I’m soooo behind on my show and movie reviews. Let’s see if I can make a dent.
Sandman Season 2
It’s just not as good. I’ve really been trying to dissect why:
Tom Sturridge is ultimately miscast in the title role. Sure, the Morpheus in the comic can be a self-indulging emo whiner, but at the end of day, you knew to never mess with him. He always had an air of majesty and gravitas that the TV Morpheus lacks. Sturridge’s interpretation induces sleep, not dreams.
The show plays like a greatest hits version of the comic, a lot of scenes taken verbatim from the book while retaining none of the heart. Everything feels stitched together with no flow. My mind was filling in all of the missing material. If not for the comic, I wouldn’t care about most of these characters. The show does a poor job of making me care for them. The comic gave me years to care about these beings, and binge watching these two seasons over a few weeks doesn’t give them enough time to become beloved companions in my head.
Razane Jammal brought nothing to the role. I never got the sense that she was that broken up over Daniel’s disappearance/death, and I never felt her burning desire for vengeance either. Complete fail.
Kirby Howell-Baptiste did her best with Death, but I really expected someone more manic pixie. Gaiman’s Death had a brightness, a pure joy that I missed here. Zooey Deschanel is the closest I can come to right now, but she might not be right either.
Delirium’s casting (Esme Creed-Miles) isn’t quite right either. Not sure why. This really was an impossible show to cast. Unlike all the other comics-to-screen adaptations, this may be the one where my mind’s interpretation of everyone is just too specific to capture.
The ending was way too happy; while I’ve always wanted to see how the first meeting of Daniel w/ the family went, I did not expect or want a smiling, perfect affair. It felt false.
That said, there were a few things that I loved:
Jacob Anderson was a great Dream. I liked his uncertainty, his chat with Destruction, his fumbling attempts to bring his subjects back to life. His farewell scene with Lyta worked for me.
Jenna Coleman. She’s an incandescent vision in this show, and I love that the showrunners increased her role in the story. Everything with her and the Corinthian (Boyd Holbrook) sparkled. A pairing I didn’t expect, but absolutely went all in on. I want Jenna Coleman in everything now.
The sad fact of the matter is that this season became a “watch while I’m doing something else” show around the second episode, and only pulled itself out of that hole with the last episode (which was quite good). I just want to read the series again and get sucked into that wonderful writing.
Regret watching: No
Would watch again: Select scenes
Would buy on DVD: No
Rating: Nice
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