What is Dead Boy Detectives about? (Everything to know about the Netflix series)

What happens when you put two ghosts with a love for detective work together in a series? You get Dead Boy Detectives. This is a new Netflix series you won’t want to miss.

Think you’ve heard of this before? Well, Neil Gaiman fans will have done. The two characters have shown up in The Sandman comics. They are two boys who died and became ghostly detectives instead of passing over into the afterlife.

Now they’re coming to life in a new series on Netflix. It’s time to delve into what to expect.

Meet the Dead Boy Detectives

Charles Rowland and Edwin Paine are two friends who died. Rather than pass on in the afterlife, they decided to return to Earth as ghosts. They want to solve mysteries, but not the usual ones that the living will solve. They want to help ghosts who feel like they have unfinished business or mysteries to solve.

In the promo, we hear why the boys are doing this. One makes it clear that nobody solved his murder, but he doesn’t want that to be the case for others. So, he wants to remain on Earth because solving murders is important.

The duo work with a psychic, Crystal. They are also joined by her friend Niko, and the group of four head out on missions to help ghosts move on.

Who is in the Netflix series?

The supernatural series has a great cast full of new and veteran actors. I’d like to point out that the Supernatural fan in me danced a happy dance to see Ruth Connell as Night Nurse. It shouldn’t be surprising that there is at least one Supernatural actor considering Steve Yorkey was involved in the development of the series and he has ties to that series. Richard Speight is directing one of the episodes, which gives us another Supernatural connection.

George Rexstrew and Jayden Revri will play Edwin and Charles respectively. Kassius Nelson and Yuyu Kiamura will take on the roles of Crystal and Niko respectively.

The rest of the main cast is:

Briana Cuoco as Jenny the Butcher
Jenn Lyon as Esther

As for the recurring cast, look out for:

Lukas Gage as Thomas the Cat King
Michael Beach as Tragic Mick
Joshua Colley as Monty
Lindsey Gort as Maxine
Caitlin Reilly as Lily
Max Jenkins as Kingham
David Iacono as David the Demon

Not originally a Sandman series

Interestingly, Dead Boy Detectives wasn’t originally a Sandman series. It was originally going to be a DC series and on Max. That was the plan all the way up to James Gunn taking over the DC franchise with the plan of making the DC movies and shows in the same universe, similar to the way Marvel does things. Max also realized that it wouldn’t be able to promote this series until 2024, so decided to cancel it during development.

Netflix stepped in as Neil Gaiman stepped in to work on the projects as well, putting the show in the Sandman series. To be honest, I definitely feels more like it works for the Sandman universe rather than the DC universe.

When to expect Dead Boy Detectives

All eight episodes of the Netflix series will drop as a binge-watch on Friday, April 25.

Check out the trailer:

Dead Boy Detectives is coming to Netflix on Friday, April 25.