The Dream Becomes a Nightmare

I've been quite slow in finishing season one of The Sandman on Netflix (though faster than Netflix itself in announcing whether there will be a season two). I think that was a combination of the high number of buzzed-about shows to keep up with right now, and the fact that I found The Sandman to be a very difficult watch.

Adapted from Neil Gaiman's beloved comic book series, The Sandman focuses on one of of his favorite themes of gods and god-like entities interacting with the world of mortals. The literal Lord of Dreams is imprisoned by a human for a prolonged period of time, wreaking havoc on the world and setting into motion a series of quests he must complete once he regains his freedom.

Part of what kept me from getting into The Sandman was its unusual format. It's very much an adaptation of its original source material, and that format is not quite episodic and not quite serialized. Stand-alone issues of the comic become stand-alone episodes of the show; multi-issue arcs from the comic run for a handful of episodes before being wrapped up and left behind. It's a double-edged sword of an approach to making a television show, trying to blend the best parts of both approaches: if you don't like one episode, you might be able to just come back for the next and get something else; at the same time, a serialized cliffhanger might also pull you in and keep you engaged.

For me, the result was simply uneven -- and not helped by the fact that the least engaging episodes of the show are absolutely the earliest ones of the season. The first episode itself is one of the dullest of all, spending too much time on characters that won't even be around after the long jump forward in time before the "story proper" begins. And the main character's initial quests to round up three of his prized possessions feels too much like a surface-level RPG plot that would be much more fun to play than it is to watch.

But hang in there, and things do pick up. One of those three objects kicks up a mostly stand-alone episode of its own that's a highlight of the season. That's immediately followed by a contemplative and sad stand-alone episode about death that's the best episode of all. And that is immediately followed by a far more compelling multi-episode arc than the first half of the season featured.

The real issue, though, is more literally that the show is very difficult to watch. It's presented in an unusual aspect ratio -- none of the many standard options you'll come across in film and television. The picture is artificially compressed from the sides; online sleuths determined that the picture is forced into a space only 93% as wide as it was actually captured. You would think this a subtle change, but the effect is that everyone and everything in the show is thinner than your mind knows it to be. People are unnaturally skinny. Circles become ovals. Faces become hard to make out.

The creators of the show went on a wide-ranging media blitz saying that this was a deliberate creative decision on their parts, to lend the entire show a "dream-like" quality in honor of its protagonist. I found it to be the most off-putting creative choice made for any television show I can ever recall watching. It puts the "too-dark" episodes of Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon to shame. It rendered everything unnatural and false, and it affected every single frame of every single scene in every single episode. I could never NOT be aware of it, no matter how many episodes I watched. It always felt like my television was messed up. A familiar actor would show up in an episode, and I could fall out of the story trying to clock "where do I know them from?" for the entire duration, because their faces were too distorted to recognize.

Which is a shame, because the cast of this show is remarkable. Tom Sturridge anchors as the main character, though he's giving a purposefully flat and aloof performance. That leaves room for the considerable array of guest stars to shine -- David Thewlis, Patton Oswalt, Jenna Coleman, Gwendoline Christie, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Arthur Darvill, Joely Richardson, Mason Alexander Park, John Cameron Mitchell, Stephen Fry, Mark Hamill, Charles Dance, Derek Jacobi, and on and on and on and on. This cast is stacked with great people, and many great performances... that are super hard to see.

So all told, I would have to give The Sandman a B-. There is a grade A show in here, to be sure. Fixing the obnoxious visuals alone would get the season as a whole to a B+ for me. Ignoring the weaker start would get the show to an A- at least. The Sandman is watchable, for sure.... it's just not watchable.