constantine, which is fucking cool, even though it can get guffy sometimes. I hope they're able to bring some other sotrylines form the comics, and keep it as concise and as we'll thought as this season.

And let's talk about hell. How lovely is Gwendoline on that character. It's so frightening and so kind at the same time. She's amazing. What a nice depiction of the lightbringer and maze. They should teach something to the lucifer series made by cw(I know). It's a shame we see so little of her.

And desire. The way he moves, talks, express. Wtf, His voice is so effing amazing, it is almost like they increase the reverb just a little bit, and overlayed some deeper voice on his. I get chills every scene hes in.

But not everything is that great though. I get that this is a tv show, and they had to cut some corners somewhere, but Damm some visual effects are downright ugly as hell. And what's up with those incars scenes. I don't think I ever saw such bad incar screens like this. A lot of them look low resolution and low fps as hell. Specially when Rose is going to the convention. wtf is that? Looks like you're playing a YouTube video from 2008 shot at 240p, upscalled to 8k, while moving the window around, plugged to a high latency panel, on a rapebarry pi. It's really aweful. I can't believe that they didn't notice that.

Also, some people might say that the first episodes are slow. I would argue that that was somewhat necessary. That way you feel a little bit the passage of time, and just a glimpse of how it might have been for the Sandman all those years. Could it have been done better? I don't know, I'm not a writer. I just know that it would feel realy rushed if they had shown just a few scenes form that century the way in other series usually do, and I'm pretty tired from series showing flashbacks amid episodes all the time, since it was a couple of episodes, to explain it as time goes. It can be better, I'm just staying that this way worked better for me. It helped to believe that that was something really bad for him, though they don't explore it that much (his feeling about it). Almost exclusively the side effects on his realm. I think it would have been silly to watch him on a revenge journey, but maybe there were better ways to explore that. They say that he changed and all, after admitting being wrong about Rose, but I don't know. It felt kinda cheap and superficial.

Otherwise, it is amazing! Go watch!! You're wasting time reading this!

Sadly it ends. Haha
Can't wait for the next season.

The Sandman is the newest big budget streaming series, arriving on NETFLIX. The highly revered comic series was one of the first few graphic novels ever to be on The New York Times Best Seller List as well as one of five graphic novels to make Entertainment Weekly's 100 Best Reads from 1983 to 2008. And due to this success The Sandman has had many failed attempts to adapt it.

If asked to define this season in one sentence, it would be "a Season of 2 halves". Across the 10 episode season, there are clearly 2 arcs here, comprising each of 5 episodes. The first 5 episodes are fantastic and some of the best television of 2022. They are rich in fantasy, a stunning visual tapestry weaving between scenes. And the actors play off the interesting storylines and the world build.

But all of that comes to a grinding halt once the first arc ends and the second arc kicks in. While the fantasy aspect still exists, it is grounded in a boring real world storyline. Gone are the fascinating and damaged characters of the first act, replaced with boring human characters that combined with the lackluster material, are just not engaging. But the polish and quality of the series also seems to take a significant drop. Where as the first act rivals the quality of a HBO series, the second act feels at home on a CW show. And surprise surprise, once the fantastical return at the end of Season One, the series picks up again.

I will keep watching because I want to love this revered franchise. The first act is pretty good and the series finishes on a high. I also want to read this series - so all in all, it's a win. But if the future is more of act 2, than I high to draw the line somewhere.

Rating: 73 / 100 Dreamers

NOTE FOR MYSELF SO I REMEMBER SOMEDAY, ONLY REPRESENTS MY OPINION/THOUGHTS FOR MYSELF NOT A “REAL REVIEW“, SO YOU MIGHT NOT AGREE WITH IT
(also its not my 1st language)

5.5-6.0
-Ive never read or heard about the comics-
have a hard time rating this, I liked the first ep, went downhill from there, hated 24/7 and almost quit, loved the one after that (1x6) and started to somewhat like this show and warmed up to Morpheus who I couldn't stand the first half and now Im almost excited for the second season. Kinda like riverdale, its not good, I don't really enjoy it but can't stop watching it either. (Yes ofc riverdale is much worse, don't @ me)
Its up and down with this show
-sometimes the dialogue is stupid and unnatural
-feels like they try too hard and want to be epic but miss the point (tf was that battle against Lucy? that's what I mean with epic, they try to be special and clever but it felt stupid and dramatic
-I don't want to say its too gay (Im not 100% straight myself) but for me, again, it felt forced and unnatural, like they did it just so they can say their inclusive and oh so progressive. But with doing so you give this community who already has a hard time more reasons to be hated, I mean now people could see this and being annoyed with queer people "bc they're too much and so extra, they want everyone to be like them" or whatever homophobes are saying. (I wish I could put it in better words)
but ok if it was like that in the comics, fine, but it could've been better.
(queer people are welcome to share their thoughts on this and if they liked their representation!)

to not extend this review even more, everything is up and down, the story and my interest in it, the characters, the cgi, the dialogue, everything

I'll try to keep it short - never read Sandman - its always been on the pile of shame to read but never got around to it.

Up front - I hate the way they shot this, the vast majority of the footage is stretched, it's subtle enough to distract, it's like a mis-behaving anamorphic camera lense, it regularly causes shapes, actors heads to be mis-shapen and persists through the whole thing.

I dont care who is cast as what character, what their sexuality is or gender. What is important in this fiction is a story that will grip me or entertain me. In 2022 there are so much "content" out there the bar has been set and you need a better selling point than any of that controversy as this stuff is only going to become the norm; people have to focus on is the story good or not..

Episodes 5 and 6 won me over, episode 7 onwards lost me again. I can't remember the last time I saw a show and thought this isn't for me, this is great, this is good, wtf is this, OMG I'm so bored in the space of a single season. There's a lot of "ideas" and "concepts" in here, I can understand how they might be worth exploring in written fiction but I am not sold that it suited being adapted onto the screen. I'd be lying if I said I was entertained, enjoyed any of the "plot threads". I like Matthew the Raven, Stephen Fry is always reliable and Mark Hamill's character made me laugh (more to do with the voice actor than the character to be fair).

The rest I just found dull. Glad Gaiman finally got something adapted after all these years he is happy with, genuinely glad for him. This just wasn't for me. Enjoy if you did, definetly worth looking into that screen ratio "fix" if you can before watching.