Noone will Oh, well, where do I start with this one? I would have liked to have been able to do a comparison between the book and the show, but this is virtually impossible as the two things are extremely separate even though they may tell the same story. The character names remain unchanged, as do the situations to a point, anyway.
Now I am still watching season three, so I can’t really comment on that as a whole just yet.
However, to anybody that has read the book, it is almost like a massive injustice has occurred somewhere along the way. I think the saddest part about this is that Neil Gaiman is involved and seems to have let people just run away with the characters and do what they like rather than remain true to the source material.
The beginning of this show is completely similar to the book, which led me to believe that the whole thing was going to be an excellent piece of adaptation. The start shows the principal character, Shadow, as a convict who is just about to be released from prison. His wife, Laura, is preparing to welcome him home with a surprise party. However, he ends up being released early because his wife had tragically died in a car accident.
On the way home, he meets the mysterious Wednesday who keeps talking to him on the flight about working for him as he would find nothing left for him when he got back home. (And that my friend is as far as this goes into following the book at this point in time!) Oh, apart from he does make the leprechaun along the way and ends up with a mysterious gold coin.
The buildup of racial tension within the series (hardly mentioned in the book) is fairly intensive and I go completely understand why they felt they had to get rid of one of the major characters simply because of the way he was written. However, this does feel like a major blow as he was a very important character through the entire story.
I enjoyed some characters were fleshed out and given their own storylines. For example, the gin, which was one character I thought should have been utilised more than he was. However, I didn’t really like what they did with Laura as I thought they were taking away the characteristics that made her likeable in the book. The same is true for Murphy as his story went on a very strange tangent indeed!
I did really like the way they portrayed media and the change in the actors who played her. This was done extremely well and made it very interesting to watch.
Some reveal of the major plot such as who Wednesday is, and his connection to Shadow seemed to have been very rushed.
I don’t really want to go into spoilers as people will still want to watch either the show or read the book so I will try to not mention what these revelations are.
The show itself is very enjoyable even every day has very little to do with the book by the end of series 2. I am hoping season three will bring things back a little although with one of the main characters missing it will be impossible to make it a proper adaption. I have just learned to appreciate it is a different story altogether and have stopped expecting it to fit in to the things I already know because of the book.
As an adaption, it is absolutely terrible, but as a show on its own it is enjoyable and worth a look if you have Amazon prime.