The Sandman

Tom Sturridge stars as Lord Morpheus in DC Comic’s graphic novel – The Sandman by creator Neil Gaiman.

This has been a highly anticipated series, getting a lot of love from pretty much all corners of the internet but is it worth the hype?

We are first introduced to the story with a narration from the protagonist Dream himself, letting us know that there is another world waiting for us when we close our eyes and fall asleep. A place called the Dreaming.

It is here where The Sandman, the master of dreams gives shape to all our deepest fantasies and fears.

One fateful night, the Sandman, aka Dream, is captured and held prisoner for more than a century. His absence sets off a series of events that will forever change the world as we know it for both the worlds of dreaming and the waking world.

To amend the disaster that has fallen upon both worlds, Dream must journey across different worlds and timelines, collecting the stolen pieces of himself to fix the chaos his absence has caused.

Firstly I’d like to state that this is a spoiler-free review, so I will not spoil anything about what happens specifically in the series and that I have not read the graphic novel by Neil Gaiman, which was first released in 1989–1996 and published by DC Comics.

However, after realizing that the creator of the novel would be heavily involved in the adaptation with Netflix, how could I say no? Now with that out of the way, let’s dive into the review.

Going into the sandman without any clue as to what it speaks about or what to expect, I can surely say with a confident voice that this series incorporates many concepts and fantasies of human nature such as hell, death, desire and so much more.

So obviously such ideas must come with an age restriction, right? It’s certainly not for the kids as the show has scenes of sex, violence, and strong language, not to mention, scenes of suicide.

There are eleven episodes scheduled for the first season and each episode is different from the others. Unlike your traditional series, The Sandman follows an unorthodox approach to telling its story.

You’d think that after hearing the introduction on what our hero has to do you’d get straightforward storytelling, where the protagonist goes to wherever he needs to go to collect his missing pieces, then go after the ones behind all this.

However, that’s not the case. Each episode is told in its unique way and sometimes if not most, there is always a new character that we meet.

This is where the problem for lies. For each episode we get, we hardly get enough time to bond with the current characters we have on screen.

For example, there are interesting characters such as Johanna Constantine played by Jenna Coleman, and Death played by Kirby Howell-Baptiste.

Both these characters I would say are some of the prominent characters within this season and have a lot to offer but we hardly spend enough time with them, it’s as if as soon as you begin to connect with the character, they are snapped away with a click of the fingers.

Some people may be a fan of overarching plot threads that appear once in the story and then again a few episodes later, but some people prefer straightforward storytelling that is easier to comprehend, and easier to follow. Heads up, this isn’t that sort of story.

What captured my interest though with this series, I’d have to say is the CGI and the main protagonist, Dream played by Tom Sturridge.

His design reminds me of a rock star, all black like a Goth that listens to heavy metal all day but what sticks out is his distinct mannerisms and deep voice. You can tell he has lived a pretty long life.

Reminds me of this quote from one of my favorite movies of all time called – In Time, starring Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried.

Where this girl said to the character of Justin Timberlake “You’re not from around here, are you. You do everything a little too fast”. To which Justin replied, “Not everything” lol…

I’m reminded of this due to Dream being silent, and subtle-natured, clearly portraying a being that has lived an incredibly long life.

For the master of dreams who gives humans hope of a better future, it seems more to me as if he needs the dreams more than anyone else. Fortunately, there is a twist that elaborates on why I feel this way.

The man shapes all our dreams either into fantasies or nightmares yet has not a single bone of socialism within him. It’s as if he had been consumed by his creation without even realizing it.

As for the CGI, I’d say it was around the first three episodes that I was completely taken in by the visual effects, even though I was thinking to myself that these are some of the most stunning CGI effects I’d seen in a while, however, they become rarer as the episodes went on ahead and less appealing no doubt.

I loved visiting the different worlds, some are like masterpieces of a famous painter blended with the illusion of moving corpses. While others are plain and uncomplicated to a fault.

The point of the matter is that each of these worlds has its way of making you feel a certain way and leaving an undeniable impression on you as the viewer. But when you finally get to see the conclusion of everything in the first season, I concluded that they tried to do a little too much.

We hardly have enough time to stay in one location and thoroughly explore its environment before being transported either back to the world of dreams or the waking world.

The same could be said about the characters in this series. I was most disappointed in the character of Doctor Destiny played by David Thewlis, who had been built up from the very start to be some sort of antagonist to Lord Morpheus but their confrontation ends as quickly as it began.

Left me flabbergasted if I’m being honest.

Last but not least, Dream collects all his pieces to become able to fix both the world of the dreaming and waking world but the execution was so overwhelming, I felt dissatisfied even though I wanted so badly to love this series.

Overall, The Sandman offers the viewer something different, that allows us to go away from the superhero aspects of things and concentrates more on human nature, greed, wants, and needs.

From the overall DC Comics series that have been published, The Sandman takes you on a magical journey of self-introspection, showing you worlds far beyond our imaginations but lacking in delivering a memorable conclusion for the first season.

Due to that, I give The Sandman a 3.4 out of 5 rating.

Have you watched the sandman? Let me know in the comments section below. Do you agree or disagree with my review, leave a comment and let’s get the conversation started.

Thank you for reading another review from, LSR.