Just finished the main series - though not the "bonus" 11 episode - and wanted to share my thoughts.
I loved it - this is a really good show and is, to me, a fantastic adaptation.
The show's peak was obviously episodes 5 & 6 - The Sound of Her Wings and 24/7 are absolutely incredible - I'd happilly stack them against pretty much any other shows best episodes as worthy competitors.
The story with Death was beautiful and moving, it spoke to our natural fear of Death but also the evitability of it and the senselessness of fearing something as natural to ourselves as being born in the first place. It really reminded me of Terry Pratchett's Death in the sense that it makes me wish that when our times come we are so lucky to have a kindly and familiar face to accompany us on that final journey. The rest of the episode with Hob was brilliantly written and acted - at times tragic, humorous and charming - like Hob himself - a fantastic piece of storytelling. This was the episode where I really started empathizing with and even started liking Dream as a character.
24/7 was horrifying in the best way - the sheer dread throughout, even when nothing was happening, made me want to crawl out of my skin, David Thewlis absolutely killed it, he was terrifying. What an incredible villain.
I think the decision for this adaptation to make John Dee a bit more sympathetic, to give him an ethos and belief beyond sheer malevolence like in the comic, especially one that seems good on the surface "to make a world without lies", and for him to spare Rosemary and even reward her kindness/honesty, was brilliant - it makes him harder to predict and understand than the purely evil John Dee of the comics. When you know a character is pure evil for its own sake and will always do the most evil thing in any situation, then there is no tension or anticipation as you know what they will do. As soon as Rosemary let him in her car we would know he would kill her, as soon as he entered that diner we would know he would kill them all - no suspense, no surprise, no fear. By making him truly insane in the sense that his moral compass is barely comprehensible to our own, by making him capable of acts of kindness, mercy and even genuine affable empathy - so long as it aligns with his distorted view of the world - we can never predict him or his actions. Which is why I was on edge the entire Diner sequence and shocked when he made these people, characters that we had grown to know due to the bottle nature of the episode, and even like in a real humanistic sense - die in such horrific fashion.
I also loved the hints of how the horror in the diner was being reflected in the outside world through the news-report, a chilling macrocosm of the terror taking place in front of us - a nice way of raising the stakes without detracting from the claustrophobic scene we were experiencing.
Brilliantly directed, shot and acted sequence. Pure horror - I loved it.
The sequence with Dream was really enjoyable, the glimpse at the Diner's dreams was really sad and made a nice contrast to John obsession with lies. The personal connection between them with him being Burgess' son and the conflicting world views - with Dee seeing Dream as "The King of Lies" made for a good rivalry - I do kind of wish their confrontation was a little longer with more battle in the Dreaming before John decides to "burn away all [Dreams] lies" and destroy the Dreamstone. Nonetheless I felt the contrast, connection and different philosophies between them made for an improvement on the comic and I felt that John made for a far more compelling villain than the Corinthian. I also felt his final fate felt more deserved here than the comic, as in the comic Dee is pure evil yet goes relatively unpunished by Dream, whereas this John seems more broken than evil and has the vestiges of good intentions. I do wish they kept the idea of him being unnable to sleep/dream from the comics here as it would have provided more context for his insanity and would partially explain why his mother was so determined that it created "nightmares" and that it only ever hurt John.
Just my thoughts.
I do feel like the show dipped a little in quality following this peak, the Vortex/Collector's plotline just felt like it could have been executed a little better.
Some of my issues are ones I had with the comic in the first place - the nature of the vortex feels too abstract and is something that the plot feels the need to keep explaining in order to demonstrate the stakes.
For me this is a classic case of "show don't tell" and this entire thing would have been far more effective by starting this arc with showing the mentioned previous instance wherein Dream failed to stop a vortex and it destroyed a worlduniverse/version of the Dreaming - show us the breaking down of reality and barriers as the imagined becomes real, reality becomes chaos and finally everything collapses into a singularity. If memory serves this is a small part of Sandman Overture or is hinted to having happened before Overture and kickstarts that plot - which in turn kickstarts the plot to The Sandman proper.
In short - SHOW - DON'T TELL.
Also the actors in this section of the plot just felt... flat?
The good characters were cloyingly good and felt like such helpful and perfect people, though at times odd and eccentric, that they didn't feel like real people to me. To the point I felt it had to be a plot point they were going to add to the adaptation about Rose molding these people into what her "dream" friends/family/roomates would be - a bunch of interesting, quirky but ultimately very kind people who make her and her problems the centre of their lives. Like side-characters in a story.
It also doesn't help how the connections between them feel a little too sincere for being so new - earn the relationships.
I know a few of these characters become more prominent later on - so hopefully they can be improved.
In particular I wasn't impressed with Rose's actress - I do feel they needed someone with a little more talent playing such an important role.
The actress who played Lyta was alright in the scenes with her husband... but with Rose they didn't feel natural - not sure whose fault if anyones that is.
The actress who played Unity was stupidly insanely young for a character who is supposedly over 115 years old - she barely looked over 60!
All in all I feel like a lot of these roles in The Dolls House arc are important characters and the series might have done better in casting some better actors, maybe some more household names.
I really liked a lot of the casting in general though - I think Sturridge is great, he looks the part, his voice has a lot of authority and gravitas and he feels commanding and lordly, at times unfeeling and harsh and cruel yet also capable of some more tender moments. I think he made for an incredible Dream.
Mason Alexander Park is
PERFECT as Desire, my god that is some
incredible casting, the growling/purring voice, the creepy wide smile, the looks, the body language -
wow. I can't imagine a better fit for the role - they embodied Desire of the Endless.
Kirby Howell-Baptiste as Death was wonderful - she was a perfect translation of the characters energy, kindness, duty, affability and empathy without feeling flat, unreal or dull. She killed it to indulge in a pun. I did miss the Eye of Horus makeup - but here's hoping she comes with it next time!
I feel like Despair looked too mundane - I get that the naked monster woman of the comics isn't very palatable for the eyes - but that is rather
the point. Far too early to tell if the actress will be good in the role - frankly she left little impression - I secretly hope they replace her with Kathy Burke.
Joanne Constantine - I think Coleman was perfectly enjoyable in the role - but a bit too polished and put together - not really the rough and dirty Constantine of the comics - I would also for once be delighted if we had an actual scouser (someone from the English city of Liverpool with a certain very distinctive accent) as Constantine for once - there have been so many iterations of Constantine and not ONE has been truly faithful to the character with only the very Welsh Matt Ryan coming close. Just cast a blonde, trenchcoat wearing, scouse talking Joe Dempsie for me - just ONCE and I'll be happy and never mention it again.
Loved Hob and loved his actor - really charming character, but one with layers.
I didn't hate Patton Oswalt as Matthew - but I would have been a little happier with someone else. His voice is so distinctive when I hear it I think of him and not the character he is playing.
Boyd Holbrook as the Corinthian was good - I felt he did all he could wit what he was given. I just wished they let him loose and really indulge in his monstrosity a lot more - in almost all his scenes he is actually being polite and reasonable as he is talking with people he either needs or intends to use for other ends and when he does do something awful we cut away - give me some real horror and evil. As it is he seems like a far lesser threat than John Dee and Burgess despite the longer build to a confrontation.
I thought Gwendoline Christie as Lucifer was really enjoyable - vicious under a veneer of politeness, she also looked a lot like the old Botticelli cherubs with her curls and "sweet" face. I liked the Oldest Game scene a great deal - probably one of my favourite battles between divine powers on screen - I loved it. But sadly I was never that intimidated by her - Christie just lacked some of the gravitas I was expecting in the role. I do think there were better actor choices out there though - like Dan Stevens (who, when he has his hair in curls like in "the man who invented Christmas" looks the spit of Lucifer in the Gustave Dore or Alexandre Cabanel images of him) and I also think he can playing scary/intimidating better than Christie and would have made for a more compelling screen presence.
Obviously some things were done better, much better even, in the comics such as the impact of Dream's capture on the waking world, the victims of the Sleeping Sickness etc..... but that is a universal truth of all adaptations.
Visually the show is incredible - all our looks at the Dreaming, Desire's Threshold and Hell were stunning.
And I think the soundtrack was also really good - though the fact they didn't use Mr Sandman or Dream a Little Dream of Me, astonishes me! I had £5 on that bet!
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Spoiler: 
