Netflix’s The Sandman ends where it always had to: with a king who has spent his whole existence learning nothing about mercy. The series, developed by Neil Gaiman, David S. Goyer and Allan Heinberg, ran two seasons and 23 episodes, from its August 5, 2022 premiere to July 31, 2025. It stars Tom Sturridge as Morpheus, the King of Dreams, who is captured in an occult ritual in 1916 and escapes in 2022 after 106 years.
That is a long imprisonment to carry as a premise, and the show knows it. Morpheus returns to the Dreaming diminished, and the first season is largely the work of a proud thing forced to ask for help.
Trailer, via DC.
Tom Sturridge and the 1,500 Auditions
Gaiman said he watched more than 1,500 casting auditions for Morpheus before choosing Sturridge, who entered negotiations after screen testing alongside Tom York and Colin Morgan. Sturridge had not read the comics. He became a devoted fan once cast.
Patton Oswalt was the first actor cast, as the voice of Matthew the Raven, the day before the show was pitched to Netflix. Vivienne Acheampong plays Lucienne. Casting news was kept under high secrecy until filming started, and the January 2021 announcement named Sturridge, Gwendoline Christie, Acheampong, Boyd Holbrook, Charles Dance, Asim Chaudhry and Sanjeev Bhaskar.
The adaptation itself took three decades. Goyer pitched a film version in 2013 with Joseph Gordon-Levitt attached to star and possibly direct; Gordon-Levitt left in 2016 over creative differences, and Warner Bros. moved to television. Netflix signed a deal to produce the series in June 2019. Filming lasted from October 2020 to August 2021.
A Schedule That Kept Moving
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| August 5, 2022 | Season 1 premieres, 10 episodes |
| August 19, 2022 | Special episode released |
| November 2022 | Renewed for season 2 |
| July 31, 2025 | Series finale airs |
The second season premiered across two parts, and that split is where the show’s problems show. The comic’s scope is enormous, and the series treats fidelity as its highest aim. That aim produces real things — the production design, the costumes, the visual effects all hold. It also produces a show that explains rather than moves.
The backlash over casting Black actors as characters traditionally drawn white in the comics, including Howell-Baptiste as Death, was ugly and wrong. It is also not the reason the series lands at 6.6/10.
The reason is that The Sandman never solves its central problem: Morpheus is a figure of vast power who mostly stands still while other people deliver the story to him. Sturridge is well cast and the show knows it, which is not the same as giving him somewhere to go.
What matters here is the second season, not the first. The first was a competent, faithful translation of difficult material, and faithfulness bought it goodwill. The second had to justify itself, and a two-part release stretched a thin arc across a longer frame. A series about dreams should feel less like a museum tour.
It is worth watching for Sturridge, for the design, and for how seriously it takes its source. It is not worth pretending the whole run earns its length.
6.6/10 (Metacritic 66/100).
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