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“The Sandman” is a high-concept fantasy show with venerated source material — so the TV adaptation could easily have been disastrous.
Surprisingly, it isn’t.
The series admirably sets up this complex world in a way that doesn’t feel hard to follow, or like too much information, with made-up magical terms, is being thrown at us at once — a feat that escapes many other sci-fi and fantasy shows.
Now streaming on Netflix, “The Sandman” is based on the cult hit DC comics by Neil Gaiman, first published from 1989-1996. This is the story’s first time onscreen, although Hollywood has been trying to make it for decades, so it’s a long time coming.
(Various adaptations have floundered in development hell over the years, including an abandoned film project that was set to star Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Small-screen versions at HBO and Fox were also in talks, but never came to fruition.)
The plot follows Dream, aka Morpheus (Tom Sturridge, “Sweetbitter”), who is one of the Endless, which are essentially deities (others members of the Endless, who he calls his “siblings,” include Death, Despair, and Desire; all human-looking figures who have a godlike control over these qualities among the larger populace).
