Gaiman's "Sandman" series

[Totenkindly]

Well, this might be a great bonus here... I will watch it later. These are two of the four one-shot stories in the book following A Doll's House.

The cat one is truly standalone. Calliope is tangentially important for later events.

Bonus Two-Parter Episode of The Sandman Lands on Netflix

The tale of The Sandman is not over yet...

movieweb.com

- Dream of a Thousand Cats: Very moving, and pretty much the story put on screen just animated. Decent music. One of my favorite stories this season.

- Calliope: Some good moments, lost a bit in translation. Didn't wuss out about the awful thing Madoc did but handled it tastefully off screen (the comic was more explicit). I am progressive, but there were a few lines added here and there that were annoying because they felt like progressive boilerplate and diluted the actual story. I'm a "just tell the story" person rather than adding extra stuff as dog whistles / soapboxing. Interestingly in the book Calliope is blonde. They captured Morpheus here fairly decently but at times seem to fear making him too unlikable. It is important for them to show the rough edges because as the story progresses you can then see him change. I really liked the 2-3 minutes around when Morpheus tells Madoc what is going to happen and Calliope pretty much says it is too late for him.

 

[Lexicon]

I just finished everything but Calliope (that’s tonight).

I thought the adaptation was decent, so far. I tend to give a bit of leeway in judgement for first seasons of most shows, leaving room for them to hopefully catch their stride further along.

The Corinthian was cast so. Fucking. Well.
(Fun Land too, Jesus, hah)

Rose Walker didn’t do much for me. Vanesu Samunyai lacked a degree of depth in her emotional engagement. I feel like she wasn’t emotionally invested, the stakes didn’t feel high enough in her performance, if that makes sense. I don’t know if that was her choice or how she was directed, but there was something missing. I see room for improvement, though. She wasn’t ‘bad,’ she just wasn’t ...enough?


Dream of A Thousand Cats... made my night.

 

[Totenkindly]

I still haven't watched the final two episodes. (I had skipped ahead to e11.) I guess I should bite the bullet and finish.

Saw someone suggest young cyndi Lauper as Delirium. Yeah, that would have worked. I wish I had the build to pull this look off, she's fabulous!

 

[Totenkindly]

Bit the bullet, watched episode 9.

Some of it captures the quality of the comic. Particularly great is the moment when Gilbert recognizes the Corinthian, or when we're taking a peek at some of the convention panels.

But I really am frustrated by Vanesu Samunyai's performance as Rose Walker. It's not about the diversity in the casting at all, because James-Young (Unity) and Everitt (Hector) are all totally fine. Jammal (Hall) is sufficient, though not the best.

But in all her appearances, there's only one moment (when she chews off Morpheus' head this episode) where Samunyai has felt authentic to me; almost all of her other line readings are just... bad or devoid of any naturalness. And when I checked out her other credits, she has none. This is her first real acting role, from what I can tell, and boy does it show. If she'd been casting as a minor background character, okay; but she's essentially the lead character of this particular story arc. Just... what happened here?

(I also have some concerns about Lily Travers as Barbie, who will need to lead the "A Game of You" arc later on, if the show continues that long, based on what I saw of her so far in this series; but at least she's had some prior roles where she might have been decent, it's just that I haven't watched them yet. They really should be taking special care when casting some of these roles that involve being a temporary story lead.)

I'm still pretty happy with the main Endless, Lucienne, The Corinthian, Mathew, Dee, Constantine, and much of the other main leads.

--

As far as the story, it's weird and I just can't place my finger on it. So much of this seems emotionally inert even when I recognize elements of the book that were more or less lifted and even when I understand what the adaptation is doing and why. I can't tell whether it's the writing (which didn't adapt ENOUGH to the medium of TV) or the directing that just didn't bring out emotionally what needed to be brought out.

The high points of the series for me so far have been Episode 6 (which melds the Death and the Hob issues) and then the Episode 11 animated cat story.

---

Finished Episode 10. There were some things I really liked (like Gilbert's closing -- Stephen Fry is so great), and the resolution of the Vortex is finally back to the story roots; other things I liked less, like additions to Rose being the Vortex (it's not a superpower she can wield against Morpheus to take his place, it's that her presence automatically tears down the walls of dreams without her being able to control it and eventually sucks in all dreaming minds). I feel they kept trying to add more to the story to make it seem more dire, but all it seemed to do was confuse/deaden it.

Similarly, too wordy when Morpheus and Corinthian meet, I'm not sure why they added extra useless stuff or made it seem like The Corinthian actually had a chance here. At least they quoted some of the best sections of the story, including all the collectors being stripped of their dreams of grandiosity... but then it had to go too far and hit it on the nose. A lot of this show feels not nearly as nuanced as the source. Like, Morpheus is talking too much and/or feels like he is explaining so much. I don't feel like the writers have a lot of confidence in the material at times and/or trust the actors. Dream is a very severe personality. When he yields small things, it should seem painful to him... and he's not the greatest communicator even if he has some decent speeches. It's just important because it needs to build to the story's ending.

This season did highlight how Desire is playing around with Dream for whatever reason at least and this is important. When Dream speaks of the time he "failed in his responsibility once and a universe was lost," Desire was also involved.

I'm actually really excited they decided to show Azazel like he is in the comic, I'm not sure if it was cool or cheesy in terms of actual animation. At least they made the attempt?

I'm okay with the Gault replacement/addition, it got a little clumsy but the concept was fine.

 

[Totenkindly]

Season 2 is coming. Not particular enthused. They might be covering both Seasons of Mist and A Game of You this season. (I know A Game of You is, and Seasons of Mist comes before that.) They are both great books, but I was disappointed in The Doll's House stuff so I am not sure how this will go.

At least the image looks like Morpheus.