BBC's Dracula Season 1 Review

Mixed views in the Dye household. Episodes 1 and 2 were very enjoyable -- good effects, dry humour, but were then let down by the whole mess that was episode 3. I was expecting it to be left open-ended for another series, but that seems unlikely now. Defeat snatched from the jaws of victory ...

Clem
 
In terms of another series,
my thoughts were that as with the Hammer Draculas, the acolytes always find a way to resurrect him so I'd be really surprised if he doesn't come back. That said, as I mentioned before, there's other characters I would've loved to have seen more of so they have written themselves into a corner. Oh and on iplayer it's called 'series 1' - intentional?
 
I haven't watched the show yet, but I thought this was a pretty cool advertisement.

 
Just watched episode 1 and I thinks it's woeful. Dracula banging on like a an extra from a crap guy Ritchie movie. It looks great but Dracula is just awful, he'd be better off on eastenders. I'll stick with it though, god knows why like.
 
In terms of another series,
my thoughts were that as with the Hammer Draculas, the acolytes always find a way to resurrect him so I'd be really surprised if he doesn't come back. That said, as I mentioned before, there's other characters I would've loved to have seen more of so they have written themselves into a corner. Oh and on iplayer it's called 'series 1' - intentional?

pretty much the same as Sherlock, paint themselves into a corner and then have to come up with some ridiculous way to get themselves out of it at the start of the next series.
 
I've only seen Ep1 so far but I cant see why it's getting good reviews, the PQ in 4K HLG isn't remarkable either. It doesn't seem to add anything to Coppola's film except effects that I can''t work out whether they're deliberately poor.
 
Loved IT .

Though i think they missed the Bite Mark with the 3rd Episode

An Incredible Shame
.
 
Well I just watched the 3rd episode for completion, not expecting much as everyone said it was crap and it was my favourite one of the lot :confused: :laugh:

Overall, I'd give the mini series 7/10.
 
Ep1 was interesting. Ep2 dragged on a bit with "Oh, come on" moments. Ep3 was just ridiculous to the point of ruining the whole series. I actually started fast forwarding through the episode as it was so bad.

Ep3 made no sense whatsoever and I can only imagine the writers lost the will to live and just gave up on any sensible story. What a pile of tosh! Reminds me of why I don't bother with UK TV most of the time. Is there no quality control on these things?! It's only the first week of January 2020 but it'll be hard to watch anything worse all year. Avoid if you can, alternatively stop watching at Ep2 and skip ep3 completely. You won't miss anything. Just my opinion obviously lol.
 
Ep3 reminded me a lot of the 1998 Channel 4 series Ultraviolet and I liked them both.

What has struck me though is many don't seem to get the ending of Ep3. Well,
Dracula knew the Van Helsing of today had cancer and if he drank her blood he would die. So in the end he did. Just as Lucy begged her part-time lover to stake her. Well, everybody dies eventually....
 
Ep3 reminded me a lot of the 1998 Channel 4 series Ultraviolet and I liked them both.

What has struck me though is many don't seem to get the ending of Ep3. Well,
Dracula knew the Van Helsing of today had cancer and if he drank her blood he would die. So in the end he did. Just as Lucy begged her part-time lover to stake her. Well, everybody dies eventually....
And to add to that
Van Helsing had worked out what Dracula was petrified of, when even he didn't know - true death. He not only drank her blood in order to finally die himself but also out of respect to Van Helsing to ease her pain and give her a merciful death.
 
Thoroughly enjoyed it all, episode 2 the standout for me. Loved the twist and turns and the irreverent humour which was ably played out by the two leads. Didn’t expect the trip to modem day times but thought it worked quite well once I let go of the historical era.
Hoping for more from the same team.
 
This was a class production. It had a clearly defined part 1, part 2 and part 3. Each episode was different to the other and as the viewer watched the events unfolding so did time. And the humour was deliciously acid.

All things die which Dracula eventually realised. And he saved his tormentor Van Helsing from pain, and eventually joined her in death. 8/10
 
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Yeah, we watched the final part tonight and generally give a good thumbs-up. Cleverly re-jigged we thought.
 
Ep3 reminded me a lot of the 1998 Channel 4 series Ultraviolet and I liked them both.

What has struck me though is many don't seem to get the ending of Ep3. Well,
Dracula knew the Van Helsing of today had cancer and if he drank her blood he would die. So in the end he did. Just as Lucy begged her part-time lover to stake her. Well, everybody dies eventually....

baffling why anybody didn’t understand the ending, I guess fast forwarding doesn’t help. The period between the last act of episode 1 and the ending of episode 2 is about as fine a tv production as I can recall. Think I’ll watch Jekyll now as well as missed that first time round.
 
Picture quality for those that haven't watched it yet. Via my LG55E7 broadcast HD was full of blocky compression on Dracula's Cape and the night sky. On BBC iplayer app in UHD HDR using wifi, no issues. Hopefully more drama and film in UHD 2020.


I thought episode 1 and 3 the picture quality was really good, only notice some microblocking in the back ground in a couple of scenes. But episode 2 had awful picture quality, artifacts and microblocking especially during the night scenes when on the top deck of the ship. This was on lg c9 55inch TV.
 
Watched episode 1 in 4k last night. The logo did nothing for me - why is it even there? They cannot say it's to remind me what I'm watching - it's on BBC iPlayer for God's sake.

The programme? Dracula was embarrassing - a version at times more akin to Abbott and Costello than the BBC. he may be a decent actor (no idea who he is) but not on this showing - unless the makers told him to ham it up?

The wife will not be watching the rest; I will if there's nothing else available. But now the schedules have improved, it will probably be next Christmas before I get round to it. Not a priority by any means.
 

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