Dracula

First episode maintains a gothic vibe and the second holds up well to that. the third episode is an absolute DOOSEY and does not hold up at all compared to the other two.

Saw the trailer for the new BBC TV adaptation of Dracula, the Count spouting humorous one liners and the action taking place in both the 19th and 21st Centuries I was not sure if I wanted to devote 4.5 hours of my time to watching this. But I'm a big Dracula fan, plus I like Mark Gatiss so how could I resist? I couldn't. Divided into 3 episodes the first was for me the best. This is the beginning, set in the Old Country at Dracula's foreboding castle. Very impressive, the sets, the stunning location, superb special effects. It is also pretty scary. great acting. The only thing caught me off guard was having Van Helsing as a female, but it kind of worked and it is essential to treat that this as a "Based On" adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel, or in other words a re-imagining. Pretty much the entire length of part 2 takes place on board the boat to England. It is good, thankfully the various characters help make it interesting, but it is a tad too long. Part 3 takes place over 100 years later in modern day England. This one is by far the most reworked part of the story. I like the idea of this but do feel that the writers are trying to be too clever for their own good with this section and the humour detracts from the horror, though it still has plenty of scary moments. I am glad that I watched the series, despite initial reservations. Like I have mentioned this is very much a modern reworking of the novel (none of the film adaptations follow the book exactly), watch it with an open mind. It's not going to please everyone but despite all the negative reviews so far it does have a respectable current average score of 7/10.

The third episode was simply terrible. It's a shame because the first two were pretty good. I don't know what they were thinking with the third, it's absurd and very out of place with the other two.

Claes Bang is absolutely delicious as Dracula, I really liked him in the part and Dolly Wells just brilliant as Agata Van Helsing.

Episode one had me gripped, episode 2 was brilliant, except had the unwelcome wiff of the BBC fitting it's agendas in, but episode 3, as others have mentioned and I wanted to test, was indeed an absolute train wreck. Not only did it completely fail the first two, it was almost a different programme and the BBC, of course, got their agendas in there. Just awful, with a rotten ending to finish it. Watch the first two, don't ruin it with the third.

10/10 for the first two, 0 for the third.

They had me at Sister Agatha! True wit genius ! I find it rather odd that all the extreme negative reviews runs a similar streak of personal vendetta rather than a moderate assessment of any good, fair or bad show expected. Truly strange indeed. I love good horror movies and shows but I sincerely cannot sense this series deserved such extreme hatred for not being a purist reflection of its original master adaptation. It was fun enough to watch and in the immortal words of another beast, this show was truly, "Marvelous, Hugely entertaining and there was no COLLUSION frOm Ukraine.. Ahem.. Aka. TRANSYLVANIA!" Lighten up haters. It's 2020. Give it a rest already and smell the blood red roses, will ya? 🙏🌹😜