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Dream meets Desire as Tom Sturridge faces Mason Alexander Park in The Sandman.

Netflix



The listlessly whispering Tom Sturridge has a tough task playing the lead role of Morpheus, who's often a mere observer of events and is generally haughty, even cruel. But this fearsome figure is also enticingly vulnerable and has engaging moments of humanity (as in an early episode, when he asks when he could have commanded). He also has a very nice coat.

It's also a tough job to play against such a weighty cast, all of whom sink their teeth into their multifaceted characters. There isn't a weak link among the cast, though Jenna Coleman and Patton Oswalt feel a bit out of place. Silky-voiced Boyd Holbrook leads the way as Morpheus' nightmarish creation The Corinthian, a seductive and sybaritic southern gent who can't stop cutting people's eyes out. Then there's David Thewlis, who follows his terrifying turn in Fargo's third season with yet another unnerving performance. Game of Thrones star Gwendoline Christie is an imperious Lucifer, while Vanesu Samunyai is the human heart of the later episodes. And among the supernatural stars attacking their roles with relish despite sadly limited screen time are Kirby Howell-Baptiste as an affable Death and Mason Alexander Park as purring, growling Desire.

In some ways, adapting The Sandman is an impossible task (or, I dunno, a Sisyphean labor, if we're talking the language of Gaiman and his creations). Running from 1989 to 1996, the comic was created by Gaiman with artists Sam Kieth and Mike Dringenberg (and many others), and frequently told its story by playing with the form of the comics medium. Some of that stuff is simply impossible to re-create on television. So not everything will work in the TV version, at least not for some readers who have deep relationships with the source comics.

But stories are like recurring dreams. The same preoccupations, the same fears, the same desires may continually force the same dream into our helpless sleeping mind. Yet the details may change -- and more importantly, we change every day, so the dream is never experienced the same way twice as we grow and learn. I confess it's been years since I read the comics, and I'd experience them totally differently now than I did as a callow youth. So a new adaptation of a beloved work of art is also a different thing, and we're different as we experience it.

What I'm saying is, try and let go of the comics a bit when you watch the TV show, OK? 

For those new to The Sandman, your enjoyment will hinge on how you feel about airy philosophizing, Gaiman's combination of whimsy with jet-black humor, or Stephen Fry. But, following on from the gleefully wicked American Gods and the cheerfully cosy Good Omens, this long-gestating adaptation of The Sandman feels like a fitting translation of Gaiman's signature cocktail of unflinching humanity, atmospheric allusion, hilarious nastiness -- and most of all an underlying sense of aching hope and joy. Perhaps nothing could capture the magic of the iconic comic, but set your love for the books aside, like a half-remembered dream. As a dark and captivating fantasy TV series, The Sandman is a dream come true.