j-menzies
I admit, this show was a slow burner. I originally started watching it for one reason - Jonathan Rhys Meyers. He is unmatched in his beauty, and always superb. It took a couple of episodes before I began to get into it. But by the third episode I was captivated, and completely drawn into Alexander's dark and intriguing world. The show has a lot of tension and drama, which comes from several sources. Firstly is 'The Order of The Dragon', with whom Alexander/Dracula is locked in an ongoing battle of wits (and violence), as they pursue their mission to find and destroy him and his kind. The main leader of this group is Lady Jayne Wetherby (Victoria Smurfitt) and she and Alexander engage in a cat and mouse game filled with manipulation and f**king. Jayne is ruthless and cruel in her role as the Huntress, but her relationship with Alexander allows us to see her more vulnerable side. Her desire for him (and to retain her sense of youth) cause her to become blinkered to the truth of his identity and his lack of feelings for her. The second source of tension comes from the deep, obsessional love Dracula has for medical student, Mina Murray (Jessica De Gouw). From the moment he sees her he is captivated, as she is the double/reincarnation of his one true love, Ilona, who was burnt at the stake centuries previously by The Order. Her character is clearly the polar opposite to Jayne. She is kind, shy, vulnerable, and at the peak of her beauty. In her, Alexander sees a chance for love and the kind of life he has never been able to have. This love, and his desire to avenge Ilona's death, become the prime motivation for everything he does. He hires her fiancée, Jonathan (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) to work for him, so that he can keep Mina within his orbit. And in a quest to overcome his body's adverse reaction to sunlight, he recklessly pushes Professor Van Helsing to develop (and test on him) a special, yet dangerous serum. Although Van Helsing carries out these demands, he is secretly plotting his own special brand of revenge on The Order, in opposition to Dracula.Whilst Mina loves Jonathan, she finds herself inexplicably (to her mind) drawn to Alexander. This attraction does not go un-noticed by her fiancée, or The Order, who cunningly use it to their advantage. They manipulate and recruit Jonathan, promising him the chance of revenge on Alexander. His jealousy causes his character to change for the worse, as he becomes enraged and desperate to hold onto the woman he loves.The sub-plot involves Mina's best friend, Lucy, (Katie McGrath) who is secretly in love with Mina, and inadvertently makes an enemy of Alexander/Dracula as a result. This is a crime for which she pays a heavy price. (This turn of events, in particular, would provide a fascinating new storyline for a second series.)All of these stories are expertly interwoven in a clever and subtle manner. It is a grown up, stylish, and intelligent show, which never veers into the hammy, camp territory of some previous Dracula incarnations. The sets, costumes and cinematography are visually stunning. And the actors are all brilliant, especially Rhys Meyers, who portrays a very complex character with apparent ease. His character would be almost entirely unlikable, if not for his relationship with Mina. She brings out qualities in him which are otherwise absent - warmth, love, a fierce loyalty and protectiveness. The fact that he possesses these qualities, seems to be as much of a surprise to Alexander (and his inner circle) as it is to us. Therefore he struggles to control them rationally. Whenever he looks at Mina we see a deep longing, and a vulnerability in those otherwise steely eyes. And in those moments, one would almost mistake him for human.
TdSmth5
Alexander Grayson, Dracula, arrives in London sometime in the late 1800s/early 1900s. He's rich, an entrepreneur and inventor, but pretends to be American. Helping him is his faithful sidekick Renfield. He's a huge black American lawyer. We learn more about his relationship to Grayson and how they came to join forces. Grayson is after the lovely Mina. She's engaged to some third rate journalist named Harker. Grayson needs someone to tell him all the secrets of English high society, so he hires Harker--mainly to get close to Mina. He aims to get involved with these snobby bigshots because most of them make up the Order of the Dragon. It's this order that killed Dracula's girl way back when in Romania--a girl who looks exactly like Mina. To undermine the order, Grayson seduces one of their main huntresses, who senses a powerful vampire is in town. The order uses seers who can tell where there are vampires then eliminates them. But it takes them a while to come to the realization that it's not just any powerful vampire who has arrived but Dracula himself.Also helping Grayson is Van Helsing, a professor of medicine and teacher of Mina. He's helping Grayson because the order also eliminated his family and he's after revenge. Van Helsing is working on a remedy so that Dracula can tolerate sunlight and he does make some progress in that regard.Grayson is working on a major scientific project--to provide affordable geomagnetic energy to all. That would put the powerful petroleum companies out of business, companies made up of members of the order. Through their connections they are trying to ruin Grayson's endeavors.The issues that will work themselves out through season 1 are: - Grayson's relationship with Mina - Grayson's power source invention - the eventual confrontation with the order - Grayson's cure to the aversion to light - Harker's relationship to Grayson - Van Helsing's unfinished business with the order's main guy, Browning.After years of heaping abuse on the legacy of the story and fans of the genre, finally with this series, they get it right. Dracula is stylish, classy, beautiful, intriguing. The settings in Europe are magnificent. Jessica De Gouw is gorgeous and lovely. I can't blame Dracula for going crazy for her. A shame the people behind Arrow can't find more use for her. Most of the cast is also impressive. The political, secret-society, scientific aspect of the show is pretty awesome. They could easily have gone for a far simpler setup but chose to make the story rich and fascinating instead.It's not all perfect. Jonathan Rhys Meyers is kinda small to be Dracula. And his character at times isn't all that likable; he tends to get abusive with the people who support him the most. Oliver Jackson-Cohen doesn't convince entirely either. The vampire angle doesn't get enough attention. The few vampire scenes there are, are cool and gory. The love business gets too much attention, but it is handled for the most part very well, I must say.Despite these minor problems, Dracula remains serious, engaging, and fun and is one the best shows of the year.
