The Sandman: Season 1 – TV Review

TL;DR – This is a genuinely odd series bouncing from one story to the next with the power of a tsunami, yet somehow it all flows together into a grand gothic fairy-tale.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Netflix service that viewed this series.

Warning – Contains scenes of abuse and scenes that may cause distress.

The Sandman looks into a sunrise.

The Sandman Review

In 2019, I wrote an article on how we entered a New Golden Age of Science Fiction on Television. However, in the last twelve months, we have gotten, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, House of the Dragon, Shadow and Bone, The Wheel of Time, The Witcher, and more. It is such an incredible rise that I think I need to update my article and explore the new Golden Age of Fantasy on TV, and the next entry into this world is the dark gothic fairy-tale set in the modern world.

So to set the scene, humans go about their day in the real world, but every night they dream, but for some reason, they feel that The Dreaming realm is somehow less natural just because it is filled with dreams and nightmares, and they wake up in the ‘real’ world every morning, well most of the time. The Lord of this Realm is Morpheus (Tom Sturridge), one of the seven Endless, powerful beings that shape all forms of reality. In 1916, when one of his nightmares, the Corinthian (Boyd Holbrook), goes rogue, Morpheus takes a rare trip to the ‘real’ world to take care of the matter personally. However, at that moment, an incompetent aristocratic occultist called Roderick Burgess (Charles Dance) delves into spells he does not understand because he wants to capture Death (Kirby Howell-Baptiste) to bring back his beloved son, who was killed in Gallipoli. Still, he gets Morpheus and binds him under his mansion for 106 years. Now from here, we will be looking at the season as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.   

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Cowboy Bebop (2021): Season 1 – TV Review

TL;DR – I thoroughly enjoyed this remix of the anime that walks the line between something old and new

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Netflix subscription that viewed this series

Cowboy Bebop (2021). Image Credit: Netflix.

Cowboy Bebop Review

I have been on record with say that the original Cowboy Bebop was and is one of my favourite TV shows of all time. Indeed I wrote an article gushing about why I love it [see here]. Which meant I was of two minds when they announced that they would be finally doing that live-action remake that had been in development hell for decades. There is first the excitement of diving back into that world, but then the trepidation of what happens if they miss the mark. Well, now having watched it all, I can see the flaws, but none of them stopped me from having a good time.

So to set the scene, in 2171, the solar system is a very different place, with Earth in ruins and the human race now spread out across the many planets, moons, and asteroids. Because everything is so spread out, police find it difficult to catch criminals, so they use bounty hunters or cowboys to help bring them to justice. On the Bebop, we see a pair of cowboys with owner Jet Black (Mustafa Shakir) and his partner Spike Spiegel (John Cho). They are trying to make it through the week, with fuel, food, and damages all clocking up, which is good that out on New Tijuana, there is a new bounty with the name of Asimov Solensan (Jan Uddin) on the run from the Syndicate after stealing a supply of Redeye from Vicious (Alex Hassell). Now from here, we will be looking at the season as a whole, so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.  

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