Neil Gaiman’s magnum opus was supposed to be "unfilmable." For decades, that was the industry standard line. Every time a script for The Sandman floated through Hollywood, it died a slow, painful death in development hell, usually because someone tried to turn Dream of the Endless into a generic superhero with a punch-first attitude. Then Netflix happened.
Honestly, the first season was a miracle of casting and vibe. It wasn't perfect, but it captured that weird, ethereal, and often deeply depressing tone of the comics that fans have obsessed over since 1989. When Tom Sturridge stepped onto the screen as Morpheus, with that specific "pale goth who hasn't slept since the French Revolution" energy, the collective sigh of relief from the fandom was audible.
The show didn't just adapt the books; it translated them. There is a huge difference.
The Sandman and the Burden of Adaptation
Adapting a 75-issue comic run is a nightmare. You're dealing with a protagonist who is, quite literally, an anthropomorphic personification of dreams. He’s not human. He doesn’t think like us. He's arrogant, stubborn, and remarkably bad at maintaining relationships. Most shows would try to make him "relatable" by giving him a quippy sidekick or a tragic backstory involving a dead wife.
The Netflix series stayed true to the source by leaning into Morpheus's coldness.
The first half of the season covers Preludes & Nocturnes, where Dream is captured by an amateur occultist, Roderick Burgess (played with delicious sleaze by Charles Dance). This is where The Sandman establishes its stakes. It isn't about saving the world in the traditional sense. It's about a cosmic being trying to get his stuff back—his helm, his sand, and his ruby. It’s a procedural journey through the waking world that feels like a dark fever dream.
Then we hit episode six, "The Sound of Her Wings."
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If you want to know why this show resonated, look at that episode. It ditches the "quest" narrative entirely to spend forty minutes watching two siblings walk around London. One is Dream; the other is Death. But she isn't a scythe-wielding skeleton. Kirby Howell-Baptiste plays her as the kindest person in the universe. It’s a quiet, devastatingly beautiful meditation on mortality that most big-budget fantasy shows wouldn't dare to produce. It proved that the show understood the heart of the comics: it's not about the magic, it's about the people the magic touches.
Why the Corinthian was a Genius Move
In the comics, the Corinthian—a nightmare with teeth for eyes—is a relatively short-lived threat in the The Doll's House arc. The showrunners made a brilliant executive decision to weave him through the entire first season. Boyd Holbrook played him with a terrifying, charismatic Southern drawl that made him a constant shadow over the narrative.
By making him a recurring antagonist, the show solved a major pacing issue. Comics can be episodic. Television needs a through-line. The Corinthian provided that "boogeyman" energy that kept the tension high while Morpheus was busy moping in his castle or chatting with gargoyles.
The Casting Controversy That Wasn't
People got weird about the casting. You know the drill. Whenever a project updates its look for a modern audience, a specific corner of the internet loses its mind. They complained about Death. They complained about Gwendoline Christie as Lucifer.
They were wrong.
Gwendoline Christie’s Lucifer is perhaps the most comic-accurate depiction of the fallen angel we’ve ever seen—and that includes the (very fun) Lucifer spin-off show. She captured the David Bowie-esque elegance and the simmering, polite rage that Gaiman originally envisioned. The confrontation in Hell, where Dream and Lucifer engage in a "battle of wits" known as the Oldest Game, was a masterclass in visual storytelling. "I am hope." That line shouldn't work as a climax to a fight, yet it’s the most powerful moment in the series.
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The Difficulty of the Doll's House
If we’re being real, the second half of the season—the Rose Walker arc—is where things got a bit wobbly. The "Cereal Convention" (a gathering for serial killers) is a fantastic concept, but the transition from the high-stakes cosmic horror of Hell to a Florida motel felt jarring for some viewers.
Rose Walker is a "Dream Vortex," a concept that is inherently difficult to explain on screen without massive amounts of exposition. The show struggled slightly with the pacing here. It felt faster, more frantic, and perhaps a bit more "CW-ish" than the somber, prestige-drama feel of the first six episodes.
But even then, the emotional payoff with Gilbert (Stephen Fry) and the eventual confrontation between Dream and his sibling Desire (Mason Alexander Park) kept it grounded. The Endless are a dysfunctional family, and seeing that dynamic play out is infinitely more interesting than any CGI battle.
What Season 2 (and Beyond) Must Handle
Netflix has officially moved into production for the next chapter, which will cover the Season of Mists storyline. This is widely considered the best arc in the entire comic history.
Basically, Lucifer gets tired of running Hell, kicks everyone out, locks the gates, and gives the key to Morpheus.
Now, imagine every mythological pantheon—Odin, Bast, the Lords of Chaos—all showing up at Dream’s doorstep to lobby for the deed to Hell. It’s a political thriller set in a dreamscape. To pull this off, the production needs to double down on the surrealism. We need to see gods that don't just look like actors in togas. We need the weird.
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- Expand the Endless: We’ve seen Dream, Death, Desire, and Despair. We still need to meet Delirium and Destiny. Getting Delirium right is going to be the biggest challenge for the writers; she's a character who speaks in non-sequiturs and changes hair color every five seconds.
- Maintain the Anthology Feel: Some of the best parts of The Sandman are the "one-off" stories. "Calliope" and "Dream of a Thousand Cats" were released as a surprise bonus episode after the first season dropped. This format is essential. Not everything has to lead to a world-ending threat.
- The Evolution of Morpheus: The show is ultimately about a guy who realizes he has to change or he will cease to exist. Tom Sturridge needs to allow the cracks in Dream’s armor to show more frequently.
The Reality of the "Netflix Curse"
We have to talk about the budget. The Sandman is expensive. Very expensive. In an era where streamers are cancelling shows left and right to save on licensing fees and residuals, a high-concept fantasy series is always on the chopping block.
The fact that we are getting a "Volume 2" (Netflix is being weird about calling it Season 2) is a testament to the show's massive international viewership. But it also means the show has to stay "loud." It has to trend. It has to stay in the cultural conversation.
The biggest risk is that the show becomes too "safe" to appeal to a broader audience. The comics were transgressive, queer, and often deeply experimental. If the show loses its edge to chase "Stranger Things" numbers, it loses the soul of what Gaiman created.
How to Prepare for the Next Chapter
If you’ve only watched the show and haven't touched the books, now is the time. You don't need to read the whole thing, but picking up the Season of Mists trade paperback will give you a massive head start on where the plot is going.
- Watch the Bonus Episode: If you missed "Calliope," go back. It's one of the darkest and most poignant stories in the series.
- Listen to the Audible Original: If you want a different take, the audio drama narrated by Gaiman himself is incredible and features a different, equally stellar cast (James McAvoy as Dream).
- Track the Production News: Keep an eye on casting for "The Prodigal" (Destruction). That casting choice will tell us a lot about the tone of the upcoming episodes.
The beauty of this universe is its scale. It covers the beginning of time to the end of the universe, yet it’s small enough to care about a single cat’s dream. Stay for the weirdness, because that's where the truth is.