CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
^He's the actor who was the king of Sweden in The Great.
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The Sandman - Netflix
- Thread starter Cassie
- Start date
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
Thoughts on 2.4 to 2.6 ('Brief Lives') spoilers, etc.
Again, I probably should have read the comics again to refresh my memory but I haven't really felt like touching them in the last year. I think they changed a lot more here than in 'Season of Mists'. First of all my biggest fucking complaint: taking out Matthew teaching Delirium how to drive ias absolutely criminal. Maybe they thought it would encourage crazy people to try to drive cars with the help of a talking raven or something, I don't know. But it's fun, it should have been in there. In general they toned Delirium down. I think partly because they didn't want her to seem too much like a child? Or they didn't want to make it look like they're making fun of the mentally ill? She does have good moments, though, and as I said before Esme Creed-Miles gave a great performance. She has some really strong stuff with Dream and Destruction that's straight from the books. I'm glad they kept in the part where she makes her eyes go the same colour to help Dream, though it would have been more effective if she'd been more, well, delirious before that to contrast with her change in behaviour. WHATEVER, she was good and worked really well with Sturridge and that's probably the main thing.
I'm finding the compression rough. Looking over at my books (no I didn't BURN THEM) I can see there's supposed to be two volumes between 'Season of Mists' and 'Brief Lives'. And then another one before 'The Kindly Ones'. But instead we're getting the 3 of them one after the other. It just makes it all feel less epic. They do weave in some of the standalone stories here and there: the stuff with Orpheus singing in Hades was very good. I think they moved Thermidor back as I'm pretty sure in the books it comes earlier and you don't really know Orpheus' story. Telling it chronologically is a bit more boring but it was good to see Jenna Coleman again.
With 'A Game of You' completely skipped, there's no Thessaly so Dream is sad about Nada leaving instead. I guess this works fine if you haven't read the books.
Wanda being moved to 'Brief Lives' is the biggest change. We get some great scenes out of it, with her telling her story to Dream and Delirium and the scene with Dream and her aunt at the funeral nearly moving me to tears. But sadly we lose Barbie writing on the gravestone in lipstick and seeing Wanda on the bus with Death which I feel are pretty iconic moments.
Acting is all very good again and I love Barnabas and Destruction (even if I expected him to be Scottish.) Kirby Howell-Baptiste absolutely steals any scene she's in as Death. Orpheus' actor was good at singing.
So I think it's two weeks now until the last four episodes than there's a one-off Death special and that's it. I'm going to complain about it feeling too short again for sure.
Again, I probably should have read the comics again to refresh my memory but I haven't really felt like touching them in the last year. I think they changed a lot more here than in 'Season of Mists'. First of all my biggest fucking complaint: taking out Matthew teaching Delirium how to drive ias absolutely criminal. Maybe they thought it would encourage crazy people to try to drive cars with the help of a talking raven or something, I don't know. But it's fun, it should have been in there. In general they toned Delirium down. I think partly because they didn't want her to seem too much like a child? Or they didn't want to make it look like they're making fun of the mentally ill? She does have good moments, though, and as I said before Esme Creed-Miles gave a great performance. She has some really strong stuff with Dream and Destruction that's straight from the books. I'm glad they kept in the part where she makes her eyes go the same colour to help Dream, though it would have been more effective if she'd been more, well, delirious before that to contrast with her change in behaviour. WHATEVER, she was good and worked really well with Sturridge and that's probably the main thing.
I'm finding the compression rough. Looking over at my books (no I didn't BURN THEM) I can see there's supposed to be two volumes between 'Season of Mists' and 'Brief Lives'. And then another one before 'The Kindly Ones'. But instead we're getting the 3 of them one after the other. It just makes it all feel less epic. They do weave in some of the standalone stories here and there: the stuff with Orpheus singing in Hades was very good. I think they moved Thermidor back as I'm pretty sure in the books it comes earlier and you don't really know Orpheus' story. Telling it chronologically is a bit more boring but it was good to see Jenna Coleman again.
With 'A Game of You' completely skipped, there's no Thessaly so Dream is sad about Nada leaving instead. I guess this works fine if you haven't read the books.
Wanda being moved to 'Brief Lives' is the biggest change. We get some great scenes out of it, with her telling her story to Dream and Delirium and the scene with Dream and her aunt at the funeral nearly moving me to tears. But sadly we lose Barbie writing on the gravestone in lipstick and seeing Wanda on the bus with Death which I feel are pretty iconic moments.
Acting is all very good again and I love Barnabas and Destruction (even if I expected him to be Scottish.) Kirby Howell-Baptiste absolutely steals any scene she's in as Death. Orpheus' actor was good at singing.
So I think it's two weeks now until the last four episodes than there's a one-off Death special and that's it. I'm going to complain about it feeling too short again for sure.
I just finished ep 3. I decided since I have two weeks to watch the episodes that are out, I will stretch it out and not try to watch it all at once.
I liked Dream giving the key back to God. Makes perfect sense! I don't understand why Queen Titania made Nuala stay in the dream realm.
I'm glad Joffrey gets to be a mischievous imp.
I liked Dream giving the key back to God. Makes perfect sense! I don't understand why Queen Titania made Nuala stay in the dream realm.
I'm glad Joffrey gets to be a mischievous imp.
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
Can Beebee talk?
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
I do wonder sometimes when I'm watching if my brain is just filling in the blanks when the show is lack because I've read the comic, but I think that episode probably did work on its own if YOU say so.
First episode of Season 2 in the bag. I think I liked it? It’s hard to pin down. Being familiar with the source material changes the experience and I imagine it lands very differently for those coming in fresh even after season 1.
As a season opener, it’s not exactly a knockout. It does a decent job setting things in motion, and I appreciate how difficult this material is to adapt, but it didn’t hit with the impact I was hoping for.
I wasn’t totally sold on Destiny. He came off more like a solemn bloke in a dressing gown than the embodiment of cosmic inevitability. Despair still doesn't work at all. I know why they changed her so drastically (it's obvious) but it just doesn't work. Even Death and Desire, who I think are well cast overall, didn’t quite have the gravitas they carried in Season 1. Still solid, but they didn’t own the screen like they did before.
We’re not here for them, though. Show me Delirium.
And… she was fine, I guess. Too muted for my taste. Not otherworldly enough. But honestly, that’s been a bit of a recurring issue across the board with the Endless. They all feel slightly too grounded. Delirium is a character who should feel like whimsy and tragedy, not just quirky. I also think she was cast a little too old, but I get the reasoning here too. The actress is fine, but I just didn't get what I was hoping from the direction. That said, the melting painting effect as she stepped through her portrait was a genuinely cool moment.
I do get why they didn't go full tilt with it. It's an easy thing to fuck up badly. I was just hoping for a tad more.
The Nada storyline, on the other hand, was handled pretty well. It had weight, and I thought the emotional beats worked. But there was one really jarring moment when they walk outside the palace, and it’s just blatantly the Royal Pavilion in Brighton. Now, I grew up five minutes from there, so maybe I’m biased, but it pulled me straight out of the scene. It’s a great location, one of the UK’s most iconic architectural landmarks, but it was the wrong world for the moment. Gorgeous building, wrong world. And a slightly strange choice to use such an overt example of Indo-Saracenic design to represent “the first people.” Maybe I’m nitpicking, but it felt off.
I do need to go back and revisit the books to see how Dream actually comes to his decision to descend into Hell and try to save Nada. Was it always this abrupt? I know he’s fickle and more than a bit of a dick -that’s baked into the character- but this felt like a pretty unearned epiphany. It just sort of… happened. That said, I might be doing the show dirty here. I genuinely can’t recall exactly how it plays out in the source, so possibly I’m being unfair.
There’s a lot of setup in this episode. You can feel the pieces being arranged, which is fine, but it does make things feel a little inert. I liked the scenes in Hell with Cain and the dream sequence with Hob was a real highlight. Honestly, the Hob and Dream relationship remains one of the absolute home runs of this adaptation. It's just good stuff.
All told, I did enjoy the episode. It wasn’t bad by any stretch. But it wasn’t the strongest season opener I’ve ever seen either. Again, I do understand how difficult this must be to adapt, but I probably would have chosen a few different ways to do things had I been in charge.
There is so much cool content to come I am really excited to see how they handle it going forward, and I am really hopeful that Delirium will get to shine when she's on the road trip with big bro.
As a season opener, it’s not exactly a knockout. It does a decent job setting things in motion, and I appreciate how difficult this material is to adapt, but it didn’t hit with the impact I was hoping for.
I wasn’t totally sold on Destiny. He came off more like a solemn bloke in a dressing gown than the embodiment of cosmic inevitability. Despair still doesn't work at all. I know why they changed her so drastically (it's obvious) but it just doesn't work. Even Death and Desire, who I think are well cast overall, didn’t quite have the gravitas they carried in Season 1. Still solid, but they didn’t own the screen like they did before.
We’re not here for them, though. Show me Delirium.
And… she was fine, I guess. Too muted for my taste. Not otherworldly enough. But honestly, that’s been a bit of a recurring issue across the board with the Endless. They all feel slightly too grounded. Delirium is a character who should feel like whimsy and tragedy, not just quirky. I also think she was cast a little too old, but I get the reasoning here too. The actress is fine, but I just didn't get what I was hoping from the direction. That said, the melting painting effect as she stepped through her portrait was a genuinely cool moment.
I do get why they didn't go full tilt with it. It's an easy thing to fuck up badly. I was just hoping for a tad more.
The Nada storyline, on the other hand, was handled pretty well. It had weight, and I thought the emotional beats worked. But there was one really jarring moment when they walk outside the palace, and it’s just blatantly the Royal Pavilion in Brighton. Now, I grew up five minutes from there, so maybe I’m biased, but it pulled me straight out of the scene. It’s a great location, one of the UK’s most iconic architectural landmarks, but it was the wrong world for the moment. Gorgeous building, wrong world. And a slightly strange choice to use such an overt example of Indo-Saracenic design to represent “the first people.” Maybe I’m nitpicking, but it felt off.
I do need to go back and revisit the books to see how Dream actually comes to his decision to descend into Hell and try to save Nada. Was it always this abrupt? I know he’s fickle and more than a bit of a dick -that’s baked into the character- but this felt like a pretty unearned epiphany. It just sort of… happened. That said, I might be doing the show dirty here. I genuinely can’t recall exactly how it plays out in the source, so possibly I’m being unfair.
There’s a lot of setup in this episode. You can feel the pieces being arranged, which is fine, but it does make things feel a little inert. I liked the scenes in Hell with Cain and the dream sequence with Hob was a real highlight. Honestly, the Hob and Dream relationship remains one of the absolute home runs of this adaptation. It's just good stuff.
All told, I did enjoy the episode. It wasn’t bad by any stretch. But it wasn’t the strongest season opener I’ve ever seen either. Again, I do understand how difficult this must be to adapt, but I probably would have chosen a few different ways to do things had I been in charge.
There is so much cool content to come I am really excited to see how they handle it going forward, and I am really hopeful that Delirium will get to shine when she's on the road trip with big bro.