This is part of a continuing series of old rants/essays/snark/thoughts/etc/etc/etc from years back that I figured I might as well throw somewhere other than a decrepit and deleted Discord server.

As Always, Assume Spoilers

Damn, this is a weird show. Moffat is just . . . Moffating everywhere. There’s some legit great stuff in here, but there’s so much padding and “written for the internet.” It’s yet another show that pings my “okay, I gotta break this down, this so fucking weird” meter. So ya’ll get treated to a lovely analysis of what the hell is going on here.

Dracula preamble

Look, I love vampires. Drac may be a bit of a nuisance in the modern era due to mass overexposure and an ever increasing evolution in godhood, but vamps are still some of the greatest literary monsters we’ve got. The reason for that is twofold: one, you can make a vamp stand in for just about any human condition (usually evil). Two, if you don’t want to use metaphor, you don’t have to! They’re perfectly fine as just monsters. All I really need out of a vampire (especially a castles and crucifixes rendition) is a saturated color pallet, a visually fun monster, and a minimum of sane character choices. I’m a pretty easy sell, honestly.

And yet, this series left me feeling cold towards it. A decent amount of it is the overeager Moffating (a lot of his worst habits are on display here), but there’s some other weirdness that goes beyond the usual, a lot of semiotic laziness.

Episode 1

Episode One (The Phantom Fang) is in equal parts a complete mess and also completely fucking awesome and badass.

The hook of starting with Jonathon Harker in the part of the story where he’s in the convent is actually pretty good. Provides a framing device, allows for introductions, it’s an unexplored part of the novel.

The best summation of the weirdness is that Dracula himself is just kinda lame. Moffat’s need to be quippy really interferes with any horror vibe. And it’s not “he’s unsettling in his normality” - even Agatha is given a bunch of fucking weird ass lines just because they feel clever (she’s both crazy wanting to be devout, but also completely dismissive of all religion). Some land, some do not. I think we’re supposed to enjoy watching him like he’s the Master. I also think they’re going for a Sherlock vs Moriarity thing with him vs Agatha, but it’s just as lame as that.

I know Moffat has been accused of queerbaiting before (with various degrees of fairness), but this is just incontrovertible. Dracula is literally played as a predatory gay, straight up. He keeps referring to Harker as his “bride,” but only because the story contorts the meaning of “brides” so hard that it would be “children” anywhere else. Harker’s wounds literally look like AIDS lesions, which is just a bit of nastiness that I particularly hate. He’s literally juxtaposed with the “purity” of Mina. Drac just keeps molesting him randomly. Harker is straight up asked if he had sex with Dracula and never answers, and the show (and characters) treats him like a sexual assault victim. Whedon syndrome! This only makes sense if you assume the underlying metaphor is true, which is odd because Dracula is so specifically sexless - he flirts creepily but the only sex is literal blood drinking. Like, I’m all for gay characters, especially in vampire media. I love a good “lesbian vampire” movie, and so do many kinky lesbians. But combined with the baiting, it doesn’t feel like a case of incidentally gay but targeted “look at this cool fun guy where being gay is core to his evil.” Especially because the “bride” we meet isn’t portrayed sexually at all, contrary to source material. I’m heavily reminded of Moriarity’s implied gayness.

The real problem with the episode is that it wants to be “twisty” and “surprising.” So we get weird beats that go nowhere, particularly the “Dracula is God” book or the Van Helsing reveal. Dracula uses his blood reading ability to act like he’s revealing a great secret about her, and it’s just . . . Her nationality and last name. Like it’s a big deal? The name “Van Helsing” means things to us, the audience, but not to anyone in universe. So why the in-universe fanfare? The writers want us to “keep guessing” for some reason, probably to maximize engagement. Joke’s on you, fucker! This is Netflix, we can binge and see right away that you’re full of shit!

And then all of a sudden, the episode gets really good. Like, not exaggeration. I had given up on quality and the convent standoff happens. Holy shit, that’s fucking awesome. Naked blood covered Dracula tries to trick and threaten his way in, while Agatha tries to undercut him. Sexy knife licking beast vs cool femdom nun = much more sexual tension and fun back and forth (also, they get the camera to stop yelling about the clever lines). The “crucifixes work on me but not on wolves” moment is also pretty great, if underplayed. The Mother Superior’s speech is badass as shit and following it with a decapitation is so “surprising” as to be effectively unsurprising, so that weakens it a bit.

Vampire Nerd thoughts:

  • Not really sure why the whole opening story of Dracula is here. It’s absolutely the most fun part of Dracula the novel, but if they’re not going to use any of it it’s just weird homage window dressing.
  • I do actually like how Agatha has the actual personality of Van Helsing from the book - fucking weirdo Dutch occult nerd
  • Claes Bang is actually really fucking good in all the permutations he has to play, and he deserves better writing.
  • Look, I know vampires = sex and venereal disease, but come on . . . Giving Harker a literal sex dream is a bit loud.
  • Can you just NOT have him yell that he’s a vampire every ten seconds
  • A vampire wanting to breed is interesting I guess, but it doesn’t really work as a motivation. Also, ripping off Van Helsing for ideas is probably not the best method.
  • Maybe yelling “none of the rules make sense” over and over isn’t as clever as you think it is, Moffat? It just makes us question them harder. No one was wondering why the rules were random, no one really wants an answer to that.
  • Dracula as skinwalker is mildly interesting, not as cool as the classics to me. At least they keep using it flexibly.
  • They did Mina Murray so fuckin’ dirty here. She’s just a vague symbol of “pure” love and marriage obsession. Fuck that. (great opening latter, terrible everything else). I swear Moffat has a “one strong female character” limit, and Agatha got it this time. (In Who, it was probably Pond or River, depending on episode)
  • There’s something weirdly racist about him declaring that Romanians taste less good than Brits (especially given British racism towards Eastern European immigrants). Which is on point for the book, but I don’t get the impression they meant for that to be the case.
  • The file theming is good if overused here

How could this be cleaned up?

  • I would start with Harker’s arrival at the nunnery, a diseased figure dragging himself in. Build some mystery up front.
  • Have Mina be present from the beginning and not in disguise, so we can see them interact and understand how they relate (Plus, have Agatha read her letter for extra funny)
  • More time with Agatha up front. Show us the lab early so we can see what kind of person she is, establish her motivations early. Have him be the first undead she sees, and that jolts her faith. Set up her fascination with Dracula as a “reverse miracle” that proves God to her early.
  • Stop forcing in clever one liners where they break the drama
  • Stop cutting between “Hammer shots” and more playful ones, it ruins the drama
  • Keep Dracula consistent and scary. Let him toy with Harker and be a snarky ass, but the camera still to keep him consistently unsettling.
  • Spend more time on the “assault” scenes. Make them feel horrific, don’t just yell “SEX!” and have Dracula skitter away
  • Drop have the framing device interjections and stay focused on Harker’s story for longer

Episode 2

I actually think this episode is quite a bit stronger in some areas and weaker in others. Despite the quirkiness factor, I do actually love the crew of the Demeter interacting. Pietr and the cook build a lovely grumpy friendship in particular. On the other hand, a lot of the episode is spent spinning wheels. We know that Drac is eating people, so there’s no mystery there. We’re just watching him eat random people. We wonder what’s in room 9, but we know it’s not him, so it’s a lesser mystery. I guess we’re supposed to watch the guests as the body count builds, but the attacks don’t seem to be applying any psychological pressure. It doesn’t make anyone’s bad side come out. Even when the Fanglord gets caught, nothing comes of it for a while (far too long). So for 45 minutes, why are we watching? We could skip all this and not really miss anything.

The opening is lazy as hell, though. The framing device is awkward in the first place, starts up too fast, and the chess motif is hackneyed. And I love shitty chess motifs. Points for the “the game is already in progress” and “you’ve chosen the losing side,” as I haven’t seen that part done before. At least it lets our leads interact (in a weirdly flirty tone - I agree that this is intentional, but they don’t really build to the nun flirting because they botched her fascination angle), but it makes us feel like we missed a LOT more by the end of the episode. I think this is all supposed to be in her head as Dracula projects it while drinking right before she wakes up, but that’s royally not clear. I honestly thought it was a canon scene that happened afterwards, until the next episode. The vagueness of Dracula’s dream giving powers are responsible for fucking this over.

The sexuality angle is still fucking weird. It seems to be in practice “vampires make people horny, so women get charmingly flirty and men get filthy kinky.” Like, Lord Snobbery sees Dracula try to kill a nun and eat a kid and starts trying to practice auto-erotic asphyxia right there in front of everyone? Vampires = sex I guess. It’s also really vague whether he knew Drac was a vamp before as a “silent partner” (speaking of queerbaiting, why does he ham up the word “partner” so much? Yeah, you know).

And all of a sudden, it snaps together and gets decent again? The standoff on the ship of Drac trying to break through the bible is tense as he provokes people into breaking the line (it’s a bit “here we go again,” but whatever). I love the “Make fake Piotr step outside the circle” bit, because it leans into audience suspicion of what’s going on. Making the characters as smart as the audience is how you actually make that work. The quiet scene as Drac sails the ship is great too. Equal parts tense and meditative.

And then it gets REAL bad at the last second. He pops up in the modern day after sinking why? Just for Agatha as cop to be shocking? This is super jarring, and personally I don’t like time jumps that take that long to kick in without reason (especially when it changes the whole aesthetic of the show from Victorian to Modern). They have this weird issue where natural breaks in the format aren’t being used to signal easy change to the audience. I’m not going to critique the logic jumps (nice magic timing, immortal cop lady) too hard, because I’m absolutely sure we’ll get satisfying answers next episode . . .

Vampire Nerd thoughts:

  • Well, the voyage of the Demeter is a pretty unexplored area, despite being an early proto-slasher and a large chunk of Nosferatu
  • Vampire drinking causes literal sex dreams is just . . . Dumb. You can’t make the sex thing too literal, or it gets weird. And that’s what going on here - in two episodes now someone just hallucinates sex while Drac drinks them (and seems to know that they’re hallucinating.). Also, why are they convenient dreaming of hot women? None of these guys are gay or bi?
  • Vampirism = bisexuality and eating nuns. Oomph. Every gay character who displays a sex drive is bad. The gay guy who isn’t depicted being sexually gay is the only vaguely good guy one. Awkward . . .
  • “The Demeter is him testing himself” is completely stupid
  • I do actually find the idea of him consuming people for their wisdom and knowledge interesting, as well as liking how the explanation for crucifixes is “people think it and I’ve absorbed them”
  • I’m not sure why “Lord Ruthven” is used as a name - the first real literary vampire should get a little more weight than a throwaway as such, especially when they bring attention to it.

How could this be cleaned up?

  • Cut the old lady backstory, minus the dancing. It didn’t matter and just makes Drac seem omnipresent, but in a shitty Star Wars way.
  • Have less plots focused around sir smug a lot - he’s overstuffed. Personally, I would cut either his Dracula lust/miniondom, because that has bad thematic consequences or the wife plot (which serves no purpose).
  • Establish the “manservant” as having a temper and a more hardcore rationality early on so when he steps over the line with his “faith in bullets” line we understand.
  • Honestly, I would have hidden Dracula early, and make the question “which one of these guys is actually Drac in a skinsuit” - which is even better for tension, make it a riff on The Thing as Agatha tries to figure it out
  • Don’t make him some hidden master of the ship, just have him provide the prisoner in Room 9
  • Give the Doctor more room to breathe as a character, he only really has two character scenes and the first one where he declares that darkness will never get into his daughter doesn’t make that much sense
  • Remove any of the “Dracula needs money” scenes. That’s stupid. He’s clearly rich enough to make this whole thing happen, he doesn’t need more. He hasn’t been characterized with greed as his sin, so it’s odd. Not that I really understand why Drac is going to England
  • Drop the framing device, it’s really distracting and confusing. They’re also going to have to work REALLY hard to make this make sense in chronology after modern time skip (the nun outfit, the randomly missing memories, the weird chumminess) [I wrote this before I understood what they were going for, but I’m letting it stand]

Episode 3

Oh God. That was . . . Bad.

Long story short, this is where the show went full Sherlock. All of Moffat’s writing issues are dialed up to 11. Unearned endings. Bizarrely characterized women. An arbitrary longcoat on the “cool” character. Villain power creep beaten by awkward writer fiat. I don’t know what to do with this. This is completely terribad.

No framing device this time? Okay. This 2 episodes of consistency followed by 1 episode of throw it all out. Different timeline, different coding (mix of 2020s color and 2000s theming). I’m so confused.

Since this episode revolves around the Lucy Westenra part of the novel, let’s look at Lucy. What the fuck is her personality? She’s a party girl who sleeps around and claims that sentimentality is terrible - but also is totally fine with getting married at 22 (is it the money? No idea.). She has a scene where she seems jaded with how the world smiles at her just for her beauty - but once coming back from the grave is obsessed with beauty (even before she knows she’s a burnt corpse). She’s a death obsessed goth for some reason (honestly, she just comes across as having depression when talking to Dracula). But she’s also terrified of the undead kid that two scenes early she though was super cute? But Dracula acts weirdly obsessed with her (500 year old Warlord vs 22 party girl? COME ON!). I especially love that this says he loves her because she’s special, that no one ever opened their veins willingly. You motherfuckers, one episode ago Sir Snob-a-lot was getting a raging stiffie at the thought of being drunk down. You couldn’t remember one episode ago? ONE!

Harker Society can just knock down a house. But they aren’t government? They’re explicitly a private organization and can’t hold Dracula hostage. They also immediately stop being relevant once Drac comes back to England. At no point does Zoe take advantage of her horde of mercs to illegally render Dracula a flambe. Like, she knew this was illegal since they’re not gov’t. And the government doesn’t know about vamps despite proof being goddamn everywhere in the form of dead bodies? Why are they here, other than to look techno cool before being discarded.

WHAT THE FUCK ARE MIRRORS IN THIS SHOW? Episode 1, Drac smashes one for unexplained reasons. Episode 2, he uses one to show illusions (?) of a possible future. Episode 3, it shows him as a zombie (the truth) and Lucy as having skin (a lie). What the fuck do mirrors do here?

What the hell happened to “real” Agatha? After the boat incident, did she just die? Didn’t she go undead like all the other victims? Based on the “Rules of the Beast” she should be just as easy to wake up as Drac. Feed her some blood, and here we go. Instead we’re stuck with Zoe, who is a much lamer character.

Random nerd rants:

  • Look, the gay guy is weirdly on-screen chaste again! Only Dracula can fuck!
  • England isn’t the fucking New World, why does the third episode act like it was?

Vampire Nerd thoughts:

  • Man, they did Lucy Westernra dirtiest. She’s a tough one to write, since her only real role is “vamp bait.” But anytime someone goes “she’s a slut!” we’re going to get a real bad version. Partially because then we’re stuck with a virgin/whore thing with Mina. Partially because it means that writer misunderstands that “three marriage proposals” doesn’t mean “three lovers” and that she’s sleeping with all (or any) of them.
  • Quincy Morris ain’t especially important in the original (just has a big gun), but this just makes him a capricious asshole. He just (almost) marries Lucy like he’s in the country only to snatch her. Like, she ain’t Helen of Troy hot here. Why is he here other than “damn, she hot?”
  • Sewell does literally nothing of agency for the entire episode. Why is he here? Are we supposed to feel bad for him? He’s a vaguely creepy, needy asshole. Why do I feel like Moffat is rooting romantically for creepy waifish motherfuckers? This fucker’s a mix of the worst traits of Sherlock and Rory - he’s socially unbearable AND a doormat.
  • Damn, Arthur Holmwood, you got neutered hard. And I say this as the guy who can never remember your name! Your parts got handed to Morris (Holmwood marries Lucy in the book) and Sewell (Holmwood drives the stake in the book). Did you ever even get a name here? You’re literally just a gay best friend who stands around while she exposits.
  • So Drac has . . . No weaknesses? He’s just an unstoppable bitch? No origin story, no explanation
  • I actually kinda like the idea that a lot of the BS Drac has as weaknesses is just his own superstition writ large over the centuries. Pity that they did nothing with that idea.
  • Dracula can choose what dreams he gives people? Why sex dreams (specifically about women)? Just why? He clearly doesn’t have to. He can’t even kill “Agatha” without showing them in bed together.
  • Suicidal Dracula as “brave” and “overcoming his fear” is just the . . . weakest, stupidest way to off a villain.

How could this be cleaned up?

  • I . . . I’m not actually sure how. This is really bad. The best thing they could do is move them through time during the show instead of having a random jump and a new character. I think to fix this you’d need to throw out the whole episode.
  • Seriously, if you want to move through vampire genres like this, have each episode be a different time period, like Vampire Highlander. Which sounds badass honestly. I’d be into it.
  • Throw out Zoe in favor of Agatha. Agatha as vamps binds them tighter and makes the final scene better.

The Whole Cigar (which is just a cigar)

There’s this really weird structure going on with the first two episodes. The first hour is stuck in a framing device, which then suddenly ends and then there’s a half hour of actual fun tense scenes. It feels like each episode is actually 1.5 episodes in pacing terms.

Moffat can actually write tension and mind games I think (there’s plenty of good moments here), but he definitely needs an editor or steady hand on the tiller. He’s got that “I’m so in love with my characters (especially my ubersmart villain)” fanfic vibe and obsession with “I’m motherfucking <insert name here>” as if that can do the work for him. And I love smirky mind game media, it’s one of my favorite genres (however small it is). But here I just want to punch Drac in the dick because he’s smug and not that fun or clever for most appearances. Moffat also needs a grasp on tone, because he can’t go five minutes without trying to have a character shoot off a one-liner regardless of character validity.

There’s a huge issue in the writing where to make one character seem clever requires the other to behave like a dumbass. It hits the epitome in the third episode when Dracula gets a lawyer because the protagonists are so fucking dumb as to give him a computer and use his name as the WiFi password. Keep in mind, his bite of the researcher should have given him the WiFi password, so they didn’t even need to make the whole org look dumb. Why? It doesn’t make Drac look smart or clever, it just makes an audience go “WTF you idiots.” That’s not satisfying. I think the goal is for us to go “Ah, Drac you charming, clever bastard” but instead we feel an overwhelming rush of “God, can I punch EVERYONE in the dick?”

There’s a running problem here too where we run into the Bruce Willis rule: “a movie can only be as smart as it’s villain.” I’m not sure this is true, honestly, but the real takeaway here is when the protagonists are reactive to the villains, the plot is defined by the villain. Which is an issue here, because I don’t actually understand anything Dracula wants. In Episode 1, he’s trying to create a partner or kid like him (ambiguous what or why). He also wants to move to England for “better flavor.” In Episode 2, he’s still trying to get to England, but also has some bizarre side goal involving drinking folk on the boat and getting richer. In Episode 3, he wants to turn Lucy specifically for some reason. Oh, and he wants to take over the world (this is his implied goal in the book, with about as much impact honestly). Which is brought up and dropped pretty much instantly in a scene. Oh, and he also subconsciously wants to die for some reason. What is the overarching theme behind “what Drac wants?” I have no idea, at all. Which makes it very hard for an audience to feel he’s achieving his goals or is being thwarted. Which means we can’t react appropriately when the show wants us to.

Also, Moffat: if you’re going to be playing fast and loose and vague with vampire powers, you should not have the narrative bring explicit attention to those things. It just makes everyone actively realize that you’re cheating. It’s hard to feel like we’re playing a cat and mouse game when one side is pulling tricks out of their sleeve from nowhere and offscreen. We don’t feel the tension at all, we just feel like something there’s no way we could have know about was a left hook. You can do this but not every time.

Lastly: Someone get Claes Bang and Dolly Wells better writers! They were legitimately great in this! Don’t let them be wasted, you fuckers!