One of the most amazingly bizarre reinterpretations of the Dracula story is airing this season on NBC , and if you are not watch you ’re in earnest miss out . camp and ambitious , this Dracula serial manages to be a altogether unhinged transformation of the original novel , while also pay serious-minded court to it . Here are 10 reason to tune in .
1 . Dracula is a mad scientist
One of the adept thing about this show is that it reinvent Dracula as science fiction . Jonathan Rhys Meyers has been styled to look almost precisely like Nikola Tesla did in the late 19th hundred , and his Dracula is a crazy artificer who has almost perfected wireless electricity . He has an harebrained mad scientist lab with a giant Tesla coil , and he ’s team up up with other scientist ( including Van Helsing ! ) to find a cure for vampirism . This is a world where trick and scientific discipline have merge , with just a touch of steampunk befuddle into the mix .
2 . Mina is a flake
In the original novel by Bram Stoker , the case Mina Harker is portrayed as a innovative , emancipated woman . She uses the epoch ’s high engineering , like bidding machines , to assist get across down Dracula . She ’s been prepare as an government agency doer , knows shorthand , and basically keep the vampire hunt wholly organized . We seldom see this in any version of the story – normally Mina is just Jonathan Harker ’s wife , fainting by at the stack of Dracula . But in this series , Mina is an fantastically successful med student studying to be a MD . The good part ? Her struggle to be a professional woman is release into a tremendously interesting subplot .
3 . The risky guys are a group of Satanic fogey fuel magnates
I guess this is the crazy and most wondrous part of the Dracula adaptation . We already have Dracula - as - Tesla , so it makes a nutso kind of sense that London ’s secret monster - hunting organization , the Order of the Dragon , is consist of fossil fuel magnates . They are trying to retain an Illuminati - like ascendance over the earth by monopolizing its dodo fuel reserves as well as the industries that help with fuel extraction and processing . There is literally an episode where Dracula and the Order of the Dragon are fighting to control a society that produces swimming coolant . Energy manufacture drama ! And all the oil top executive have Satanic rituals with swords and singular sashes – just like in real life ! The adept part is that the vampire is on the side of alternative vigor . This is just such a bonkers revision of the Dracula legend , and of contemporary environmental grandiloquence around “ energy vampires , ” that it go away straight from mad to lovable in 10 minute .
4 . Renfield is badass ( in an aristocratic way )
There ’s a great twist on Renfield ’s type , too . I have never get a line a Dracula adjustment where Renfield is anything but a snivel insect , or a crazy minion . But in this series , played by Nonso Anozie ( Game of Thrones ) with incredible gravitas , Renfield is a complicated character who is far more reasonable than Dracula . We have n’t got a back story on him yet , but we know that he teamed up with Dracula to run his energy caller . Sometimes he plays the manservant role , but in one incredible scene where he ’s negotiate a fiscal deal for Dracula , we clear that he is likely the mastermind behind Dracula ’s bid for power . When England ’s wealthy white elite group underestimate Renfield , they do it at their own peril .
5 . Fan service for the original novel , not the moving picture
sure as shooting you could enjoy the show without register the original novel . But if you have read it , there are a ton of fun pinch . First of all , I love that the novel ’s compulsion with Dracula buying real estate in London has become an obsession with Dracula acquiring energy companies and petrochemical assets . It ’s a good way to update a patch about how an outsider would judge to gain fiscal top executive at the turn - of - the - century . But there are other gem , too . Van Helsing is working with Dracula to come up with a therapeutic for vampirism , which means the guy has switched sides . The back story on that is awesome . Plus , Mina ’s best Quaker Lucy – Dracula ’s first aphrodisiac , dimwit victim in the volume – has a secret sapphic crush on Mina in the series . And nobody has put her in a wireless galvanising refrigerator yet – yay !
6 . Random sexual liaisons inspire by female wrestling
No Dracula series would be complete without random , bloody sexual affaire . Yep , we ’ve capture that . But it ’s not quite what you expect . Dracula has a gustatory modality for firm , independent women , so he receive himself unexpectedly dating the lead vampire hunter , Lady Jayne , in London . Once he earn who she is , he needs her more than ever – not just for humping , but to get intel on the inscrutable Order of the Dragon she works for . So he schemes to keep Lady Jayne raging for him by taking her to a secret , underground women ’s hand-to-hand struggle compeer . He knows that watching the peeress fight will get her cultivate up . And it does ! Have I mention that I screw this show ? adult female ’s wrestling watch by vampire sexual urge equals awesome !
7 . Dracula gives lecturing on how women and work stratum people should have solidarity with each other
There is a whole subplot where Jonathan Harker , a diarist who has been lease by Dracula as a publicity flak , is n’t properly respectful of Mina ’s vocation . One day when she visits him at the office , Mina overhears Jonathan telling his buddies that she ’ll turn her interests in a more “ womanly direction ” once they ’re married . Given that she ’s just spent years nonplus her aesculapian degree , this is the bad insult ever . So she dumps him . And then Dracula break Jonathan a huge lecture about how foolish he is for not prize Mina ’s aspiration – peculiarly since Jonathan himself has risen up from a downcast class status . How great is it that the message is that Jonathan has to respect to Mina ’s vocation if he desire to marry her ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Aq8OrNa3wI
8 . Twenty million thing happen in every instalment
The very best part of the subplot about Mina ’s career is that it does n’t feel heavily - handed because it come in the centre of an instalment where a zillion other thing materialise . In fact , that ’s every episode of Dracula . We whirl between kinship dramatic event between Lucy and Mina , industrial tycoon dramatic play between Dracula and everybody , secluded agendum drama with Renfield , mad science drama with Van Helsing , and hot sex scenes . The show has everything .
9 . Henry VIII is now sucking pedigree !
If you ever watched The Tudors , where Dracula played Henry VIII , you lie with that Jonathan Rhys Meyers can wreak the disturbed scene masticate required for this character . Imagine Henry VIII , and all those silklike underwear sex scenes , with fangs ! And he ’s shout about ancient curses and sustainable vim rather of the Protestant Reformation ! The only matter that ’s missing is Cromwell , and hopefully he ’ll show up now that his short - lived role on Sleepy Hollow is over . Meyers was altogether made for this role , which requires the “ bulgy - eyed intensity ” act he has whole mastered . Plus , for some reason Dracula is sham to be American – so Meyers get to do a silly American accent part of the sentence .
10 . Everyone is extremely zany all the meter and knows it and that is exactly right-hand
Meyers ’ particular skill as an doer is enhanced by the fact that this show never takes itself in earnest . There is a lot of winking , and a lot of playfulness , even as Dracula is thump his clenched fist on the desk and demanding more coolant . What ’s terrific is that the show still manages to be thoroughgoing and thrilling , overbold and witty , even as the plot of ground spins off into goofball dominion . part the breakneck stride helps maintain this light tone . But I also think it ’s the creative thinking of the writing , and the sheer ingeniousness of this skill fictional , gaslamp thriller edition of Dracula .
Do n’t believe me ? Check out the next episode , which is airing next Friday . You have all week to hitch up on the four previous episodes , which areavailable for free on Hulu .
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