Huh?! What elements do you feel they are repeating over and over again? To me it feels like watching chess, move and counter-move by both Dracula and the Order. I feel thought that both the Mina and Van Helsing storylines are stagnant. The whole Mina/Dracula doesn't seem to be going anywhere either but that's the whole point. I also don't see how this show can last more than one season.
Dracula - NBC
- Thread starter Taylirious
- Start date
Huh?! What elements do you feel they are repeating over and over again? To me it feels like watching chess, move and counter-move by both Dracula and the Order. I feel thought that both the Mina and Van Helsing storylines are stagnant. The whole Mina/Dracula doesn't seem to be going anywhere either but that's the whole point. I also don't see how this show can last more than one season.
That;s the thing. Look at the biggest two new shows now - The Blacklist and Sleepy Hollow. They get the show going forward and gets the points across fast and accurate. Hawaii Five 0 as well, don' drag the sory forward but does so very ery fast. Dracula however is getting tedious.
It doesn't so much bother me as puzzle me, in that I'm occasionally confused by the logistics and rules of this particular universe. Where exactly is Mina living and just how alternate is this version of Victorian London? They made a point in one episode of mentioning that it was "daring" for Mina to accept a ride with Grayson in his carriage, and yet nobody seems to find it scandalous when Mina and Lucy go out drinking all night and stagger back to her place in the wee hours of the morning? Vampires and mad scientists are one thing, but that strains my willing suspension of disbelief!
That this bears no relationship to Stoker doesn't matter, since it was obvious early on that this was never supposed to be a faithful adaptation of the original novel . . . .
I don't know about the Blacklist but Sleepy Hollow basically throws stuff against the wall and see what sticks. It's internal mythology is coming together but it's still monster of the week.
Is Dracula tedious? For people who want instant gratification it probably is but I like the fact that it takes the time to set up the pieces and then throws the entire board out of the window at the last minute. Dracula reminds me a lot of BSG (and people complained about the lack of progress on that show)
As one reviewer noted, Dracula doesn't care about rules or logic only for bat$#!^ craziness. I also read that the whole Victorians were prudes is an exaggeration created as a response to the decadence of the later Edwardian period.
I'd say just the opposite. Renfield is the one person other than Mina who brings out anything good in Dracula. We've seen how much Dracula cares for Renfield, the lengths he'll go to in order to save him -- and here he spared Renfield for doing something (attacking him) that would have meant death for anyone else. He accepts Dracula's dark side, sees him as a fellow victim of entrenched, powerful interests (the Order in Drac's case, the racist institutions of Western civilization in Renfield's) and respects his ability to stand up to those oppressors and fight back, so he sees a certain ruthless nobility in his employer. Also, he owes Dracula his life, and thus he chooses to align himself with Dracula's goals and interests out of loyalty.
Van Helsing, on the other hand, is a total manipulative bastard, obsessed with revenge on the Order and willing to inflict widespread death and suffering in order to achieve it. He's the one who's encouraged Dracula to kill, far more than Renfield has. He's the one who resurrected Dracula by cutting an innocent man's throat as a blood sacrifice, just so he could get his revenge on the Order. And in this last episode, he kidnapped a couple of children! A reviewer said he expected to find that VH had slaughtered the children in their beds, because that would be completely in character for this version of him.
That's what it would be amazing to have an update of the original novel set in the present day where Mina is using a laptop to write upon (and that laptop would be from some manufacturer like Sony, who would then get a credit!)
In fact, how about a remake set in the distant future, in which Dracula is an alien from outer space and he comes to Earth (the capital planet of a UFP-like space confederation) in order to spread his vampirism far and wide in the galaxy, and where Mina is an IT worker who tracks Dracula down with her computer, hacker-style. It could be called Dracula 2099.
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Ugh NOOOOooooo!!! I don't see how a remake, makes the story better. I like how Dracula is an anti-hero and Mina is an actual character rather than a glorified secretary. I love the fact that Van Helsing and Dracula are frenemies. I like Rensfield. The only thing I don't like is the Order. A group of evil white men are boring and Hawker is so unlikable that you are almost forced too root for Dracula to win over Mina's heart.
^What I meant and should have said was a retelling of the original story, but set in the future, not a remake of this show-my bad.
I think that's exactly the idea. In order to make a bloodthirsty monster a sympathetic protagonist, they've had to make the other characters worse in comparison.
It's not supposed to. NBC commissioned it as a single 10 episode mini-series.
I think Mina lives with her father. I seem to remember him entering her bedroom earlier in the series.
Yes, but as either you or Greg said earlier in the thread, Christopher, Harker is a milquetoast character to begin with.
Yet, I don't think that Yminale quite has it right in saying that Harker is "so unlikable." I think that Harker exists to demonstrate the corrupting influence of Dracula (which Mina railed against in the latest episode), and his arc has been his fall from innocence to depravity. In a sense, he's a bit like Renfield from Tod Browning's Dracula -- a man who loses himself due to Dracula's influence.
Thanks for clearing things up. It still feels we are only half-way through the story though.
Harker was a loser before he met Dracula. Remember the relationship problems he had with Mina. I find it Ironic that Dracula is trying to encourage Harker to be a better person knowing that he'll completely fail and be the exact opposite.
No, I think we're on target for a conclusion Friday after next.
Things are falling apart, and all episode nine has to do is end with the realization by some people (Lady Jayne among them) that Dracula and Grayson are one and the same, and we're set for the finale and everything going to hell.
That's not irony. That's all part of Dracula's game. For example, I thought he was trying to keep Harker from doing anything rash due to the acid attack, only it turned out that Dracula was actually egging him on to deal with Davenport.
But isn't that what irony is.
As defined by Wikipedia.
"a rhetorical device, literary technique, or event characterized by an incongruity, or contrast, between what the expectations of a situation are and what is really the case, with a third element, that defines that what is really the case is ironic because of the situation that led to it."
If Dracula were actually trying to help Harker, but everything Dracula did actually made Harker screw up, then, yes, that would be ironic.
But Dracula is manipulating Harker, telling him one thing but subtly pushing him to do something else. So, Dracula is getting the results that he wants from Harker. Not ironic.
^But that's what Yminale said. "I find it Ironic that Dracula is trying to encourage Harker to be a better person knowing that he'll completely fail and be the exact opposite." I think what Yminale means is that it might appear to the observer that Dracula was trying to encourage Harker, but the truth was that he was setting him up for a fall all along, hence it runs counter to our expectations.
Still, I think I agree with you that that isn't irony -- it's just a character having a hidden motive. And really, since he is Dracula, it's not really counter to the audience's expectations when he does something harmful to another person. What would be ironic would be if it turned out he'd really meant well all along.
Still, I think I agree with you that that isn't irony -- it's just a character having a hidden motive. And really, since he is Dracula, it's not really counter to the audience's expectations when he does something harmful to another person. What would be ironic would be if it turned out he'd really meant well all along.
That's my sense of what's happening. It always appears that Dracula is encouraging him to do the right thing but accept for going back to Mina, he does the exact opposite.
After watching Dracula Rising, I can see why he's so effective in manipulating Harker. Harker is very much like a young Vlad Teppes.
^I don't understand. What you're saying, apparently, is that Dracula is only pretending to mean well and is really manipulating Harker down a dark path. But that isn't irony, it's just having a hidden agenda.
I don't think Jonathan Rhys Meyers has found the right part yet since the Tudors competed its run. He was excellent in that series. He's performed well in diverse projects like Ride the Devil, Matchpoint, and Bend it like Beckham. I enjoyed the Children of Huang Shi since he and Radha Mitchell had chemistry, though it wasn't a popular film.
His American accent was unnecessary and it sounded forced. I have no idea why it was necessary to use that. So many English actors also speak French. It would have made more sense to use that kind of accent instead if at all.
Changing such a famous story is always going to be a problem. Some stories are timeless and there's no need to reinvent them. Can you imagine altering The Godfather? People would have a cow.
His American accent was unnecessary and it sounded forced. I have no idea why it was necessary to use that. So many English actors also speak French. It would have made more sense to use that kind of accent instead if at all.
Changing such a famous story is always going to be a problem. Some stories are timeless and there's no need to reinvent them. Can you imagine altering The Godfather? People would have a cow.