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glaurungI watched Sandman season 2 in August, and I guess I should write about it.
The first season for the most part adapted two comic issues per TV episode - covering "Preludes and Nocturnes" and "Doll's House," plus four single-issue stories. Everyone expected season 2 to cover "Season of Mists" (directly referenced in the finale) plus "A Game of You" and another few short stories.
Instead, while season two does start with Season of Mists, it then goes directly to "Brief Lives," followed by "The Kindly Ones" and concludes with "The Wake." A few short stories get crammed in there to provide necessary backstory - of Shakespeare's company performing "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (introducing various Fae characters) and "The Song of Orpheus," and "Themidor" (giving Orpheus's backstory). The season ends with a one episode adaptation of "Death: The High Cost of Living."
First off: the promotional interviews from the showrunners (not Gaiman, who did not talk to the press for obvious reasons) were full of lies. Bullshit about how they realized they didn't really have four seasons of stories that would adapt well to the screen, so they decided to wrap things up in the second season. Looking at how the first season was paced, vs how they paced the second season, it's pretty obviously a lie.
What actually seems to have happened, is that they were told ahead of time by Netflix that they would not be getting a third season (to be clear: the scandal about Gaiman's abusive sex practices erupted just a few weeks before season 2 wrapped production, and played no role in the show's cancellation or in how they chose to do the second season). And, for whatever reason, it was not permitted for anyone associated with the show to tell the truth about Netflix's decision.
Given just 12 more episodes, they decided to tell the saga of Dream's death and resurrection, rather than just make another really good season of adaptations without an overarching narrative or a satisfying conclusion.
I feel this was a mistake. The stories they chose to tell didn't have room to breathe (in contrast to the usual situation these days where it feels like a show is padding out five or six episodes of story into ten, here the opposite was happening). Too often, I found myself thinking "this would have more emotional impact if we'd had more time to get to know the characters."
Furthermore, the entire season is focused on the dullest character in the Sandman series, Dream. Sandman was always strongest, for me, when it used Dream as a vehicle to show us other, far more interesting people, rather than when it focused on Dream himself.
Another weak point was how often things were explained for the dull witted executives who could not follow the narrative and submitted notes saying so. I don't remember this kind of standard Hollywood over-explaining being prominent in season 1, but it cropped up repeatedly in season 2.
I liked the fact that they replaced Ruby (the chauffeur for Farrell Travel in Brief Lives) with Wanda (from A Game of You). This enabled the series to contain a nice "fuck you" bit to terfs everywhere. A pity that it's in a series that trans-friendly people are avoiding watching due to Gaiman revealing himself to be an abusive sex partner.
[ About which: an aside. ]
I have seen people on Tumblr saying that Gaiman was never sincere about his allyship. No. Sorry, but human beings are messy, contradictory creatures. You can't say "this person was stupid and evil in one area of their life, therefore the other areas where they were good and kind were fake."
Real people are inconsistent. Especially when it comes to sex, which tons of people keep compartmentalized from the rest of their life. Gaiman was just another messed up human who hurt others in the bedroom instead of getting badly needed therapy. That puts an asterisk on his pro-LGBTQ activism and his pro-diversity work in casting both Sandman and Good Omens, but it doesn't cancel or invalidate it.
[gets off soapbox]
Other things... right, the music. Again, I don't recall noticing this in season 1, but for season 2, I spent a lot of time thinking "the music is really trying too hard to convey emotions here." Connect that back to what I said above about scenes where I thought the emotional impact would have landed better if the story and characters had had more room, more time to live on the screen and more of a chance for us to get to know them. With too little screen time, it was left to the composer to punch things up that wouldn't have needed the help if they'd been allowed to play out over more episodes.
As for the "Death the High Cost of Living" adaptation: it was fine. One of my favourite lines did not survive ("That's the trouble with tea leaves: they're good for the general but bugger all use for the specifics. Liver and entrails, now that's best for specifics."). But if you want to introduce a non-comics reading friend to the story, it will do.
The rest of the season? As with season 1, it was nice seeing the stories retold with a much more diverse cast. But season 1 left me excited and bouncing with every episode. Season 2? With few exceptions, it left me feeling meh instead. Some of that (a little) might be because anything Gaiman has now acquired a bad taste, but mostly it's because I feel the creators dropped the ball when given the ultimatum that they had to wrap things up in just 12 more episodes - they tried to cram too much story into those episodes, and it didn't work.
The first season for the most part adapted two comic issues per TV episode - covering "Preludes and Nocturnes" and "Doll's House," plus four single-issue stories. Everyone expected season 2 to cover "Season of Mists" (directly referenced in the finale) plus "A Game of You" and another few short stories.
Instead, while season two does start with Season of Mists, it then goes directly to "Brief Lives," followed by "The Kindly Ones" and concludes with "The Wake." A few short stories get crammed in there to provide necessary backstory - of Shakespeare's company performing "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (introducing various Fae characters) and "The Song of Orpheus," and "Themidor" (giving Orpheus's backstory). The season ends with a one episode adaptation of "Death: The High Cost of Living."
First off: the promotional interviews from the showrunners (not Gaiman, who did not talk to the press for obvious reasons) were full of lies. Bullshit about how they realized they didn't really have four seasons of stories that would adapt well to the screen, so they decided to wrap things up in the second season. Looking at how the first season was paced, vs how they paced the second season, it's pretty obviously a lie.
What actually seems to have happened, is that they were told ahead of time by Netflix that they would not be getting a third season (to be clear: the scandal about Gaiman's abusive sex practices erupted just a few weeks before season 2 wrapped production, and played no role in the show's cancellation or in how they chose to do the second season). And, for whatever reason, it was not permitted for anyone associated with the show to tell the truth about Netflix's decision.
Given just 12 more episodes, they decided to tell the saga of Dream's death and resurrection, rather than just make another really good season of adaptations without an overarching narrative or a satisfying conclusion.
I feel this was a mistake. The stories they chose to tell didn't have room to breathe (in contrast to the usual situation these days where it feels like a show is padding out five or six episodes of story into ten, here the opposite was happening). Too often, I found myself thinking "this would have more emotional impact if we'd had more time to get to know the characters."
Furthermore, the entire season is focused on the dullest character in the Sandman series, Dream. Sandman was always strongest, for me, when it used Dream as a vehicle to show us other, far more interesting people, rather than when it focused on Dream himself.
Another weak point was how often things were explained for the dull witted executives who could not follow the narrative and submitted notes saying so. I don't remember this kind of standard Hollywood over-explaining being prominent in season 1, but it cropped up repeatedly in season 2.
I liked the fact that they replaced Ruby (the chauffeur for Farrell Travel in Brief Lives) with Wanda (from A Game of You). This enabled the series to contain a nice "fuck you" bit to terfs everywhere. A pity that it's in a series that trans-friendly people are avoiding watching due to Gaiman revealing himself to be an abusive sex partner.
[ About which: an aside. ]
I have seen people on Tumblr saying that Gaiman was never sincere about his allyship. No. Sorry, but human beings are messy, contradictory creatures. You can't say "this person was stupid and evil in one area of their life, therefore the other areas where they were good and kind were fake."
Real people are inconsistent. Especially when it comes to sex, which tons of people keep compartmentalized from the rest of their life. Gaiman was just another messed up human who hurt others in the bedroom instead of getting badly needed therapy. That puts an asterisk on his pro-LGBTQ activism and his pro-diversity work in casting both Sandman and Good Omens, but it doesn't cancel or invalidate it.
[gets off soapbox]
Other things... right, the music. Again, I don't recall noticing this in season 1, but for season 2, I spent a lot of time thinking "the music is really trying too hard to convey emotions here." Connect that back to what I said above about scenes where I thought the emotional impact would have landed better if the story and characters had had more room, more time to live on the screen and more of a chance for us to get to know them. With too little screen time, it was left to the composer to punch things up that wouldn't have needed the help if they'd been allowed to play out over more episodes.
As for the "Death the High Cost of Living" adaptation: it was fine. One of my favourite lines did not survive ("That's the trouble with tea leaves: they're good for the general but bugger all use for the specifics. Liver and entrails, now that's best for specifics."). But if you want to introduce a non-comics reading friend to the story, it will do.
The rest of the season? As with season 1, it was nice seeing the stories retold with a much more diverse cast. But season 1 left me excited and bouncing with every episode. Season 2? With few exceptions, it left me feeling meh instead. Some of that (a little) might be because anything Gaiman has now acquired a bad taste, but mostly it's because I feel the creators dropped the ball when given the ultimatum that they had to wrap things up in just 12 more episodes - they tried to cram too much story into those episodes, and it didn't work.