I am enjoying the first two episodes of Sandman so far. I am down for the series as long as the quality doesn't run off a cliff basically. Except for episode 5. Fuck that one. If you read the comics you know why.
This is from a person who loves watching adaptations of Gaiman's work and staunchly refuses to read anything he has written ever again. Interestingly I tend to really enjoy the more faithful adaptations as well, and this one feels very Gaiman. It has been 20 years since I even tried to read the comic series so some details I would miss, but the tone and broad strokes are spot on.
I own every issue of Sandman in TPB and I think the adaptation is good with some great moments. I don't think it'll be able to capture the otherworldly nonhuman stuff as it's actors and not drawings and that's fine.
I appreciate anything in modern TV that tries for a melancholy theme though.
I am in the business of saving lives.
+3
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AegisFear My DanceOvershot Toronto, Landed in OttawaRegistered Userregular
Couple of episodes in and while I thought episode one was visually dark (I get what they were trying to get at, but I'm trying to adore your scenery and it's hard to do that when I'm squinting), I'm loving the adaptation.
Sandman was going strong until episode 7, which is full of bad acting from new characters. How the hell does something like that even happen? How did the show runners just face plant so hard on casting? It’s truly bizarre.
Why is it that all streaming services universally look terrible when you run them on a pc? Like either via an app or browser. It drives me nuts cos my preferred way to watch certain movies is on my pc, and I just can’t. It only looks high quality on my tv
Netflix only looks good in chrome I think cause of some DRM shenanigans. But on windows, you can also use the windows netflix app, which is surprisingly decent, has downloads like the phone/tablet versions (might be useful on a laptop) and also does high quality video
I don’t think any adaptation can really be perfect, but this Sandman adaptation is pretty close to nailing it, in my opinion. It sands down (lol) the rough edges of some of the comics and distills the stories down to their basic elements while still retaining the heart and attitude. Of course, this all makes sense given how much of a hand Neil Gaiman had in its direction, but still.
Sandman : I read Volume 1 : Preludes and Nocturnes before watching episodes 1-5, and then Death : High Cost of Living and Volume 2 : The Doll’s House before watching episode 6 and I am happy I did so, as it allows me to compare the graphic novel with the series, and about 90% of all dialogue is straight from the comic, which is just a joy to behold.
So now I’m ready to see the rest of the episodes.
The actor playing the Sandman is so good; especially his voice.
I love Death, and the Hob Gadling story still is magnificent.
When rereading the comics, I realised that I must’ve had quite a bit of time between Volumes 1 and 2, because it was all new to me that a character from Volume 2 was actually a character who had the sleep sickness that was mention by name in Volume 1.
While there may be some nitpickers concerning details/gender-/race-switches, it nails the spirit of the comic 100%. And that’s what’s most important right?
After I’ve seen the rest of the season, I might continue reading the comic volumes, just because now all the names are fresh in my memory, so that I can see the connections between them more clearly. Oh, and also Ouverture, so that I know again what happened right before the series.
TL;DR: For those who haven’t read the graphic novels, you can just jump into the series. If you already have read the comics in your lifetime, I found it very enjoyable to reread volume 1 and 2 before watching the series, just to see how faithful it is.
Looks like I'm an outlier here - I think Sandman is terrible.
The dialogue is clunky as hell - it's a common issue with adaptations, where the adaptors attempt to include some part of the non-dialogue storytelling such as text descriptions, or shifts in art style, and just dump it into dialogue. You end up with horribly clunky over-explaining exchanges such as:
Dream: The ruler of hell - Lucifer Morningstar
Matthew: The devil?!?!?
Dream: Lucifer is no mere devil, before he fell he was the angel Sammael.
Matthew: Oh, that's right - I forgot Lucifer used to be an angel.
The music is incredibly repetitive. An episode will have a motif, expect that motif to swell before every scene transition.
The alterations to the story also seem unnecessary (spoilers)
The Corinthian actively conspiring against Dream, John Dee having the amulet of protection and using it "offensively", Lucifer fighting for the helm instead of Choronzon. I'm guessing they couldn't get the rights to John Constantine, hence swapping to Johanna, but it's still jarring from the source.
It feels as if they've just tried to stuff too much in - cut half the dialogue, cut all the unnecessary plot complications, cut all the short sequences where they give a minor character a superfluous interaction to justify the single episode in which they appear without advancing the story.
It needs editing down to about half the runtime - it's a Hobbit when it should be a Pan's Labyrinth.
It needs editing down to about half the runtime - it's a Hobbit when it should be a Pan's Labyrinth.
I've watched through episode 7 and really enjoy that the pacing is slower. Some shows trim away too much which doesn't let the story breathe at all. I think it really works here to establish the setting and characters. And each episode is pretty focused, separating it from some streaming TV that feels more like a super long movie instead of individual chapters in a longer story (without swinging the other way to "here's 35 minutes of standalone story and 5 minutes of the overall arc").
Also, the set design and cinematography are fantastic.
The real test is going to be how they adapt the Emperor Norton story
I've got a huge fondness for that story, and I think it was the first Gaiman thing I ever read (the wonders of being a teen reading things in a library after school)
Sheridan's dead wife shows up and asks him to travel to Z'Ha'Dum. Probably not a trap.
Thoughts:
Well, that's a season-ending episode, all right.
RIP the Shadows. They tried to lay a trap for someone who's known for taking out militarily superior forces through cunning plans by asking him to travel to their seat of power.
RIP Sheridan. He not only brought a nuke to a meeting, he brought a second nuke.
RIP the White Star. Good thing we have spares.
RIP the thread of prophecy. Well, time to restore a saved game...after I kill Vivec.
Anyway, this is an new twist on the whole prophecy thing in B5. Instead of using prophecies to foreshadow future plot points, you get "that future sucks; let's try throwing a big wrench in there and see what happens". This occurs in other shows, though more at the single-episode level, and usually with time travel instead of prophecy; prophecy is usually for more unchangeable stuff.
This kind of invalidates all current prophecies, as well; we saw emperor Londo and Vir in War Without End, but that only happened because Centauri remained under the control of the Shadows. Now? Who knows. That future no longer exists.
The one valid point the Shadows made is that the Vorlons are using the other races as cannon fodder, and manipulating them in general. Though their general philosophy of "war creates progress" is obviously a non-starter; it's a very imperialistic definition of progress for one thing, and the Shadows are being hypocritical as well. There's been more than a few actions that appear to have been taken specifically to wipe out various species that might be a threat to the Shadows, though I'm not sure anything got nailed down properly outside of the Centauri/Narn war (where the Shadows wrecked most of the Narn fleet and colony defenses by themselves to make things easier for the Centauri). It reads as just the excuse: "We bombed your cities for your own good, so you can't hold that against us. Also, we don't plan to stop. And banding together against a common threat is cheating. And definitely doesn't count as progress."
Season 3 retrospective:
This feels like a two part season, split by the declaration of independence from Earth. The escalation of tension over those first 10 episodes was certainly something, aided by the understanding that the situation was not tenable long-term; President Clark was working hard to round up and eliminate anyone who opposed his rule, and he was closing in. The solutions to avoid getting caught were becoming more and more short term. My main complaint is that Earth basically stopped being a concern after that point. The repercussions of the Centauri/Narn war stuck around after the end of that storyline in a way that the Earth storyline hasn't. Even if Clark has his hands full at home for the moment, the show could show that: refuges from earth, an underground news channel, and so on.
The Shadow storyline feels like it's been cut short, but in a way that feels appropriate. This was going to be a long, bloody, drawn-out war, then Sheridan happened. (Saying this before even starting season 4 is an act of hubris, but no story ends until it ends.)
The changes in G'Kar, Londo, and Bester were impressive, changing their motivations and place in the story while making it clear that this is the same character, just in different circumstances.
The Walkabout storyline was a dud, though. I feel this took up too much screen time for something that left Dr Franklin basically where he started. Unfortunately, Dr Franklin as a character is in a bad place right now. The Chief Medical Officer is a high-profile character on Star Trek-style shows, but that's because half the episodes are "we're going to poke the weird thing", and the other half are "the weird thing shot at us"; in both cases having a doctor around makes sense for story reasons. In B5, the "weird thing" episodes are the bad ones. Dr Franklin doesn't have a good excuse to show up during treaty negotiations or strategic planning, and most big fights occur off the station. So he needs a second excuse to get screentime. Having him helping out Downbelow was a good attempt, but B5 (the show) doesn't really care about Downbelow. Having him involved in getting telepaths out of Earth-controlled space was better, but that didn't go anywhere. (I think because they aren't an actual Faction, and don't even have any named characters.) So, B5 tried a drug abuse storyline, but that landed flat as well, it still doesn't give him an excuse to be involved in main storylines, and doesn't cause interesting interactions with other characters, so it has to stand on its own. (It didn't.) Dr Franklin works okay as a second-tier character, who shows up every fourth episode or something, but I think there's room to do something more interesting with him.
+5
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Sheridan's dead wife shows up and asks him to travel to Z'Ha'Dum. Probably not a trap.
Thoughts:
Well, that's a season-ending episode, all right.
RIP the Shadows. They tried to lay a trap for someone who's known for taking out militarily superior forces through cunning plans by asking him to travel to their seat of power.
RIP Sheridan. He not only brought a nuke to a meeting, he brought a second nuke.
RIP the White Star. Good thing we have spares.
RIP the thread of prophecy. Well, time to restore a saved game...after I kill Vivec.
Anyway, this is an new twist on the whole prophecy thing in B5. Instead of using prophecies to foreshadow future plot points, you get "that future sucks; let's try throwing a big wrench in there and see what happens". This occurs in other shows, though more at the single-episode level, and usually with time travel instead of prophecy; prophecy is usually for more unchangeable stuff.
This kind of invalidates all current prophecies, as well; we saw emperor Londo and Vir in War Without End, but that only happened because Centauri remained under the control of the Shadows. Now? Who knows. That future no longer exists.
The one valid point the Shadows made is that the Vorlons are using the other races as cannon fodder, and manipulating them in general. Though their general philosophy of "war creates progress" is obviously a non-starter; it's a very imperialistic definition of progress for one thing, and the Shadows are being hypocritical as well. There's been more than a few actions that appear to have been taken specifically to wipe out various species that might be a threat to the Shadows, though I'm not sure anything got nailed down properly outside of the Centauri/Narn war (where the Shadows wrecked most of the Narn fleet and colony defenses by themselves to make things easier for the Centauri). It reads as just the excuse: "We bombed your cities for your own good, so you can't hold that against us. Also, we don't plan to stop. And banding together against a common threat is cheating. And definitely doesn't count as progress."
Season 3 retrospective:
This feels like a two part season, split by the declaration of independence from Earth. The escalation of tension over those first 10 episodes was certainly something, aided by the understanding that the situation was not tenable long-term; President Clark was working hard to round up and eliminate anyone who opposed his rule, and he was closing in. The solutions to avoid getting caught were becoming more and more short term. My main complaint is that Earth basically stopped being a concern after that point. The repercussions of the Centauri/Narn war stuck around after the end of that storyline in a way that the Earth storyline hasn't. Even if Clark has his hands full at home for the moment, the show could show that: refuges from earth, an underground news channel, and so on.
The Shadow storyline feels like it's been cut short, but in a way that feels appropriate. This was going to be a long, bloody, drawn-out war, then Sheridan happened. (Saying this before even starting season 4 is an act of hubris, but no story ends until it ends.)
The changes in G'Kar, Londo, and Bester were impressive, changing their motivations and place in the story while making it clear that this is the same character, just in different circumstances.
The Walkabout storyline was a dud, though. I feel this took up too much screen time for something that left Dr Franklin basically where he started. Unfortunately, Dr Franklin as a character is in a bad place right now. The Chief Medical Officer is a high-profile character on Star Trek-style shows, but that's because half the episodes are "we're going to poke the weird thing", and the other half are "the weird thing shot at us"; in both cases having a doctor around makes sense for story reasons. In B5, the "weird thing" episodes are the bad ones. Dr Franklin doesn't have a good excuse to show up during treaty negotiations or strategic planning, and most big fights occur off the station. So he needs a second excuse to get screentime. Having him helping out Downbelow was a good attempt, but B5 (the show) doesn't really care about Downbelow. Having him involved in getting telepaths out of Earth-controlled space was better, but that didn't go anywhere. (I think because they aren't an actual Faction, and don't even have any named characters.) So, B5 tried a drug abuse storyline, but that landed flat as well, it still doesn't give him an excuse to be involved in main storylines, and doesn't cause interesting interactions with other characters, so it has to stand on its own. (It didn't.) Dr Franklin works okay as a second-tier character, who shows up every fourth episode or something, but I think there's room to do something more interesting with him.
So to give you some real-world history of how you felt about S3, the B5 project was actually intended as a five-year arc of story. By the end of S3, the studio side of things was... iffy. They were pretty sure they would have S4 barring something outlandishly bad, but they didn't expect a S5 and thus had to squish basically two seasons into one season and then rush a bunch of stuff in S3 so S4 would work at all. It's definitely not just you, they squished a bunch of story into a much smaller timeframe than they originally want. But Straczynski is some kind of wizard and managed to make it all happen without disrupting the story too badly.
As for the show, "invalidates all current prophecies" is... an interesting conclusion. The universe is a big, complicated place, with lots of unintended consequences, and B5 as a show does not tend to leave loose ends. I do get what you mean about the likes of Dr. Franklin, but there are multiple ancillary characters the show treats like that. They have big things happen to them and rather than just forgetting them, we definitely get to see those things play out in their lives; they just don't always do a great job with it. And because some characters drift in and out of being supporting and main characters, it's sort of an interesting way of showing the viewer that people's lives keep happening even when the big stories aren't happening. They search for people that matter to them, open old wounds, find ways to let old wounds heal, and generally try to make a life out of things they've done and have been done to them. The big fights are all black-and-white, but what happens to the various players is far more real-world messy. Sometimes they make bad decisions. Sometimes they just have bad things happen to them. And sometimes they come out ahead. G'Kar and Londo in particular, though, have outright excellent and heart-rending arcs; you haven't even seen the best they have to offer yet.
As for that S3 episode, yeah, it's one hell of a bombshell to end a season on. Sheridan saves B5, but the hornet nest is now thoroughly kicked and everybody's plans just got tossed in the blender. They literally just flip the table on all the plans that have been laid for the last three years of the show.
Something that you actually miss with the show all being on streaming, though? Having to wait some 6-9 months for S4 to start. I watched the whole series when it was on TV originally and goddamn was that final episode hard to take when you know the story doesn't pick up again until the following year or something. Nowadays you can just drop into the next season but man, having those months to let the story simmer in your head made what comes next all the more surprising. If you really wanted to capture the feel of the original broadcast, wait six months and start S4.
I'm actually really into Sandman so far, but episode 5 didn't wow me.
Maybe I'm misreading it, but the basic idea is that if we're not allowed to lie to each other, everyone will just start fucking and murdering everything in sight before eventually chopping off our own limbs and killing ourselves? I was waiting for it to be a perverse reflection of John's opinions of mankind that kind of forced people to act so terribly, but then Morpheus is like "yep, people are the fucking worst, unless they can dream, and then everything is cool."
I dunno, just seemed too grimdark edgelord to take seriously.
Other than that it's great, though. Love the casting of Lucifer and Matthew. Cain and Abel are great, too.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
I'm actually really into Sandman so far, but episode 5 didn't wow me.
Maybe I'm misreading it, but the basic idea is that if we're not allowed to lie to each other, everyone will just start fucking and murdering everything in sight before eventually chopping off our own limbs and killing ourselves? I was waiting for it to be a perverse reflection of John's opinions of mankind that kind of forced people to act so terribly, but then Morpheus is like "yep, people are the fucking worst, unless they can dream, and then everything is cool."
I dunno, just seemed too grimdark edgelord to take seriously.
Other than that it's great, though. Love the casting of Lucifer and Matthew. Cain and Abel are great, too.
I disagree with your interpretation and I can hope I can explain why (episode 5 spoilers of The Sandman):
John's opinions of mankind *is* twisted and he abuses the ruby to twist the people around him. He is the opposite of Morpheus as in he only sees the material world as the only thing that's real and true (but he's also shown to be a hypocrite: when the Moirai tell him his future, he rejects them twice, because it's not what he wants to hear.) and rejects everything else as lies. For Morpheus, who is the embodiment of all things that are not material, dreams, hopes and asparations are as real and true as anything in the material world. Morpheus does definitely not agree with him (but Morpheus also does not have a great opinion of humanity after being imprisoned by them for over a hundred years (and Morpheus, though he's improving a little, is really not a good person at this point (see Nada).)
I think next episode will give you a far more positive viewpoint (from 2 different characters) on mankind and the series on a whole will side more with them.
Mmm.. maybe material world is the wrong word to use. I have the thought in my head why I disagree with your interpretation, but I'm not sure my explanation above is really a good way to put it in words.
I don't think I've seen a show that's gone on this long make such a well done course correction.
Yeah, I'd say season 4 is at least as good as Season 1 was. Probably even better if you're invested in the story because it builds on the previous 3 seasons of characters and stories.
I'm actually really into Sandman so far, but episode 5 didn't wow me.
Maybe I'm misreading it, but the basic idea is that if we're not allowed to lie to each other, everyone will just start fucking and murdering everything in sight before eventually chopping off our own limbs and killing ourselves? I was waiting for it to be a perverse reflection of John's opinions of mankind that kind of forced people to act so terribly, but then Morpheus is like "yep, people are the fucking worst, unless they can dream, and then everything is cool."
I dunno, just seemed too grimdark edgelord to take seriously.
Other than that it's great, though. Love the casting of Lucifer and Matthew. Cain and Abel are great, too.
I disagree with your interpretation and I can hope I can explain why (episode 5 spoilers of The Sandman):
John's opinions of mankind *is* twisted and he abuses the ruby to twist the people around him. He is the opposite of Morpheus as in he only sees the material world as the only thing that's real and true (but he's also shown to be a hypocrite: when the Moirai tell him his future, he rejects them twice, because it's not what he wants to hear.) and rejects everything else as lies. For Morpheus, who is the embodiment of all things that are not material, dreams, hopes and asparations are as real and true as anything in the material world. Morpheus does definitely not agree with him (but Morpheus also does not have a great opinion of humanity after being imprisoned by them for over a hundred years (and Morpheus, though he's improving a little, is really not a good person at this point (see Nada).)
I think next episode will give you a far more positive viewpoint (from 2 different characters) on mankind and the series on a whole will side more with them.
Mmm.. maybe material world is the wrong word to use. I have the thought in my head why I disagree with your interpretation, but I'm not sure my explanation above is really a good way to put it in words.
I think part of it is John confuses impulse control for dishonesty. He seems to just force people to do the first thing that pops into their head. After Mark stabs the other guy, and presumably while they're still under the forced honesty thing, he does say he didn't want to do it.
Paper Girls on Amazon starts weak, but builds steam by the end of episode 3. At first, I thought it was a poor attempt to do their own Stranger Things, but they play with some interesting concepts that makes it a unique show.
Sheridan's dead wife shows up and asks him to travel to Z'Ha'Dum. Probably not a trap.
Thoughts:
Well, that's a season-ending episode, all right.
RIP the Shadows. They tried to lay a trap for someone who's known for taking out militarily superior forces through cunning plans by asking him to travel to their seat of power.
RIP Sheridan. He not only brought a nuke to a meeting, he brought a second nuke.
RIP the White Star. Good thing we have spares.
RIP the thread of prophecy. Well, time to restore a saved game...after I kill Vivec.
Anyway, this is an new twist on the whole prophecy thing in B5. Instead of using prophecies to foreshadow future plot points, you get "that future sucks; let's try throwing a big wrench in there and see what happens". This occurs in other shows, though more at the single-episode level, and usually with time travel instead of prophecy; prophecy is usually for more unchangeable stuff.
This kind of invalidates all current prophecies, as well; we saw emperor Londo and Vir in War Without End, but that only happened because Centauri remained under the control of the Shadows. Now? Who knows. That future no longer exists.
The one valid point the Shadows made is that the Vorlons are using the other races as cannon fodder, and manipulating them in general. Though their general philosophy of "war creates progress" is obviously a non-starter; it's a very imperialistic definition of progress for one thing, and the Shadows are being hypocritical as well. There's been more than a few actions that appear to have been taken specifically to wipe out various species that might be a threat to the Shadows, though I'm not sure anything got nailed down properly outside of the Centauri/Narn war (where the Shadows wrecked most of the Narn fleet and colony defenses by themselves to make things easier for the Centauri). It reads as just the excuse: "We bombed your cities for your own good, so you can't hold that against us. Also, we don't plan to stop. And banding together against a common threat is cheating. And definitely doesn't count as progress."
Season 3 retrospective:
This feels like a two part season, split by the declaration of independence from Earth. The escalation of tension over those first 10 episodes was certainly something, aided by the understanding that the situation was not tenable long-term; President Clark was working hard to round up and eliminate anyone who opposed his rule, and he was closing in. The solutions to avoid getting caught were becoming more and more short term. My main complaint is that Earth basically stopped being a concern after that point. The repercussions of the Centauri/Narn war stuck around after the end of that storyline in a way that the Earth storyline hasn't. Even if Clark has his hands full at home for the moment, the show could show that: refuges from earth, an underground news channel, and so on.
The Shadow storyline feels like it's been cut short, but in a way that feels appropriate. This was going to be a long, bloody, drawn-out war, then Sheridan happened. (Saying this before even starting season 4 is an act of hubris, but no story ends until it ends.)
The changes in G'Kar, Londo, and Bester were impressive, changing their motivations and place in the story while making it clear that this is the same character, just in different circumstances.
The Walkabout storyline was a dud, though. I feel this took up too much screen time for something that left Dr Franklin basically where he started. Unfortunately, Dr Franklin as a character is in a bad place right now. The Chief Medical Officer is a high-profile character on Star Trek-style shows, but that's because half the episodes are "we're going to poke the weird thing", and the other half are "the weird thing shot at us"; in both cases having a doctor around makes sense for story reasons. In B5, the "weird thing" episodes are the bad ones. Dr Franklin doesn't have a good excuse to show up during treaty negotiations or strategic planning, and most big fights occur off the station. So he needs a second excuse to get screentime. Having him helping out Downbelow was a good attempt, but B5 (the show) doesn't really care about Downbelow. Having him involved in getting telepaths out of Earth-controlled space was better, but that didn't go anywhere. (I think because they aren't an actual Faction, and don't even have any named characters.) So, B5 tried a drug abuse storyline, but that landed flat as well, it still doesn't give him an excuse to be involved in main storylines, and doesn't cause interesting interactions with other characters, so it has to stand on its own. (It didn't.) Dr Franklin works okay as a second-tier character, who shows up every fourth episode or something, but I think there's room to do something more interesting with him.
So to give you some real-world history of how you felt about S3, the B5 project was actually intended as a five-year arc of story. By the end of S3, the studio side of things was... iffy. They were pretty sure they would have S4 barring something outlandishly bad, but they didn't expect a S5 and thus had to squish basically two seasons into one season and then rush a bunch of stuff in S3 so S4 would work at all. It's definitely not just you, they squished a bunch of story into a much smaller timeframe than they originally want. But Straczynski is some kind of wizard and managed to make it all happen without disrupting the story too badly.
The squish doesn't happen in S3 though. It's in the back half of S4. S3 plays out at the pace it's supposed to, The entire show just really starts accelerating at this point and a lot of stuff happens.
I think the Earth story gets put on the backburner but in a way that makes sense. Earth doesn't become an expansionist authoritarian state, it becomes an insular authoritarian state. Having failed to bring B5 in line the new Earth government is letting the issue rest for now and looking inward to quash dissent. And everyone outside Earth space is busy with, you know, other important shit.
+2
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daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
It even makes sense as far as EarthGov politics and the Shadows' goals go.
The Shadows are working to make the galaxy less stable as part of their whole conflict builds strength philosophy. Sometimes this means getting a powerful, but inward looking and declining power to go out and kick some ass by convincing an elderly diplomat that it's time to Make Centauri Prime Great Again. Other times it means getting the powers that might work to stabilize the situation to get distracted or turn their focus inwards.
And EarthGov might not know exactly what the Shadows are or what their game is, but they've been working with them for a while and know they're silly powerful; so it makes some sense that they'd sit back, lock down their holdings, and work on getting the Shadow biotech working before heading out to boot some head.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
I don't think I've seen a show that's gone on this long make such a well done course correction.
I haven’t seen last night’s episode yet, but last week’s was arguably the best the show has done. I’ve talked about how the first season got a lot of leeway from me by incorporating hacky writers into the plot, but last week’s episode might be the first time the show has completely succeeded without that safety net. The only possible exception being the Season 1 finale, which was just a sublime ending.
On Sandman, my wife and I watched the first episode - I’ve read the first and last of the trade paperbacks years ago, she’s never read any of it. I think we were both tentatively sold on the show for the vibe until the preview for the rest of the season.
Like, I love the guy in most contexts, but Patton Oswalt’s voice felt like a punchline after a solid hour of that very heavy tone. I know his character is in the story, but I never read his dialogue in the Poochie voice.
Am I overreacting, or is Oswalt’s presence just unendingly jarring?
I don't think I've seen a show that's gone on this long make such a well done course correction.
I haven’t seen last night’s episode yet, but last week’s was arguably the best the show has done. I’ve talked about how the first season got a lot of leeway from me by incorporating hacky writers into the plot, but last week’s episode might be the first time the show has completely succeeded without that safety net. The only possible exception being the Season 1 finale, which was just a sublime ending.
On Sandman, my wife and I watched the first episode - I’ve read the first and last of the trade paperbacks years ago, she’s never read any of it. I think we were both tentatively sold on the show for the vibe until the preview for the rest of the season.
Like, I love the guy in most contexts, but Patton Oswalt’s voice felt like a punchline after a solid hour of that very heavy tone. I know his character is in the story, but I never read his dialogue in the Poochie voice.
Am I overreacting, or is Oswalt’s presence just unendingly jarring?
Everybody has different thresholds for different actors. I’m not particularly bothered by Oswalt’s voice but I also liked him in Happy! and MODOK.
On the other hand I AM starting to feel this way about John Mulaney’s voice.
I don't think I've seen a show that's gone on this long make such a well done course correction.
I haven’t seen last night’s episode yet, but last week’s was arguably the best the show has done. I’ve talked about how the first season got a lot of leeway from me by incorporating hacky writers into the plot, but last week’s episode might be the first time the show has completely succeeded without that safety net. The only possible exception being the Season 1 finale, which was just a sublime ending.
On Sandman, my wife and I watched the first episode - I’ve read the first and last of the trade paperbacks years ago, she’s never read any of it. I think we were both tentatively sold on the show for the vibe until the preview for the rest of the season.
Like, I love the guy in most contexts, but Patton Oswalt’s voice felt like a punchline after a solid hour of that very heavy tone. I know his character is in the story, but I never read his dialogue in the Poochie voice.
Am I overreacting, or is Oswalt’s presence just unendingly jarring?
Everybody has different thresholds for different actors. I’m not particularly bothered by Oswalt’s voice but I also liked him in Happy! and MODOK.
On the other hand I AM starting to feel this way about John Mulaney’s voice.
I’m really not predisposed against Oswalt, not even in heavier material - I think he was great in Young Adult and Big Fan. But something about the pitch he chose and the sound mixing felt like he’d been added in after bad audience screenings, even knowing that’s not the case. I honestly don’t know if I just misread Matthew’s voice or if the preview was just… weird. I’ll probably keep going, and try to bring my wife along, but his sudden appearance as the foul-mouthed comedic buddy felt like the world’s most deadpan Rickroll.
Yeah, he basically never doesn't sound like Patton Oswalt. Which if he's a an imaginary friend stuffed donkey is fine. But seems weird coming out of a raven.
Yeah, he basically never doesn't sound like Patton Oswalt. Which if he's a an imaginary friend stuffed donkey is fine. But seems weird coming out of a raven.
Constable bob is unique in voice this is true.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
Just got an email ad that there's a season 3 of Locke & Key coming to Netflix this Wednesday. So that's a surprise. I didn't really think we'd get another season of that.
Just got an email ad that there's a season 3 of Locke & Key coming to Netflix this Wednesday. So that's a surprise. I didn't really think we'd get another season of that.
Weird. How did THAT show avoid getting canceled instead of *points vaguely everywhere on Netflix*.
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This is from a person who loves watching adaptations of Gaiman's work and staunchly refuses to read anything he has written ever again. Interestingly I tend to really enjoy the more faithful adaptations as well, and this one feels very Gaiman. It has been 20 years since I even tried to read the comic series so some details I would miss, but the tone and broad strokes are spot on.
Why? Can't she just read them herself?
If she asks, do you really expect @M-Vickers to deny her?
To paraphrase the immortal Winston Zeddemore, "Ray, when someone Death asks you if you're a god to read to her, you say, "yes!"
I appreciate anything in modern TV that tries for a melancholy theme though.
Cain and Abel are wonderfully cast.
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Netflix only looks good in chrome I think cause of some DRM shenanigans. But on windows, you can also use the windows netflix app, which is surprisingly decent, has downloads like the phone/tablet versions (might be useful on a laptop) and also does high quality video
So now I’m ready to see the rest of the episodes.
The actor playing the Sandman is so good; especially his voice.
I love Death, and the Hob Gadling story still is magnificent.
When rereading the comics, I realised that I must’ve had quite a bit of time between Volumes 1 and 2, because it was all new to me that a character from Volume 2 was actually a character who had the sleep sickness that was mention by name in Volume 1.
While there may be some nitpickers concerning details/gender-/race-switches, it nails the spirit of the comic 100%. And that’s what’s most important right?
After I’ve seen the rest of the season, I might continue reading the comic volumes, just because now all the names are fresh in my memory, so that I can see the connections between them more clearly. Oh, and also Ouverture, so that I know again what happened right before the series.
TL;DR: For those who haven’t read the graphic novels, you can just jump into the series. If you already have read the comics in your lifetime, I found it very enjoyable to reread volume 1 and 2 before watching the series, just to see how faithful it is.
The dialogue is clunky as hell - it's a common issue with adaptations, where the adaptors attempt to include some part of the non-dialogue storytelling such as text descriptions, or shifts in art style, and just dump it into dialogue. You end up with horribly clunky over-explaining exchanges such as:
Dream: The ruler of hell - Lucifer Morningstar
Matthew: The devil?!?!?
Dream: Lucifer is no mere devil, before he fell he was the angel Sammael.
Matthew: Oh, that's right - I forgot Lucifer used to be an angel.
The music is incredibly repetitive. An episode will have a motif, expect that motif to swell before every scene transition.
The alterations to the story also seem unnecessary (spoilers)
It feels as if they've just tried to stuff too much in - cut half the dialogue, cut all the unnecessary plot complications, cut all the short sequences where they give a minor character a superfluous interaction to justify the single episode in which they appear without advancing the story.
It needs editing down to about half the runtime - it's a Hobbit when it should be a Pan's Labyrinth.
I've watched through episode 7 and really enjoy that the pacing is slower. Some shows trim away too much which doesn't let the story breathe at all. I think it really works here to establish the setting and characters. And each episode is pretty focused, separating it from some streaming TV that feels more like a super long movie instead of individual chapters in a longer story (without swinging the other way to "here's 35 minutes of standalone story and 5 minutes of the overall arc").
Also, the set design and cinematography are fantastic.
I've got a huge fondness for that story, and I think it was the first Gaiman thing I ever read (the wonders of being a teen reading things in a library after school)
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I’m also wondering whether they are going to
Echoing this. Episode 6 was wonderful, particularly in its contrast to episode 5's obvious mirror in tone.
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Well, that's a season-ending episode, all right.
RIP the Shadows. They tried to lay a trap for someone who's known for taking out militarily superior forces through cunning plans by asking him to travel to their seat of power.
RIP Sheridan. He not only brought a nuke to a meeting, he brought a second nuke.
RIP the White Star. Good thing we have spares.
RIP the thread of prophecy. Well, time to restore a saved game...after I kill Vivec.
Anyway, this is an new twist on the whole prophecy thing in B5. Instead of using prophecies to foreshadow future plot points, you get "that future sucks; let's try throwing a big wrench in there and see what happens". This occurs in other shows, though more at the single-episode level, and usually with time travel instead of prophecy; prophecy is usually for more unchangeable stuff.
This kind of invalidates all current prophecies, as well; we saw emperor Londo and Vir in War Without End, but that only happened because Centauri remained under the control of the Shadows. Now? Who knows. That future no longer exists.
The one valid point the Shadows made is that the Vorlons are using the other races as cannon fodder, and manipulating them in general. Though their general philosophy of "war creates progress" is obviously a non-starter; it's a very imperialistic definition of progress for one thing, and the Shadows are being hypocritical as well. There's been more than a few actions that appear to have been taken specifically to wipe out various species that might be a threat to the Shadows, though I'm not sure anything got nailed down properly outside of the Centauri/Narn war (where the Shadows wrecked most of the Narn fleet and colony defenses by themselves to make things easier for the Centauri). It reads as just the excuse: "We bombed your cities for your own good, so you can't hold that against us. Also, we don't plan to stop. And banding together against a common threat is cheating. And definitely doesn't count as progress."
Season 3 retrospective:
The Shadow storyline feels like it's been cut short, but in a way that feels appropriate. This was going to be a long, bloody, drawn-out war, then Sheridan happened. (Saying this before even starting season 4 is an act of hubris, but no story ends until it ends.)
The changes in G'Kar, Londo, and Bester were impressive, changing their motivations and place in the story while making it clear that this is the same character, just in different circumstances.
The Walkabout storyline was a dud, though. I feel this took up too much screen time for something that left Dr Franklin basically where he started. Unfortunately, Dr Franklin as a character is in a bad place right now. The Chief Medical Officer is a high-profile character on Star Trek-style shows, but that's because half the episodes are "we're going to poke the weird thing", and the other half are "the weird thing shot at us"; in both cases having a doctor around makes sense for story reasons. In B5, the "weird thing" episodes are the bad ones. Dr Franklin doesn't have a good excuse to show up during treaty negotiations or strategic planning, and most big fights occur off the station. So he needs a second excuse to get screentime. Having him helping out Downbelow was a good attempt, but B5 (the show) doesn't really care about Downbelow. Having him involved in getting telepaths out of Earth-controlled space was better, but that didn't go anywhere. (I think because they aren't an actual Faction, and don't even have any named characters.) So, B5 tried a drug abuse storyline, but that landed flat as well, it still doesn't give him an excuse to be involved in main storylines, and doesn't cause interesting interactions with other characters, so it has to stand on its own. (It didn't.) Dr Franklin works okay as a second-tier character, who shows up every fourth episode or something, but I think there's room to do something more interesting with him.
So to give you some real-world history of how you felt about S3, the B5 project was actually intended as a five-year arc of story. By the end of S3, the studio side of things was... iffy. They were pretty sure they would have S4 barring something outlandishly bad, but they didn't expect a S5 and thus had to squish basically two seasons into one season and then rush a bunch of stuff in S3 so S4 would work at all. It's definitely not just you, they squished a bunch of story into a much smaller timeframe than they originally want. But Straczynski is some kind of wizard and managed to make it all happen without disrupting the story too badly.
As for the show, "invalidates all current prophecies" is... an interesting conclusion. The universe is a big, complicated place, with lots of unintended consequences, and B5 as a show does not tend to leave loose ends. I do get what you mean about the likes of Dr. Franklin, but there are multiple ancillary characters the show treats like that. They have big things happen to them and rather than just forgetting them, we definitely get to see those things play out in their lives; they just don't always do a great job with it. And because some characters drift in and out of being supporting and main characters, it's sort of an interesting way of showing the viewer that people's lives keep happening even when the big stories aren't happening. They search for people that matter to them, open old wounds, find ways to let old wounds heal, and generally try to make a life out of things they've done and have been done to them. The big fights are all black-and-white, but what happens to the various players is far more real-world messy. Sometimes they make bad decisions. Sometimes they just have bad things happen to them. And sometimes they come out ahead. G'Kar and Londo in particular, though, have outright excellent and heart-rending arcs; you haven't even seen the best they have to offer yet.
As for that S3 episode, yeah, it's one hell of a bombshell to end a season on. Sheridan saves B5, but the hornet nest is now thoroughly kicked and everybody's plans just got tossed in the blender. They literally just flip the table on all the plans that have been laid for the last three years of the show.
Something that you actually miss with the show all being on streaming, though? Having to wait some 6-9 months for S4 to start. I watched the whole series when it was on TV originally and goddamn was that final episode hard to take when you know the story doesn't pick up again until the following year or something. Nowadays you can just drop into the next season but man, having those months to let the story simmer in your head made what comes next all the more surprising. If you really wanted to capture the feel of the original broadcast, wait six months and start S4.
I dunno, just seemed too grimdark edgelord to take seriously.
Other than that it's great, though. Love the casting of Lucifer and Matthew. Cain and Abel are great, too.
God this makes me so happy
I disagree with your interpretation and I can hope I can explain why (episode 5 spoilers of The Sandman):
I think next episode will give you a far more positive viewpoint (from 2 different characters) on mankind and the series on a whole will side more with them.
Mmm.. maybe material world is the wrong word to use. I have the thought in my head why I disagree with your interpretation, but I'm not sure my explanation above is really a good way to put it in words.
Yeah, I'd say season 4 is at least as good as Season 1 was. Probably even better if you're invested in the story because it builds on the previous 3 seasons of characters and stories.
The squish doesn't happen in S3 though. It's in the back half of S4. S3 plays out at the pace it's supposed to, The entire show just really starts accelerating at this point and a lot of stuff happens.
I think the Earth story gets put on the backburner but in a way that makes sense. Earth doesn't become an expansionist authoritarian state, it becomes an insular authoritarian state. Having failed to bring B5 in line the new Earth government is letting the issue rest for now and looking inward to quash dissent. And everyone outside Earth space is busy with, you know, other important shit.
And EarthGov might not know exactly what the Shadows are or what their game is, but they've been working with them for a while and know they're silly powerful; so it makes some sense that they'd sit back, lock down their holdings, and work on getting the Shadow biotech working before heading out to boot some head.
I haven’t seen last night’s episode yet, but last week’s was arguably the best the show has done. I’ve talked about how the first season got a lot of leeway from me by incorporating hacky writers into the plot, but last week’s episode might be the first time the show has completely succeeded without that safety net. The only possible exception being the Season 1 finale, which was just a sublime ending.
On Sandman, my wife and I watched the first episode - I’ve read the first and last of the trade paperbacks years ago, she’s never read any of it. I think we were both tentatively sold on the show for the vibe until the preview for the rest of the season.
Like, I love the guy in most contexts, but Patton Oswalt’s voice felt like a punchline after a solid hour of that very heavy tone. I know his character is in the story, but I never read his dialogue in the Poochie voice.
Am I overreacting, or is Oswalt’s presence just unendingly jarring?
Everybody has different thresholds for different actors. I’m not particularly bothered by Oswalt’s voice but I also liked him in Happy! and MODOK.
On the other hand I AM starting to feel this way about John Mulaney’s voice.
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I’m really not predisposed against Oswalt, not even in heavier material - I think he was great in Young Adult and Big Fan. But something about the pitch he chose and the sound mixing felt like he’d been added in after bad audience screenings, even knowing that’s not the case. I honestly don’t know if I just misread Matthew’s voice or if the preview was just… weird. I’ll probably keep going, and try to bring my wife along, but his sudden appearance as the foul-mouthed comedic buddy felt like the world’s most deadpan Rickroll.
Constable bob is unique in voice this is true.
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