YMMV / The Sandman (2022)

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Is Choronzon showing a nigh suicidal level of audacity in naming Lucifer themselves as his champion (and then refusing to give up the helm when ordered to), or did Lucifer plan all this the entire time? Lucifer's statements immediately following the challenge indicate the latter.
  • The Corinthian acts like quite the lovable babysitter with Jed while he has him in his care as bait for Rose. Obviously his motives are self-serving, but is his affable behaviour with Jed all an act, or does he genuinely enjoy his company? There doesn't seem to be any point where the Corinthian seems tempted to do his thing only to refrain himself — he genuinely seems at ease hanging out with the kid. Even after Jed Sees Too Much, he just talks Jed into silence, rather than hurting or killing him as the other "Collectors" clearly expected him to. Could it be that, for all his faults, he likes children and holds them to be off the menu?
  • In "A Dream Of A Thousand Cats", Dream (in the form of the King of Cats) tells The Prophet of a world where cats ruled the world and humanity was beneath them, only for enough of humanity to dream of a world where they ruled remaking the world so that it always belonged to humanity. While belief has a lot of power when it comes to gods and magic in this universe, is Dream stating a fact, or did he give her a Motivational Lie so that she would have a reason to keep living? (Though the dream that the kitten's having at the end — she's implied to be hunting a human — and the Scare Chord as the episode cuts to black does lend some credence to the former...). Word of God from Gaiman says Overture (where Dream made use of this) still happened in this universe, so it's possible.
    Dead Crow: Justice is a delusion. And wisdom has no place here either. But revelation... that is the province of Dream, if your heart is strong and you are not afraid.
  • Why does Erasmus Fry want "Here Comes A Candle" brought back into print? When we finally see the book's cover, the blurb reads "She was his muse...and the slave of his lust!", suggesting that the story is partly autobiographical on Calliope's part. This could either suggest that Frye was attempting to implicitly confess to his crimes by republishing Calliope's testimonial of her suffering, with his suicide being a reflection of his guilt in this interpretation—but if his vile behaviour towards Calliope is taken at face value, he could be asking that the novel be reprinted as his way of celebrating what he put her through, and glorying in the success he achieved via his actions. It may even be a more Evil Is Petty motivation that he lost his success after losing his muse and is Only in It for the Money.
• Angst? What Angst?: At the "Cereal Convention," Jed is remarkably casual and upbeat for someone who has just escaped abusive foster parents.
• Awesome Ego: Johanna Constantine II can come across as somewhat arrogant at times but the fact is, she has the skills to back it up.
• Common Knowledge:
  • When the cast started to be announced, there were complaints on social media that the series wasn't staying true to the comics, criticizing the casting of the non-binary Mason Alexander Park as Desire, the Black Kirby Howell-Baptiste as Death, Gwendoline Christie as Lucifer Morningstar, and Jenna Coleman as Johanna Constantine. Many fans, and Neil Gaiman himself, responded by pointing out that in the comics Desire is non-binary (the exact terminology and pronouns have changed since the '80s^Explanation  When introduced in the late 1980s, Desire was originally addressed as "it", but Gaiman stated that if he had written the character now, he would have used the currently-accepted usage of "they/them" pronouns to refer to Desire. , but this was explicitly stated in their very first appearance), and while Death is usually portrayed as an Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette, the Endless can take any form they wish, and they only appear to have human ethnicities, or indeed to be human at all ^Explanation  Dream himself takes the appearance of a Black man more than once, as well as various animal and alien forms, since he visibly fluctuates depending on who he's talking to/being observed by, and Death takes the appearance of a Chinese girl during one of her days spent as a mortal; fallen angel Lucifer, while answering to male pronouns, has no biological sex; and Johanna isn't a Rule 63 version of John Constantine but a completely different character with her own story, whom Gaiman created as a tribute to Alan Moore (Pragmatic Adaptation on the main page also has a few more details about why Constantine was altered for the show). Critics of casting Howell-Baptiste as Death went so far as to say that it was disrespecting the memory of the deceased Cinamon Hadley, whom the character was based on...except that wasn't exactly the case. Gaiman (to his regret) never met or even knew Hadley, and it was Mike Dringenberg, one of the comic's artists, who was friends with her and used her look as inspiration for drawing Death. Dringenberg has gone on record as being happy with the show's casting, stressing that his depiction of Death's pale appearance in the comic was primarily because of Hadley's Goth makeup rather than her actual ethnicity.
• Complete Monster:
  • The Corinthian is a nightmare who glories in his dark nature. Helping to keep Dream of the Endless imprisoned without any care of the horrific effect on the world, the Corinthian also enables John Dee in his potentially global plots to destroy the minds of countless others as long as he kills Dream. A sadistic Serial Killer, the Corinthian murders many young men, torturing them and eating their eyes. Arriving at a serial killer convention, the Corinthian plots to lure Dream into a fight with the Dream Vortex Rose Walker to destroy him and inspire countless serial killers to more horrible acts.
  • "Calliope": Erasmus Fry is an elderly author who became world-renowned through the vilest means imaginable. Having bound the magical muse Calliope to his will many decades ago, Erasmus used Calliope to inspire himself with creativity by regularly raping and abusing her, trapping her as his slave for over 50 years. Erasmus kept Calliope hopeful for release through all the years, yet when he grows tired of her presence, Erasmus sells her off to Richard Madoc and encourages Madoc to continue raping and dehumanizing Calliope, and Erasmus personally mocks her for having ever believed he would let her go.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Sexism? Bad. Serial murder? Worse. A female serial killer complaining about how serial killing is a male dominated business and female serial killers don't get the respect they deserve for their work? Kinda hilarious. Gilbert obliviously nodding along in agreement even as he has begun to figure out he's surrounded by murderers? The cherry on top.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Hob Gadling only appears in one episode, and it is the one that arguably has the least to do with the main plot. However, he is one of the show's most popular characters, due to Ferdinand Kingsley's natural charisma, the character's love for simply being alive, and his interesting dynamic and friendship with Dream. Many fans have expressed a desire for Hob to be given an expanded role in Season 2.
• Evil Is Cool:
  • The Corinthian is a sharply-dressed serial killer, and Boyd Holbrook plays the role with a darkly attractive charisma.
  • From the moment of introduction, Lucifer oozes style from every pore. Gwendoline Christie really sells it when taking on Dream in a Shapeshifter Showdown.
• Fandom-Specific Plot: Several fanfics about Hob or an original character freeing Dream from his imprisonment exist.
• Fanfic Fuel: There are a lot of potential stories that can revolve around what happened to the Dreaming and its inhabitants while Dream was imprisoned.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: In the show, Dream/Morpheus is presented as still in love with Nada, despite not ultimately helping her out of Hell, and was married to Calliope. However, while those have their fans, most fans prefer to pair him with Hob Gadling (dubbed Dreamling by fans), mainly due to the chemistry between their actors and the Ho Yay between them. On almost every site, Dream/Gadling outranks any of Dream's other pairings.
• Foe Yay Shipping: One of the most popular ships in the fandom is that of Dream/Morpheus and the Corinthian, mainly due to the chemistry between their actors and Dream being a big Launcher of a Thousand Ships. This ignores that the Corinthian spends the entirety of the first season plotting Dream's death.
• Friendly Fandoms: Fans of Good Omens tend to cross over with fans of this show in certain circles. Apart from the obvious reason of both series being adaptations of works by Neil Gaiman (partially in the case of Good Omens, as it was co-written by him and Terry Pratchett), the series have other similarities such as both being fantasy stories that adapt Christian mythology and focus on immortal characters and their connections with humans. More specifically, plenty of fans of the two series also like to draw parallels between the relationship between Crowley and Aziraphale and that of Dream and Hob Gadling.
• Harsher in Hindsight: In Calliope there's a brief reference to J. K. Rowling, with Ric's ability to directly control adaptations of his work (asking to both write and direct) favourably compared to Jo Rowling's. On his Tumblr account, Gaiman has responded to queries and press speculation about this by stating the line was written (by Catherine Smyth-McMullen) and filmed back when "JK Rowling was an uncontroversial author and screenwriter".
• Ho Yay:
  • Between Hob Gadling and Dream. After meeting Hob again after one century, one of the few questions Hob asks if Dream is interested in him. As Hobs points out Will Shaxberd to Dream, he looks slightly jealous as Dream takes an immediate interest in the playwright and goes over to talk to him. When Hob insinuates Dream saw him every century because he's lonely, it's played as a sort of breakup where Dream storms out of the pub and Hob yelling that they would meet again for no other reason than because they were friends. When Hob visits the pub in 1989, not knowing that Dream had been captured, Hob tells the server that he had been "stood up". At the new inn, Dream finds Hob again, apologizing for being late, with Hob simply smiling and glad to see his old friend.
  • Teased with Lyta and Rose, who are practically inseparable, even sharing a bed in Florida. During this time, Lyta is having sex dreams in her sleep. Rose's sexuality is never explored (she's straight in the comics) but Lyta seems to be straight as well (since her dreams only involve her deceased husband). This actually appears to be lampshaded when Matthew discovers the dream vortex is making Lyta's pregnancy real and reports "Rose just got Lyta pregnant!" Of course, Rose is a descendant of Desire...
• Improved Second Attempt:
  • In the original comic of "The Doll's House" Rose Walker was something of a Pinball Protagonist and only learned what was going on near the end of the story arc... and then afterwards rejected it all and decided that everything had just been a bad dream. In the show Rose learns that she's a Dream Vortex very early on, she's actively involved in her own story and tries to control her powers to a bigger degree, she's interacts far more with and is a lot more defiant towards Dream, and of course at the end she doesn't reject what she'd learned but remains in the know. The series also fixes the Continuity Snarl of the monthly comic; Word of God says Neil Gaiman started "The Doll's House" without knowing where it was going, which is why Lucien and Morpheus admired the Vortex in the beginning. ("Quintessential vortex material! And she’s so young!")
  • Similarly, Morpheus is much more active in Rose's story from the beginning and actively interacts with multiple characters over the course of the story, rather than acting as a Deus Ex Machina.
  • The Corinthian has a developed plan to fight Dream using the vortex, powered by hundreds of dreaming serial killers; it's a far cry from the original comic where the Constantine level villain challenges a personification of reality itself to a duel.
  • The character "Dog Soup" (a serial killer who happens to be an Asian woman complaining about female killers being stereotyped too much) and the Connoisseur's targeting of transgender individuals are both removed from the episodes focusing on the serial killer convention, most likely because of the offensiveness of both aspects from the original comics. Dog Soup's complaints are adapted into one of the panels Gilbert stumbles across, but they're treated very differently (Gilbert is shown nodding along in agreement with their complaints about gender stereotypes until he begins to suspect what sort of work they're actually talking about.)
  • In the comics, Lucifer's reasons for wanting revenge on Dream are quite petty, but here they add an extra bit of motivation by changing the challenge between Dream and Choronzon so that Lucifer serves as a champion for the latter, making it Lucifer themself that Dream beats in battle instead of Choronzon.
  • Dream's helm is made more important here. In the comics, it barely appears after the Hell quest and no indication of its importance is ever given, despite it being Morpheus's symbol. In the show, it grants Morpheus the ability to immediately see where the ruby is, justifying the need to find it first (especially since in this version the Fates don't give him any clue about the ruby's location).
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Dream has been shipped with nearly everyone he appears on screen with. Although the most prominent ship so far seems to be Dream/Hob Gadling, he has plenty of sexual tension with his two confirmed past romantic relationships (Nada and Calliope), and has also been shipped with Lucienne, Johanna Constantine, Lucifer, the Corinthian, and even the other Endless. When discussed in an interview with Kirby Howell-Baptiste and Mason Alexander Park, Park stated that Tom Sturridge "just has sexual chemistry with everyone", leading Howell-Baptiste to conclude that Dream was the cast bicycle.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Desire is the fifth of the Endless and twin of Despair. Despising their elder brother Dream, Desire remains behind the scenes to ensure Dream is imprisoned by the Burgess maguses and then seduces the sleeping Dream Vortex, Unity Kincaid, to father a child by Unity in her sleep. Desire then sets a plan in motion so that Dream will be forced to kill Unity's descendant Rose or be consumed by her as the Dream Vortex. Cheerily admitting to their schemes when caught, Desire only notes with glee that they managed to get under Dream's skin, vowing to draw blood the next time.
  • Ethel Cripps is a wily manipulator who ingratiates herself into the Burgess household as Roderick's mistress to share in his fortunes. When Roderick demands she terminate her pregnancy years into their relationship, Ethel swipes Roderick's prized collection of Dream's tools and flees into the night, setting up a bountiful life for herself and her son, John. Ethel trades Dream's tools for the Amulet of Protection which unnaturally extends her youth, and enables her to not only create a successful ring of artifact thievery, but also fight off the Corinthian himself. To prove her love for John once and for all, Ethel sacrifices herself to bestow the Amulet upon him, swearing her adoration for her son to her dying breath.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Neil Gaiman is rolling in his grave"^Explanation After the casting and Race Lifts got backlash from certain unfortunate corners of the internet, one user went as far as to say that "Neil Gaiman would be rolling in his grave", apparently unaware Gaiman is still alive and was the one who helped supervise the casting in the first place. It became a very popular meme to repeat this phrase to make fun of these critics, with even Neil Gaiman himself getting into it.
  • "Still with us, Dreamlord?"^Explanation In "A Hope in Hell", Lucifer nearly beats Dream in The Oldest Game and sarcastically asks "still with us "Dreamlord?" Dream gets his Heroic Second Wind and answers "I am hope... What is it that kills hope?" The meme extends this with Lucifer answering with something that people would associate with killing hope (Karens, climate change, politics, etc). This kills Dream, whereupon Lucifer asks "still with us, Dreamlord?"
• Narm Charm: "The Sound of Her Wings" is pure Tearjerker material all the way through, but one scene feels unintentionally comical. When Dream and Death are saying their goodbyes while Franklin runs into the street and gets hit by a car, the fact that they're calmly speaking while the sound of a car accident can be heard in the background turns the undeniably tragic scene into a darkly comic Funny Background Event. That said, the sobering moment of Death telling Franklin that he's dead which follows immediately after keeps it from being too goofy.
• Newer Than They Think:
  • Several fans thought Death's line "You lived what anybody gets. You got a lifetime."^note better known in its later iteration, "You get what anybody gets. You get a lifetime." came from the comic version of "The Sound of Her Wings", and were confused by its absence in the series. She doesn't say it until Brief Lives.
  • Similarly, Death's full iconic look, with Eye of Horus makeup, wasn't established until Season of Mists.
• Older Than They Think:
  • Many viewers assumed that Lucifer playing as a direwolf in the Oldest Game was a nod to Gwendoline Christie's role in Game of Thrones, but that was the same move Choronzon made in the original Preludes and Nocturnes.
  • A fair few fans were surprised to see Martin Tenbones in the "World of the Endless" featurette, as they'd thought he'd first shown up in A Game of You. As Gaiman and other fans pointed out, in the comics, Martin's first appearance was actually in Barbie's dream in The Doll's House.
• Portmanteau Couple Name: The Dream/Hob Gadling pairing was quickly dubbed "Dreamling" by fans.
• Questionable Casting: The casting decisions for some of the characters, such as Death, have touched off many fans who expected said characters to faithfully resemble their comic book counterparts down to the last strand of hair.
• Realism-Induced Horror:
  • Mixed in with all the supernatural terrors is the very real horror of Jed Walker first being custodially kidnapped from his mother and sister due to his father's spite, and then disappearing into the foster care system while Rose is unable to track him down because social workers refuse even to tell her where he is. Meanwhile Jed is being abused and exploited by his foster parents for profit, and his case worker clearly isn't bothering to check in on him. And then the Corinthian shows up and is able to whisk Jed away for his own purposes, simply by putting on a friendly façade and claiming to know Jed's sister.
  • The whole concept of the 'Cereal Convention' Crosses the Line Twice so often that it's more horrifically funny than scary, but at the same time the organizers and most of the attendees are normal-looking, normal-seeming people who wouldn't set off your alarm bells until it was far too late. Worst is a scene where Fun Land talks about hunting in a large theme park (implied to be Disneyland or a fictional equivalent, given his not-quite-mouse-ears and his connection to the Big Bad Wolf), where it's incredibly easy for children to get separated from their families and lost, and "There are quiet places to take them, where no one will bother you until you're done."
• Signature Scene: Dream playing The Oldest Game with Lucifer; an epic battle that ends with Dream defeating the Devil by invoking hope.
• Special Effect Failure: In S1 E10, Azazel's CGI is extremely off-putting. He looks obviously greenscreen and superimposed on the scene, and both his design and animation look cartoonish instead of scary.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: While the series is mostly quite faithful to the comics, there are a few notable changes that some fans have criticised:
  • The Corinthian has been given a much larger role in the first season, making him the Arc Villain of the the first two story arcs, whereas in the comics he only appears in a side story, and there is no main antagonist for the corresponding story arcs.
  • The series drew backlash by several fans of the original comic due to the Race Lifting of various characters, as well as the gender swap from Lucien to Lucienne.
  • Lucifer now plays the Oldest Game directly with Dream, rather than being a bystander while Dream fights Choronzon. While more Gwendoline Christie is always a treat, some fans and critics thought that making Dream face and defeat Lucifer in their first appearance was a mistake, hitting Lucifer with The Worf Effect from Day 1.
  • Relatedly, in the comic Dream deliberately maneuvered the battle so that he could outclass the demon with the power of Hope. In the show, he doesn't think of it until he gets an inspirational speech from Matthew, seemingly just for Rule of Drama.
  • While the CGI of the series is quite impressive, some felt the design work was too tame, losing much of the comics' exaggerated surrealism in favour of more "realistic" fantasy designs — for example, all the Demons seen in Episodes 3 and 4 are basically just large humans with unusual skin-tones and a few other quirks, as opposed to the Bosch-esque grotesques of the comic.
  • While Dream in the comics could look more or less bony and exaggerated Depending on the Artist, he was, on the whole, taller- and odder-looking than youthful, handsome Tom Sturridge. Even with Sturridge doing his best to convey the character's age and otherworldliness, it is hard not to feel something was lost in his Adaptational Attractiveness, especially combined with the necessary removal of Dream's unearthly white skin from the comics. The comics' Dream is also often clad in a flowing black robe, whereas the show's Morpheus sports a more mundane, black Badass Longcoat, complete with modern shoes instead of the comics' pointed, medieval-style ones.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Simply put: the series looks absolutely breathtaking, and the visual effects and art direction instantly put the notion of the comic book being "unfilmable" to rest. Special mention goes to the series' renderings of the Dreaming and Hell, and to Dream's battle with Lucifer for his helmet (which arguably improved a moment from the comic book that was already pretty iconic).

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