"The Sandman" (With Spoilers)

Spoiler warnings for the first season, but I'll avoid anything from future comics arcs.

I think the "24/7" episode, the adaptation of the comic stories "24 Hours" and "Sound and Fury" is a good encapsulation of some of my doubts about the series.  "24 Hours," about John Dee experimenting on the patrons of a diner, is one of the darkest stories I've ever encountered in any medium, and I was half-anticipating and half-dreading the adaptation.  The version that appears in the Netflix series retains the broad outlines of what happens, but the specifics are very different.  It's much more of a slow burn psychological thriller that glosses over the horrific outcomes much more quickly.  The episode is very good at being a one-location stand alone story, with excellent performances by David Thewlis and the rest of the cast, but then it shoves all of "Sound and Fury" into about ten minutes at the end, and glosses over all the damage that John Dee and the ruby caused outside of the diner.  The whole climax of this arc is incredibly rushed, and I'm not sure if people who weren't familiar with the comic could follow what was going on.

This is probably the most egregious example of adaptation issues in the whole show, but they do keep cropping up.  There's no attempt to explain how Unity Kincaid (Sandra James-Young) managed to live to be over 110, for instance, or to make the climactic cereal convention more plausible.  I was delighted that the convention story was adapted, in all of its darkly comedic glory, with so many of the awful visual gags intact.  However, I sympathize with those viewers who took one look at the sinister attendees and wondered how they could have possibly thought they were fooling anybody.  Frankly, it's a miracle that any of the "Sandman" works in live action as well as it does.  As much as I might bemoan the never-ending encroachment of CGI, there is no way that a show like "Sandman" could exist without it.  Also, it was a lovely surprise to discover that some of the stories work very well onscreen, including the potent "The Sound of Her Wings" and "Men of Good Fortune" combo that followed "24/7."  If the show continues past the first season, I hope that the creators will lean into its anthology nature more.        

What I appreciate the most about the show, after seeing so many other remakes and reboots lately, is that Neil Gaiman and Alan Heinberg allowed many of the characters to be different, and make different choices.  The parts of the series that don't work, often don't work because they're too faithful to the comics.  Did we really need all of the eccentrics from the boarding house run by Hal (John Cameron Mitchell) in the show?  Initially I was worried when the Corinthian and John Dee were being made more sane and less monstrous, but this also makes them more compelling characters to follow.  Yes, Dream is more human and less otherworldly, but there's a wonderful balance maintained between making him a god-like creature, and ensuring that he's still sympathetic.  He kills Gregory because the story needs more stakes, but he brings back Gault (Ann Ogbomo) (a big upgrade from Brute and Glob) to show that he's capable of reform.  I find myself thinking of Dream not as an extension of the Dream from the comics, but an entirely new version that only exists in the television series.  And I'm rooting for him.

There's been a lot of commentary about so many prominent characters in the show being black women, including Death, Lucienne, Gault, Rosemary (Sarah Niles), and Rose Walker (Vanesu Samunyai).  This feels like Neil Gaiman recognizing a major representation problem from the original comics, where there was a disturbing motif of black women burning to death.  I'm not saying that this was a conscious choice.  Who knows?  Maybe the old line about picking the best actors for the roles, and they all just happened to be black women is really, honestly true this time.  I'm convinced it's the case for Kirby Howell-Baptiste, who is the best Death I ever could have hoped for.  That said, the dodgy VFX trying to show the literal shadow of her wings is terrible.  So much of the effects work in this show looks great, but some of the little design choices like this, and Lucifer's outfits boggle me.    

And of course, a big part of that is because I am a massive "Sandman" fan, and there was no way I was ever going to be totally satisfied with any screen version.  I spent years wondering what the show's opening credits sequence would look like, and the Netflix show doesn't have one.  However, it does have Abel (Asim Chaudhry) and Cain (Sanjeev Bhaskar) and Irving/Goldie.  And it does have Hob Gadling. And it has me hyped up for a second season, right when I thought I was done being hyped up for anything.  It feels very, very good to know the show is in the right hands, and to be able to wholeheartedly recommend this to people alongside the comics.

---