Dead Boy Detectives has finally arrived on Netflix and is bringing us another corner of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman universe.
The Dead Boy Detectives were first introduced to the world of comics in Sandman #25. Now the teenage ghosts have made the leap to their own TV series with an eight-episode first season.
The story follows Edwin (George Rexstrew) and Charles (Jayden Revri) as they attempt to help ghosts with otherworldly problems while also avoiding Death – again played by Kirby Howell-Baptiste from Sandman – from moving them on to their afterlives. In the case of Edwin, he knows he is headed to Hell (on a technicality), and Charles simply doesn’t want to move on.
And other than Death, they must also dodge the Night Nurse (Ruth Connell) – who may or may not be playing the same character from Doom Patrol? – who works for the Afterlife’s lost & found department.
The series breaks each episode into a monster-of-the-week type mystery while also advancing multiple ongoing storylines. In the first episode, they get entangled with a psychic human named Crystal Palace (Kassius Nelson) who is trying to be done with her demon of an ex-boyfriend. Actually, he is a literal demon, but you get the idea.
The strengths and weaknesses
The unquestionable strength of Dead Boy Detectives is the chemistry of its cast. The dynamics between Edwin, Charles, and Crystal are electric and engaging at all times. Not too far into the season you also meet Niko (Yuyu Kitamura), an anime-obsessed, romance-enthusiast, who joins with the team for several of the adventures.
Where the series suffers, however, is the attempt to mix the monsters-of-the-week with multiple ongoing stories. The quirky, unexpected mysteries are where the fun of the series resides, but then those are cut short by an update on plot A, plot B, and plot C. If the series had only one over-arching storyline – without getting into spoilers – of say the Cat King, then it would have worked. But there is a constant need to update us on multiple plots while also trying to give you an interesting mini-story.
But, again, I go back to the strength of these characters and their actors. Even when I had quibbles with the way an episode was structured, I was still fully engaged as these are very fleshed-out (no pun intended) characters that you enjoy watching. They also inhabit a very rich world that you are eager to explore and learn more about.
Dead Boy Detectives review – It’s worth the journey
While I had definite issues with the structure of the episodes, I still found myself sticking with the series just on the strength of the characters. You want to see their interplay and learn more about them.
Season 1 ends with definite room for season 2 for nearly everyone involved, and the promise of a potentially different format going forward, and I’ll be there just ready to solve some more mysteries with the Dead Boy Detectives.
Dead Boy Detectives is now available worldwide on Netflix.
Disclaimer: Netflix provided Batman-News with all eight episodes of Dead Boy Detectives season 1 for this review. We watched them to completion before beginning this review.
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