10 TV Shows That Just Made Huge Mistakes
3. Making Season 1 Insanely Frontloaded - The Sandman
Netflix's hugely anticipated adaptation of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman opened to largely positive reviews, and for the show's first six episodes, it was incredibly easy to appreciate why.
Yet there was a popular sentiment among audiences - especially those unfamiliar with Gaiman's source material - that the series fell off a cliff in its second half, when the focus shifted away from Dream (Tom Sturridge) towards Rose Walker (Kyo Ra).
The Sandman's first season adapted the first two volumes of Gaiman's comic series, and while there would've been sure fan outrage had Rose been omitted from the season, the writing, direction, and acting simply didn't do her story justice.
The Dream-centric storytelling from the season's first half was so much more compelling that, by the time it all wrapped up, audiences might've even lost interest in the show outright.
For a series that's already an incredibly niche entity and desperately needed to end in a way that stoked audience enthusiasm for season two, the botched Rose arc could ultimately have caused some irreparable damage.
If audiences en masse don't return to The Sandman after the lackluster second half of its first season, the creatives will only have themselves to blame.