Sandman Season 1 Horror Series On Netflix: Iconic Adaptation with Honest and Unbiased Review

Sandman Season 1 is a sprawling, rich book with a diverse cast of characters and interweaving plotlines, but at its heart, it is the narrative of an ancient, eternal creature experiencing an existential crisis and realizing that even he is capable of growing and adapting to the changing world around him.

Netflix Sandman Season 1 Plot, Cast, and Review

Sandman Season 1 is something that belongs to the Netflix Horror series and never loses sight of, which is part of what makes it such a phenomenally effective adaptation. After several high-profile attempts to adapt The Sandman Season 1 Netflix for the screen (including a feature adaptation helmed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt), it was beginning to look as if it simply wasn’t meant to be, so there was a lot of excitement – and trepidation – when it was announced that Netflix would be taking over. After all, the streamer has a fairly shaky track record, so Sandman fans were naturally anxious.

Fortunately, our patience has been rewarded with a stunning fantasy drama series that is as true to Gaiman’s book as it is possible to be. In fact, our main critique of Sandman Season 1 Netflix is that it sometimes sticks too closely to the original material. The Sandman tale, however, goes well beyond that one series. Gaiman’s mythos for the book is based on existing DC history, including the two pre-existing superheroes Sandman, Wesley Dodds, and Hector Hall. Other supporting characters, such as Destiny and the fighting brothers Cain and Abel, precede the Sandman tale by many years.

Review Of Netflix Horror Series Sandman Season 1

The story opens in 1916, with black magician Roderick Burgess (Charles Dance) performing a spell to imprison Death and mistakenly trapping her younger brother, Dream, in her place. Morpheus (Tom Sturridge), a member of the immortal family known as The Endless, refuses to interact with his captor, languishing in his glass cage for almost a century.

When Dream is finally free, he sets out to reclaim his stolen office equipment (pouch, headpiece, and ruby) by beginning a mission that will lead him from his home in The Dreaming to the gates of Hell itself. Meanwhile, The Corinthian (Boyd Holbrook), a particularly wicked nightmare, has taken full advantage of his master’s absence by causing havoc in the Waking World as an infamous serial murderer.

Of course, there’s a lot more to it, but it’s better not to expose too much for people who are unfamiliar with the subject. If you’ve read the comics, you’ll know what to anticipate, and Netflix’s series mainly follows the same formula of weaving a somewhat self-contained narrative in each episode, as Dream meets different friends and adversaries while looking for his lost belongings and reconstructing his kingdom.

Most of the larger DC Comics connections have been dropped (for obvious reasons), so we won’t get to see Morpheus meet Martian Manhunter or Mr. Miracle, and John Constantine has been renamed Johanna Constantine (Jenna Coleman). Nonetheless, there are a few Easter Eggs in the latter episodes that hint the program is set in the same universe (if that’s still a thing).

This sixth installment shows a heartbroken Dream’s reunion with his older sister, Death (a brilliant Kirby Howell-Baptiste), who accompanies her brother on her rounds as she meets individuals who are ready to die. It’s a near-perfect recreation of the comic, with one scene, in particular, leaving Sandman aficionados in tears. The episode, however, does not end with issue 8 of the comic, and the decision to include another fan-favorite encounter (no spoilers) is fantastic.

The majority of the characters are well-played, but the success of this series was always going to be on Tom Sturridge’s shoulders, and he is great in the lead. Morpheus is a difficult character to portray for a variety of reasons, and while this first live-action interpretation is immediately more likable than his comic-book counterpart, The British actor wonderfully depicts Dream’s initial aloofness and spiteful attitude, then gently allowing some warmth and compassion to sneak in as the Dream Lord starts to realize the choice that awaits him even before we have a good idea of what awaits him.
The last few episodes may fall short of expectations, but The Sandman’s first season is a huge success. It took a while, but Netflix’s strong, bizarre, and unexpectedly joyful adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s “unfilmable” comic books should surpass even the highest of expectations.