Why Netflix's 'The Sandman' Failed. [9:26-14:26]

either because of their changing feelings about gaming or because the abrupt ending didn't inspire confidence. Netflix cancelling another show prematurely. The reviews for both seasons have been generally positive. Which I think is generous. Sure, as urban fantasy shows go, it's not bad, but in my view, it hardly lives up to the comics. However, my goal here is not to decide whether the show was good or bad, especially as a project which was not ideally realised. Of course, I'm going to go through and nitpick all the ways I think it fails. But the question I want to ask is, did it fail because the comics truly are unadaptable or, in different circumstances, could this adaptation have succeeded? Because here's the thing. What did Heinberg say again? The Sandman series has always been focused exclusively on Dream Story. Well, that's not quite true. Is it Alan? Okay, it is true that the adaptation omits most of the stories in which Dream is not a major character. However, the latter half of Season 1 adapts the Dolls House storyline, which features Rose Walker as its protagonist, with Dream taking a minor role. In the comics, that was very intentional. I saw the Dolls House as an opportunity to be in training my audience to accept a broader range of material than they may have been used to seeing in comics. Gaming never wanted the comics to focus exclusively on Dream. He even had to convince DC to let him break with convention and not feature Dream on the covers. Dave McKean's Sandman covers made a strong statement that helped free me to experiment with what appeared inside the comic. But while comic audiences were receptive to this, it seems television audiences were not. The audience wants a main character to invest in and root for and follow. Anytime we switch to a different protagonist whose story is also related to Dreams, like Rose Walker, the audience asked, why am I following this person? Why aren't I following Dream? Whenever Pucci's not on screen, all the other characters should be asking, where's Pucci? In fairness, I shared this reaction. Despite knowing the comics, I felt the introduction of Rose was jarring compared with the first half of the season, which may be down to the inherent differences between comics and TV. The books of a comic series can feel more stand-alone than the episodes of a TV show. Every time you open a new book, you know you're starting a new story, and it's easier to accept a new protagonist. But with TV, though you could have an episodic monster of the week-style structure, audiences expect an overarching story to develop over the course of the season, especially these days. When half the first season builds up Dream as the main character, and then pivots to a stranger for the second half, it feels disorienting, like it's not part of the same story. So maybe focusing on a single protagonist is a better approach for TV. However, that's not the whole problem. The first half of season one adapts the first collected book, Pre-Loads and Nocturns, which translates to television reasonably well. The storyline introduces us to a broad range of characters and settings, which means each episode feels like a distinct story. The one where Dream goes to hell, the one where Dream teams up with Constantine, the one where Dream fights John D in a diner. But the narrative structure of Pre-Loads and Nocturns is quite different to the comics later storylines, partly because it's meant to ease readers accustomed to superhero comics into the horror and fantasy stories Game and Wanted to Tell, and partly because he was just throwing stuff at the wall to see what worked. It's been said that it wasn't until issue 8 that Game and Found his voice for the series. From that point forward, the narratives are structured either as collections of standalone issues or as consecutive chapters of a continuous storyline. Neither of which lend themselves quite as well to TV. The standalone stories aren't quite enough material for a whole episode, so the show often fuses multiple stories together. Sometimes they are at least thematically linked, but it's still jarring when an episode pivots from one story to another halfway through. And those serial narratives are common in TV. Sandman's chapter storylines are still distinct from each other, varying in scope and genre. When placed side by side within the same season, the overarching narrative can also feel like it's pivoting from one story to another. It's not surprising audience's thought season 1's shifting story was jarring,