BBC Dracula (2020)

If it wasn’t bad enough that bastardised Doctor Who reared it’s misshapen head to dampen my new year cheer, the BBC decided to do a new version of Dracula. A version involving our old nemesis Moffat, the man who had single handedly tanked multiple shows he was involved with with his bs.

Dracula is a 3 episode micro-cosam of Mofftwats poisonous influence. It has all the trops that have dragged shows like Doctor Who, Jekyll and Sherlock into the shitter.

The only good thing about this series is Claes Bang, who is sadly stuck in this crap heap of a series. Even then his performance is sullied by bad writing as the series goes on.

Everything Moffat does follows the same pattern - starts off reasonably then falls into self-parody and overindulgent nonsense after a few episodes. Nu Who (tho at least he temporarily improved it first), Jekyll, Coupling, Sherlock... it just sounds like Crapula is doing it quicker.

I’m now 2 and a half episodes into it. I actually thought Episode 2 was fairly tolerable, but 3 has been absolute shite thus far. Moffat’s vintage indulgent tropes have emerged in droves- twatty, self-aware dialogue that seems inserted purely to obscure obvious plot holes, a Mind-Palace sequence inserted for no good reason, several redundant scenes in a nightclub that seem inserted purely to showcase how “modernised” this version is, and hopeless narrative contrivances (how does Dracula work out how to use a fucking phone and tablet within such a short space of time?). I’ll be finishing it tonight, but it’s already gone completely downhill.

It looks as shite as I'd expect. I'll pass and watch some Christopher Lee instead.

Just finished it. That is one of the worst endings to a televised series I have ever seen, and easily up there with the likes of Last of the Time Lords, Hell Bent etc in terms of indulgent fan-fiction. It’s pure NuWho- they have to turn the character into some sort of YA character and tortured soul with qualities that can be best described as “emo”, and in the most adolescent, quotidian and prosaic possible way, all whilst clearly congratulating themselves for being “clever” about it. It’s abundantly plain that the NuWho production team never grew up, and never decided to branch away from their fan-fictions and bizarre fannish perspectives.

I thought this was poor. The episodes got progressively worse. In that sense it was almost like a concentrated version of Sherlock in that with Sherlock it took Steven 4 (possibly 3) years to screw his Holmes adaptation up, With Dracula he managed it in 3 episodes.

Episode 2 was potentially an interesting examination of what happened on the Demeter as it travelled to England. That should have been an intense creepy thriller type thing stressing the increased tension and fear among the crew as the Count slowly picked them off one by one. Instead TitMoff did his usual long winded monologues or head to heads where characters just bore the arse off the audience (and probably each other) with cleverly structured, ponsified dialogue. Similar to the pointless speaches he used to give to Capaldi or Smith. And at the end of these prattlings nothing has happened and you begin to wonder what the point is of watching this drivel.

The opening of episode 3 just jarred. Suddenly we are in the 21st century with lots of shit modern disco music. Why? I was in a gothic horror. Now - I'm not. Mood shattering. At one point it felt too Sherlocky. And then more pointless monologues and head-to-heads.

My only fear now is that Moffat gets a second series of this twaddle. Hopefully not. FatMoff should be preoccupied with some other show he has been commissioned to write called Inside Man. Plus IMDB have him credited as doing sthg called Jekyll. Dunno if its related to the James Nesbitt thing he did 13 years ago. Unless i have misunderstood the 2020 IMDB entry under his name.

Regarding the BBC's recent Dracula, only just got round to watching this since in all honesty I didn't fancy it at all. Hadn't been encouraged by the trailers before it screened and, as you may suspect, was never a fan anyway of Moffat's (per)versions of Sherlock and Doctor Who of course so didn't feel too enthusiastic about watching him cock up another beloved classic. Still I knew Gatiss at least to be a serious connoisseur of classic horror plus I'd read some positive reviews elsewhere so felt inspired to give it a go.

First, the good: Claes Bang as the Count. I still thought he occasionally resembled Leslie Crowther with fangs especially when wisecracking (half expected him to shout out "come on down!" at times) but, in all fairness, I think that he did show sufficient potential to play the part well enough. It might have been interesting to see what he could have accomplished with better material. I was less impressed though by the rest of the cast but again I suspect this might be down to my dislike of the tone of the script. I didn't mind some occasional in-jokes too much but clever-clever quips can all too often be intrusive and, particularly in the later instalments, I thought did seriously undermine any effective mood.

The bad: although episode one was greatly enhanced by its use of the wonderfully atmospheric castle location (from the original Nosferatu I believe), I found this part too rushed somehow and at times badly bungled. The second episode seemed rather better though with some nicely Agatha Christie-esque developments aboard the doomed ship Demeter that worked effectively I thought, almost like a period set episode of Inside No 9, the splendid blackly comic series by Gatiss's fellow League of Gentlemen collaborators, Shearsmith and Pemberton. But then came that jarringly disappointing third part: a final nail in the coffin with its ill-judged update to contemporary times that seemed to literally lose the plot. The novelty of the time shift quickly disappeared into a messy plot more akin to one of Moffat's ridiculously convoluted Sherlock episodes rather than Dracula.

I did spot some homages to previous Dracula productions (the run across the table to tear down the curtain, the AD 1972 sign etc.) but Hammer homages only made me a bit sad that the creators of this new version, who clearly have detailed interest in their subject, nevertheless were failing to make anything genuinely authentic to the spirit of what inspired them. It was all too much like pastiche, and too muddled and ludicrous, so I felt rather underwhelmed by the end.

It just made me want to rewatch something rather better, for instance the BBC's own superior 1977 version!