The oddest show I’ve ever watched. I know that is supposedly a hyperbole, but I legitimately think other than maybe Watchmen, this is undoubtedly the oddest show I have ever watched. The Sandman follows the DC comics version of The King of Dreams. The show starts off with the protagonist, Dream, Morpheus, The Sandman, The King of Dreams, or what have you, traveling to our realm, but getting kidnapped by our first villain, Roderick Burgess (Charles Dance). We then progress a century in time until Burgess is dead, killed by his son, and one of the guards of Dream finally makes a mistake and falls asleep allowing Dream to enter his dream and escape. Then with an escaped Dream, we follow his pursuit to reclaim the things he lost when kidnapped.
Dream, himself is more or less a lackluster protagonist. I really believe that if it weren’t for the side characters this show wouldn’t be as good as it is. The Corinthian (Boyd Holbrook), Rose Walker (Vanesu Samunyai), John Dee (David Thewlis), Johanna Constantine (Jenna Coleman) and everybody else did amazing jobs in their roles and really carried the show. While I believe the character of Dream was lackluster, I don’t think Tom Sturridge’s performance as Dream was lackluster. This may not make sense, but I believe for this show to be at its peak Dream has to be a lackluster character. The show needed to be carried by the side characters. Dream is an otherworldly God in the realm of people, he shouldn’t be relatable (at least not until the end). Tom Sturridge is a great actor, who portrayed a character that is so out of touch with the “waking world” that he almost appears as the villain at times because he acts without a conscience, which is why this show only works with the spectacular performances we saw from the rest of the cast.
To go deeper into the rest of the cast, I have to say that Johanna Constantine was my favorite character in the show. I have loved the character of John Constantine since I first saw him in Arrow, and to now have a new, wonderful version of this character is absolutely fantastic. I’m not completely sure if this is a gender-swap or Johanna is a descendant from John, but the character just works and I loved her background and I hope we get to see more of her in upcoming seasons. Along with the Constantine episode, this was our first meeting of John Dee. A very odd character, but also a super interesting character. Episode 5 “24/7” was probably my favorite episode of the series. I think it was such an interesting episode and just fascinating watching the degeneration of man as they were no longer able to lie. This episode also took a lot from psychology and Freud, considering how without being able to lie, people revert to their most inner desires, which according to Freud is their sex drive and death drive. Episode 6 “The Sound of Her Wings” was a very good episode, although I would argue that it kind of came out of nowhere. I didn’t feel like there was a great segue from Dream taking back his ruby from John Dee and then going to Death to reconnect with himself and the waking world. However, I did enjoy the episode, primarily because of the performances from Kirby Howell-Baptiste as Death and Ferdinand Kingsley as Hob Gadling. Kirby Howell-Baptiste did such a fantastic job of portraying this otherworldly God that understands what it is to be human and how she needs to be this sweet consoling woman because a lot of the people who have died aren’t ready to leave this world. Ferdinand Kingsley’s character of Hob Gadling was so perfect in the portrayal of just a regular man. Gadling was granted the wish of never dying, and his writing is so perfect because it shows how imperfect life is, but this man never wants to die because of how wonderful life can be. To tell Dream that he wants to die is almost like committing suicide, and Gadling has never lost hope, even when times are tough, so he always tells Dream that he doesn’t want to die. He is just such an interesting experiment and character. For the final character I’m going to talk about I have to talk about how much she grew on me.The first episode we see of her is honestly just kind of a filler episode to set up relationships and plot for future episodes, so I wasn’t exactly thrilled about the story following Rose Walker, but with Vanesu Samunyai’s performance and relatability I fell in love with her character and ended up really liking the combination of the Corinthian and Dream Vortex plotline. Rose Walker is so motivated by family and the people she loves that she was the perfect character to be a Dream Vortex, especially with everything Dream was going through concerning humanity, that one of the most pure and loveable humans being someone that Dream would have to kill was a perfect choice to test Dream’s humanity. Then to pair that with The Corinthian, who doesn’t care about a single human’s life just comes together to make a beautiful conclusion to the story.
A show is only as good as its villain. Roderick Burgess is a good villain to start off and gets the audience introduced into this world and what the show is going to be about. Then the next major villain we move onto is Lucifer played by Gwendoline Christie. I will admit it shocked me to see a woman lucifer at first, but that quickly passed as she was just as, if not more intimidating than any other portrayal of Lucifer. I loved her episode and the fight against Dream, it was such a cool style and I wish we could just get a million more episodes of that, but what was even more perfect was how tunnel visioned Lucifer was as she was only on the offensive and never would of thought about hope beating anything she could throw at Dream. In the last episode, it seemed like we would get Lucifer as the major villain of Season 2 and I am very excited to see what she can throw at Dream and what the writers are able to come up with. The next major villain was John Dee and I have already talked about him, so I just want to reiterate how interesting I found his character and the whole of episode five. Then we finally get to the big bad of the season with the nightmare serial killer, The Corinthian. I also talked about him a bit, but to elaborate I thought his build up was amazing, but I was a tiny bit disappointed because I felt Rose’s dream vortex story somewhat outshined him, but I also believe he fit right into that storyline and was a perfect addition, so I guess I’m a bit conflicted. I did enjoy that when Dream finally caught him and beat him it wasn’t that hard for Dream because Dream created him and it really showed us how strong Dream really is if the only thing he struggled with was finding The Corinthian.
Before starting the wrap up, I realized I didn’t say anything about Lucienne (Vivienne Acheampong). I thought she was a perfect side character to Dream because she isn’t as strong as him, but had to be for a century and frankly, she did an amazing job doing his job while he was “indisposed.” She was what grounded Dream. She was what made Dream more human and more relatable. She was just such a fun character and I was very mad when Dream disrespected her, saying she was nothing more than a librarian. But moving onto the overall show, I absolutely fell in love with this show. I haven’t gotten around to watching the eleventh episode yet, but I figured I could write this without watching it, as it seems it is a more stand alone episode. I don’t have much more to say about this show because I feel I’ve been praising this show for 4 paragraphs now, so all I really have to say is that DC needs to make more stuff like this and that this was just a phenomenal show that completely outdid my expectations.
9.2/10 ☆
7.5/10 😁
I really enjoyed this show, like it’s probably one of my favorite shows out right now, but for the general audience I have to kind of cut the rating down because of how odd it is. It is kind of hard to understand at certain times and is very fantastical and sci-fi-esque, so if you aren’t really into that stuff then this show is really not for you. However, if you are a person that enjoys sci-fi, then this might be one of your favorite shows as it is just absolutely amazing.
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