Since the first trailer was dropped hypnotic, I have been anxious waiting for Season 1 (which happened today August 5th). Needless to say, I put the first episode on hold as soon as I woke up from my dreams.
The first episode did not disappoint. In fact, it was so good – although it suffers from some of the slowness that first episodes usually have – it baffles me that Netflix decided to release the first season in one go. Especially since at the end of the episode, they included a trailer for what’s to come the rest of the season.
We’ll get into that later, but for now, here are my early impressions after watching Episode 1 of The Sandman, “Sleep of the Just.” Oh, and don’t worry, this article is spoiler-free.
Sandman is perfectly portrayed
Tom Sturridge may be unknown to most people reading this article. When I saw the cast reveal it was unknown to me too, but I came out of Episode 1 struggling to find a better actor to portray the dream.
Admittedly, some of this is due to Sturridge’s physical appearance, which looks like Dream has been ripped from the pages of a comic book and dropped in front of a green screen. However, whether through acting, writing, directing, or a combination of the three, it brings out the core of who the Dream is – aka Sandman, aka Morpheus – in the first volume of Neil Gaiman’s comic book.
The rest of the cast did well, though there are some characters—notably Gwendolyn Christie as Lucifer Morningstar—that we haven’t met yet. Aside from Sturridge, the obvious lead is Boyd Holbrook as Corinthian. Previous Narcos The star grabs your attention every time he appears on screen, and now I’m looking forward to moving forward like no other character.
The Sandman has a comic book feel at times
In the first episode, most of Sturridge’s lines come from voice work as narrator. This gives The Sandman an almost comic book vibe, as if you were reading together instead of just watching.
As the season progresses, we may find that this device is used less and less, because we need less and less width. But for the first episode, it was a nice touch that made me feel like I was back in the pages of the book.
Episode 1 of The Sandman starts a bit slow but is still very satisfying
Well, time for some negatives. The middle of the first episode lasts quite a bit — although comic book readers will understand why. Often the first episodes suffer from this problem, as they have to introduce characters, dangers, etc.
For the record, The Sandman does all this well. In the episode, you can actually feel the dangers of the story, why you should care about the dream and why you should be wary of some of the other characters.
However, if viewers go too far complaining that they sometimes pick up their phones to scroll, I understand where they come from.
Outlook: The Sandman shouldn’t have had the standard Netflix release for the full season
As with the fourth season of Stranger Things, Netflix choosing to release the entire season at once is a baffling decision. There was clearly a lot of time, care, and money in The Sandman, as evident in the acting and CGI. Production values wouldn’t seem out of place compared to the Harry Potter movie.
So the fact that Netflix is taking these characteristics and taking them all at once is meaningless in the world of pop culture that is all about constantly distilling content to dominate the conversation. We could easily talk about this show for weeks like we do with any Marvel show or like we probably do once on HBO. Dragon House and Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power It goes down in the coming weeks.
Plus as a viewer, I honestly feel the anticipation would help, too. I’m really excited to watch the rest of the season. There is a reason to include it on our list Shows and movies to watch this week. Waiting an entire week will increase that expectation to 11, and I think the show will be better for him. But regardless, I just hope the release form doesn’t hurt The Sandman, because I’m already looking forward to season two.
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