The Sandman, Netflix
The Sandman launched with all of the spectacle and anticipation that you’d expect from a Neil Gaiman Netflix project that stars Gwendoline Christie, Patton Oswalt, David Thewlis and Jenna Coleman (among others). These performances and the grandeur of certain sequences in The Sandman will render you spellbound for moments (particularly in the beginning) but will likely fail to hold you there for an entire season.
One of the biggest strengths of Gaiman’s other big tv project Good Omens was it’s narrative discipline, something you’d expect from an author whom Terry Pratchett considered his equal. It’s difficult to say the same for The Sandman whose serial story moves jarringly at times and whose biggest plot devices aren’t always satisfyingly earned.
Too often in the fantasy genre are defining plot points abruptly introduced to us with no build, before quickly becoming very important. This happens in The Sandman when we are introduced to Rose Walker (Vanesu Samunyai) late on in the series, who we are told is a vortex. Vortexes can spell the end of the dream world but at this point in the series, it’s hard to know why we would be compelled to attach substantial understanding, meaning or feeling to that.
Where Good Omens was narratively friendly to audiences, The Sandman is exclusive and indulgent. There are standalone episodes that appear in the middle of the series. Episode Five takes place almost entirely in a diner and Episode Six sees central character Dream (Tom Sturridge) spends the episode travelling around the world with his sister Death (Kirby Howell Baptiste). These are drastic detours from the main story arc and experimental to an almost Lynchian degree. Placed within the middle of what established itself as quite a broad fantasy series, these episodes have the potential to leave audiences feeling at sea.
The Sandman is not a complete narrative dud. The series builds momentum towards the end and generates some suspense as you move towards its climax. The show plays masterfully with morality in that central villain The Corinthian (Boyd Holbrook) wants to free Rose but is also a serial killer. Whereas antihero Dream wants to kill Rose in the hope that the rest of humanity will live and continue to dream. The Sandman makes it difficult to know who to root for in a TV era where creators’ main aim is to make it difficult for us to know who to root for.
Not without its moments. The Sandman is a deliberately disorientating series. You may love it or be left alienated as a result of watching.
