Thursday, March 05, 2015

Dracula

DraculaI tend to carefully avoid starting to watch new TV shows these days because they take up too much of my time.  I love watching movies and, simply put, too many TV shows means less time I can dedicate to watching movies.

Also, because of their nature, TV shows require a multi-year commitment and in spite of the very many worthy offerings out there, I just don’t feel like making that kind of commitment any longer, unless I feel like it’s really worth it.

Was NBC’s retelling of Dracula worth it?  Hardly, but I’m a sucker for vampire stories and given that my beloved True Blood only had one season left I thought I’d give it a try.

The show isn’t bad, rather it’s pretty well made, with great locations, cinematography, and casting, and a concept that’s quite intriguing and well developed.  It sticks fairly close to the vampire lore we all know (unlike Twilight’s shimmering vampires in sunlight -- *shakes head*) and adds its own twists.

It tells us how Dracula became a vampire, it weaves into the plot well-known characters like Abraham Van Helsing, Jonathan Harker, and Lucy Westenra, and it finds a modern day enemy for Dracula to fight against that is strong and powerful enough to be a believable threat.

While the season had its ups-and-downs, by the end so much had happened and the finale’s cliffhanger was such that I was quite looking forward to season 2.  Alas, it wasn’t meant to be, and NBC canceled the show.

Which is another reason why I’m so weary of giving my time to TV shows that might leave me hanging in a couple years, after I’ve invested so much time to get into them.  Today’s ratings’ demands are just so unforgiving that shows are green-lit and canceled without much thought for the feelings of audiences.

Grade: 7

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