[Aptorian]

Finished the season. Unless they do more with the whole Vortex thing I feel like the last 4 episodes are a weird closer for the season. Didn't feel like a proper climax or wrap up of the Corinthian business.

I don't like that Dream overall seems so clueless and out of sync with what goes on around him. He's an ancient god. Or god of gods. He should have a bit more awareness and presence than just a depressed dude in a trench coat who needs minders to get through the day.

[QuickTidal]

Aptorian, on 15 August 2022 - 08:57 AM, said:

Didn't feel like a proper climax or wrap up of the Corinthian business.

That's because it's not. That specific comic arc about him just ended there. Keep watching.

Aptorian, on 15 August 2022 - 08:57 AM, said:

I don't like that Dream overall seems so clueless and out of sync with what goes on around him. He's an ancient god. Or god of gods. He should have a bit more awareness and presence than just a depressed dude in a trench coat who needs minders to get through the day.

That's part of his early character arc. He realizes how out of touch he is with what he does and those around him (in both the Dreaming and the Waking World). You're not supposed to like him initially. You're supposed to find him as distant from the proceedings as everyone else. He has to learn how to be what he needs to be. I mean FFS his best relationship in his own family is with his Sister...Death...he literally has to go to the Grim Reaper for advice and to uplift himself. Take that in, Death has a better outlook ands grasp on things than Dream. Crazy, but intentional.

It's all going somewhere. Remember it's a comic series that went for 75 issues...lots of time to tell these stories.

You get your first inkling on how Dream reacts to things going wrong for him with the

Spoiler

death of Jessamy, or having to kill Gregory to get some power back

he knows that those around him can die or be destroyed pretty easily and he has absolutely no idea how to deal with that on an emotional level so he remains detached from it.

The second time you get more of this is when

Spoiler

John Dee uses his power to THINK he kills Dream and then destroys the ruby. Dream's immediate reaction to this is "Huh, destroying the ruby gave all the power that made it back to me, I'd never have thought of that. Thanks!"....it never even crossed his mind that If he destroyed the ruby he coveted, it would reagin him the power from it.

Also, something I missed all the times I read SANDMAN as a comic...John Dee, the illegitimate son of Roderick Burgess who started all this...LITERALLY got the very things that Burgess was asking for (eternal life, great power ect.) but exactly what Dream said "He's asking for gifts that humans neither should have, nor could handle" to Burgess happens to his son with only ONE of the items being actually used (the ruby)...sidebar: Burgess HAD these items in storage and aside from being near them granting him longer life, he never realized he could use them...but yeah, having Burgress' son finally get these things only for them to drive him completely mad...is a deft bit of writing on Gaiman's part.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 15 August 2022 - 12:36 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

[Macros]

We finished it.

Loved it

Give us season 2 nao

[QuickTidal]

I'm hearing there are two bonus eps being added to the season....Dream of a Thousand Cats, and Calliope...so that's cool!

[Tsundoku]

They're up now, I've just watched the Cats bit - animated, it was good - and am on to Calliope. They run for about 15 and 45 mins.

EDIT: very good, of course. Neil Gaiman certainly has quite a low opinion of writers.

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 19 August 2022 - 10:13 AM

[Tiste Simeon]

I was like "Calliope, I don't remember that one..." Then it started. And I was like "Oh... This story!"

[Tiste Simeon]

Very interesting article about Calliope (spoilers obviously)

https://www.ign.com/...-its-a-big-deal

[amphibian]

Tiste Simeon, thanks for linking that IGN article - it's absolutely right about the elevation of what was written before into something better. Hooper seems to have directed my favorite episodes of the show.

Overall, I think the show dramatically improved the Bed & Breakfast crowd and how they tied into each other, the Unity-Rose-Lyta story, and the Corinthian story. These all make sense in-universe and have emotional weight to them. I think the show also improved the John Dee backstory, tying the Burgess story there and bouncing it + Deatg off the Gadling story too.

I do think that Morpheus talks too much. He's supposed to be more like Geralt from Witcher - deeply traumatized, forced to go through shitty stuff/adventure bc of a sense of responsibility, and then slowly opening up. Being super upfront about conflict with Desire or him being the one explaining the vortex to r audience isn't *right*. It doesn't set up the eventual ending of the show as well as the books did.

I thought the decision to involve Lucifer in the story more was interesting. We'll see what happens with it in season two and whether that turns into something better than the abomination that was the Lucifer TV show. I also was lukewarm about the backdoor pilot for Jenna Coleman's Johanna Constantine. It felt a little Dr Who to me, with a resolution that kinda wasn't much of one.

Overall, I liked the show. The Magicians was/is a better adaptation and show, but that's not taking away from this.

[stone monkey]

Caught up on this finally, and my reaction is a bit of a shrug. It's okay, but not a tour-de-force.

And I have thoughts:
Dream is portrayed as kind of... dull. I don't know whether it's the writing or the acting but you never get the feeling of him having any depth (and I agree; he talks too much). He's supposed to be almost as old as the universe and he should, on occasion, be terrifying, but he mostly comes across imo as, to paraphrase a review I read somewhere, "your magical emo ex-boyfriend". And the voiceover sounds tired and clunky, and it smacks of not trusting your audience to be smart enough to figure things out from diagetic clues (more on this later)

There's some nice casting: Gwendolyn Christie as Lucifer is inspired, and Stephen Fry as Gilbert

Spoiler

/Fiddler's Green

is a fantastic choice. On the other hand, Jenna Coleman's Constantine has, to my mind, the air of a posh girl slumming it - if deliberate this is a different but wrong-headed tack to take with the character, but it may simply be due to her acting choices (and limitations). Charles Dance also seemed subdued, as if he didn't have enough to work with for what should have been an energetic, megalomaniacal performance.

Visually it's not as interesting as it should be. It's pretty admittedly, but lacks stylish flourishes - or colour (the closest we get is the red of Desire's, if you will excuse the pun, chamber). I get that it's supposed to be dark, but for the most part the palette appeared... muddy.
My main gripe is that the original text is chock full of literary and historical allusions - part of the joy of the comic was that a moderately well-read reader could look at many an issue and think to themselves: "I see what you did there" - whereas the show, so far, simply doesn't seem to want to do that. It appears to me that the producers don't fully trust their general audience viewers to "get" what's being hinted at. In some ways the comic was a vehicle for Gaiman to show off his erudition; and nerdy 20-something me found that to be cool, and markedly less irritating than I suspect nerdy (and much better read) 50-something me would find it now. tl;dr the show is far more interested in text (i.e. plot) than subtext, and is lesser for that.

This post has been edited by stone monkey: 23 August 2022 - 10:21 PM

[amphibian]

The voiceover should have been someone else - Destiny perhaps, reading from the book.

It plus flashbacks are still mostly the tool of writers, producers, or directors who don't trust an audience to pick up nuances or what's happening on screen.

On one level, I hate it. On another, Netflix hasn't conditioned much of an audience to pick up on subtle stuff.

[QuickTidal]

stone monkey, on 23 August 2022 - 10:13 PM, said:

and it smacks of not trusting your audience to be smart enough to figure things out from diagetic clues (more on this later)

amphibian, on 23 August 2022 - 11:50 PM, said:

It plus flashbacks are still mostly the tool of writers, producers, or directors who don't trust an audience to pick up nuances or what's happening on screen.

On one level, I hate it. On another, Netflix hasn't conditioned much of an audience to pick up on subtle stuff.

Asked and answered.

As much as all of us here can be trusted to "get it"...the masses of audiences watching Netflix absolutely cannot be held to that same standard, and if the show existing at all hinges on those same chads being able to "get" it, then these narrative tools are needed to whack them over the head with...unless we want it to be snapped off at a single season....which it actually sounds like might already be a threat if Neil Gaiman's quiet kvetching about a season 2 not being immediately greenlit on twitter can be read into.

[stone monkey]

QuickTidal, on 24 August 2022 - 12:11 PM, said:

Asked and answered.

As much as all of us here can be trusted to "get it"...the masses of audiences watching Netflix absolutely cannot be held to that same standard, and if the show existing at all hinges on those same chads being able to "get" it, then these narrative tools are needed to whack them over the head with...unless we want it to be snapped off at a single season....which it actually sounds like might already be a threat if Neil Gaiman's quiet kvetching about a season 2 not being immediately greenlit on twitter can be read into.

The apparent utility of these narrative tools for the purposes of getting a general audience on board is undeniable. As is, I would assume, is also the obviousness of the statement that when these tools are used badly, which in this specific adaptation I believe is the case, they serve to make the show much worse than it needed to be. I'm all for not letting the pursuit of the perfect be the enemy of the good, but I don't know whether it is better for the show to exist in its current state than it would be for it not to exist at all - and I realise I am quite likely to be very much in the minority for holding that particular opinion.
Maybe it would get better in a 2nd season... or maybe they might feel the need to double down on the dodgy elements in an attempt to make it even more attractive to the general audience, and ensure its continued survival...

[QuickTidal]

stone monkey, on 24 August 2022 - 06:23 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 24 August 2022 - 12:11 PM, said:

Asked and answered.

As much as all of us here can be trusted to "get it"...the masses of audiences watching Netflix absolutely cannot be held to that same standard, and if the show existing at all hinges on those same chads being able to "get" it, then these narrative tools are needed to whack them over the head with...unless we want it to be snapped off at a single season....which it actually sounds like might already be a threat if Neil Gaiman's quiet kvetching about a season 2 not being immediately greenlit on twitter can be read into.

The apparent utility of these narrative tools for the purposes of getting a general audience on board is undeniable. As is, I would assume, is also the obviousness of the statement that when these tools are used badly, which in this specific adaptation I believe is the case, they serve to make the show much worse than it needed to be. I'm all for not letting the pursuit of the perfect be the enemy of the good, but I don't know whether it is better for the show to exist in its current state than it would be for it not to exist at all - and I realise I am quite likely to be very much in the minority for holding that particular opinion.
Maybe it would get better in a 2nd season... or maybe they might feel the need to double down on the dodgy elements in an attempt to make it even more attractive to the general audience, and ensure its continued survival...

I get you, but for what it's worth, the narrative tools at play help my wife (who has no idea about the source material) grasp some of the more obscure concepts or story points...so it's working fine for her? I dunno. It didn't bother me as much as it seemed to bug you.

[Malankazooie]

I have online access to the original individual issue #'s for The Sandman. If I wanted to read the comics that correspond to the show, which ones should I read? Important distinction, it has to be the specific issues and not an omnibus or other collated product that was put out later. I can only read the specific issues. Thanks for any advice. I'd like to dig in to the comic before watching the show.

[amphibian]

Malankazooie, on 24 August 2022 - 09:30 PM, said:

I have online access to the original individual issue #'s for The Sandman. If I wanted to read the comics that correspond to the show, which ones should I read? Important distinction, it has to be the specific issues and not an omnibus or other collated product that was put out later. I can only read the specific issues. Thanks for any advice. I'd like to dig in to the comic before watching the show.

It's a little hard to answer this easily because there's some mixing and matching and some "only parts of this were in this season".

Read 1-18, maybe 32-34 for the bits and pieces of A Game Of You that were in the show.

[Malankazooie]

amphibian, on 24 August 2022 - 09:44 PM, said:

Malankazooie, on 24 August 2022 - 09:30 PM, said:

I have online access to the original individual issue #'s for The Sandman. If I wanted to read the comics that correspond to the show, which ones should I read? Important distinction, it has to be the specific issues and not an omnibus or other collated product that was put out later. I can only read the specific issues. Thanks for any advice. I'd like to dig in to the comic before watching the show.

It's a little hard to answer this easily because there's some mixing and matching and some "only parts of this were in this season".

Read 1-18, maybe 32-34 for the bits and pieces of A Game Of You that were in the show.

Ok, thanks. Yeah, either on reddit or some other website the recommendation was similar (Issue #s 1-17 I believe). Was interested to get Malazan folks thoughts.

[amphibian]

Malankazooie, on 24 August 2022 - 10:21 PM, said:

Ok, thanks. Yeah, either on reddit or some other website the recommendation was similar (Issue #s 1-17 I believe). Was interested to get Malazan folks thoughts.

You do want to read 18 because the bonus episode or whatever it is at the end - half of the two stories in that episode is Issue 18.

Keep in mind that Gaiman and the artistic crew did not really hit their stride until about 20 some issues into the book, even if many people love The Sound of Her Wings. It's rather clunky in the beginning, but it gets to interesting places.

This post has been edited by amphibian: 25 August 2022 - 01:43 AM

[QuickTidal]

Finally got around to watching the post-season ep CALLIOPE last night. Nice to see both DW alums Arthur Darvil AND Derek Jacobi on this ep. I love that they didn't indulge in the clear assault of Calliope in a visceral SA scene, and instead it's only clearly eluded to by the scratches on Maddoc's face coupled with Callipoe's He takes it from me" about Fry...we didn't need to see it to get the implication and that as well done for a story that is pretty dark already.

I also LOVE the "Cold Vengeance" version of Morpheus...when he shows up and she's like I'm sorry to have called you when you had your own problems...and he's like "No, I'm here to make this right and this guy will pay, you should never have been subjected to this" I also can't recall in the comic...was Fry's death as reported to Maddoc supposed to imply that Morpheus somehow did away with him in vengeance as well? Felt that way here.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 29 September 2022 - 06:35 PM

[Slow Ben]

Season 2!! LFG!!