“The Sandman,” Neil Gaiman’s classic supernatural comic turned Netflix series, is a sweeping epic in which abstract concepts like Dream (Tom Sturridge) and Death (Kirby) take human form, traversing Earth and the astral plane to settle matters of metaphysical importance. Spinoffs of successful shows often lower the stakes; even “House of the Dragon” merely deals with a continent-spanning civil war, not the potential end of all human life at the hands of ice zombies. Pretty much any stakes would be lower than those of “The Sandman,” but the franchise’s first attempt at expansion scales down to a charmingly quirky mix of PI procedural and teen hangout, give or take some immortal monsters.
“Dead Boy Detectives,” like “The Sandman,” takes its name from a Gaiman work of the same name. Although Gaiman was directly involved in adapting “The Sandman,” “Dead Boy Detectives” has been delegated to Steve Yockey, most recently of “The Flight Attendant” — another project backed by power production duo of Greg Berlanti and Sarah Schecter. Tonally, “Dead Boy Detectives” feels less like “The Sandman” than “The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina,” another collaboration between Berlanti, Schecter and Netflix that fused the paranormal with youthful coming-of-age. The worldbuilding is similarly scattershot, if endearingly so, while the story stays grounded with a mix of episodic structure (every episode is titled “The Case of…”) and relatable teen angst.
Edwin (George Rexstrew) and Charles (Jayden Revri) aren’t typical teens, of course. As the show’s title suggests, they’re ghosts — boys who died over a century ago and in the 1980s, respectively. (As DC characters, Edwin and Charles have previously appeared in the Max series “Doom Patrol,” but here they’re portrayed by different actors and given their own story to anchor.) Invisible to the living and on the run from the authorities who’d yank them out of purgatory and into the afterlife, Edwin and Charles offer their services to other spirits, who hire them to figure out why their formerly quiet seaside oasis is suddenly crowded with suicides or investigate a case of demonic possession. The latter assignment is how Edwin and Charles meet Crystal (Cassius Nelson), a psychic whose plight brings the two Brits across the pond to Port Townsend, Wash.
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Kirby’s Death makes a brief appearance in the pilot to establish a bridge between “The Sandman” and its offshoot. But Edwin and Charles instantly seem more human than the Grim Reaper and her Endless siblings, because that’s exactly what they used to be. They’re a classic odd couple: Edwin is uptight and detail-oriented, responsible for researching the obscure magic the boys encounter in their travels; Charles is bombastic and gregarious, leaping into action at the drop of a hat. Crystal disrupts their decades-old dynamic while also dealing with problems of her own — namely, her ex-boyfriend David (David Iacono), a demon who’s quite literally still in her head.
Like “The Sandman,” “Dead Boy Detectives” takes place inside a whirling blender of mythological tropes, and it’s both refreshing and disorienting how quickly the show speeds through its setups, with little in the way of exposition or worldbuilding. What’s the deal with the Cat King (Lukas Gage), the anthropomorphic feline with a creepy crush on Edwin? Doesn’t matter, especially once he traps Edwin in Port Townsend with a magical bracelet. (It’s a neat way to make the protagonists’ British accents square with the Vancouver-area location.) The rules of “Dead Boy Detectives” are never quite clear; the ghosts can lift corporeal objects, but can’t feel physical touch. Yet the show is so packed with idiosyncratic archetypes, from a walrus-turned-man named Tragic Mick (Michael Beach) to immortal witch Esther (Jenn Lyon), that the haphazard, stitched-together quality becomes part of the charm.
More disappointing is the show’s aesthetic. Like “The Sandman,” “Dead Boy Detectives” is too cartoonish to evoke the indelible, macabre imagery of Gaiman’s original work, a shift foreshadowed by a credits sequence of two skeletons capering to zany music. (Edwin dies from a hazing incident at his boarding school, and the comic’s depiction of the sadistic torture his bullies inflicted has stayed with me for half my lifetime.) Yet, like too many modern productions, it’s also strangely dull and dingy in appearance — a potential nod to its Pacific Northwest setting that nonetheless blunts the impact of sights like the Technicolor clouds that surround a young woman infected with parasitic sprites.
“Dead Boy Detectives” fares better in juxtaposing quotidian teen concerns like unrequited love with folkloric figures like the Night Nurse (Ruth Connell), an enforcer charged with collecting the errant spirits of deceased children. (The exact structure of the Night Nurse’s bureaucracy is yet another hazy concept, but Connell’s Scottish Nurse Ratched routine is enough to power through on entertainment alone.) Edwin’s gradual coming to terms with his repressed homosexuality, hardly acceptable when he was alive, compels more than a strained will-they-won’t-they between Charles and Crystal. Both storylines help “Dead Boy Detectives” put the normal in paranormal. Dead boys, too, will still be typical boys.
All eight episodes of “Dead Boy Detectives” are now available to stream on Netflix.