(TV SERIES) The Sandman Season 1 - A Visually Stunning Series Based on Best Selling Comics

After months of seeing this title in the Coming Soon section of Netflix, finally the series was released last week. Despite not knowing anything about it, just the fact that there were plenty of articles talking about the series made me feel intrigued. So I started watching this one during the weekend and completed it last night. OK, I'll dive into it now.

Brief Story Line

Story focused on the character Lord Morpheus/Dream of Endless aka the Sandman (Tom Sturridge - Mary Shelley, Sweet Bitter TV series etc) who was ruler of the kingdom in the dream world known as Dreaming. After being captured for very long time by humans, Morpheus managed to escape and return to Dreaming where his librarian Lucienne (Vivienne Acheampong) took care of business while he was away. During his captivity, one of Morpheus' creation, a Nightmare called The Corinthian (Boyd Holbrook - We Can be Heroes, Beckett etc) broke away from Dreaming and wreaking havoc in the waking world. 

With the company of Matthew the Raven (voiced by Patton Oswald - The Secret Life of Pets 2, A. P. Bio TV series etc), Morpheus tried to locate all his tools that were taken away from him while rebuilding the Dreaming and recapturing all his creations, including the Corinthian. 

So what would happen to Morpheus? You can find them all in this series.

End of Brief Story Line

As I said earlier, I had no idea about the premise of the series at all so I watched this one without knowing what I am getting myself into. In the beginning, my first impression was the visual effects were absolutely stunning. The Dreaming world was created so beautifully that made me totally in awe. The special effects too were magnificent with the wonderful scenery and few life-like creatures. While I continued watching, we were introduced to the main character Dream/Morpheus who looked cold, brooding & mysterious and seemed suitable as the king of dreams.

Unlike other series where we could already know what the story would be focusing on from the start, the first episode did not really provide that for me. In fact that episode felt like a separate movie and the real story only began from the second episode where we were introduced to the other important characters. It also had more exciting scenes that made the series felt like an adventure. 

Surprisingly though, half way through the first season, the story shifted its focus again. To be honest, it made feel like the series did not really have a large story arc for a whole season and reducing my level of enjoyment. There were also a bunch of new characters in the second half that I have to get to know again. I got to admit that the drastic changes were not really to my liking. Luckily as the story progressed, it became more entertaining and there were some suspense involved too which culminated to a great season ending.

Like I mentioned above, I think Tom Sturridge seemed perfect for his role and other characters were interesting too, in particular Boyd Holbrook who was very good as the Corinthian. In addition to the main cast, there were a lot of recurring cast and guest stars in here. Some familiar faces for me were Gwendoline Christie (The Darkest Minds, Game of Thrones TV series etc), Joely Richardson (Fallen, The Rook mini series etc) and Stephen Fry (Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, The Hobbit etc). There were also important characters such as Johanna Constantine (Jenna Coleman - Victoria TV series, Doctor Who etc), John Dee (David Thewlis - Wonder Woman etc), Rose Walker (Kyo Ra) and many others.

I know from what I read on the internet that The Sandman series was based on comic books of the same title from Vertigo Printing (part of DC comics) written by Neil Gaiman. And I think that the insufficient knowledge of the character and his story might have contributed to my lack of appreciation to the series which was actually highly praised for its loyalty to the source material. My view of the series was it got amazing visuals, high production value, tons of great talents and a rather heavy psychological driven drama. It felt more like a fantasy drama series based on novels written by authors in the past rather than a modern day comic book. 

For those who have read or fans of the comics, I am sure they would be in love with the series. But those like me who are unfamiliar at all, might find it a bit more challenging, even if the cinematography was awesome. Although, I do not mind seeing a more exciting & suspenseful second season and hopefully we get to see more of the other Sleepless with large story arc throughout the season.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars