Save the Count!

Dracula How many times have you flipped through the channels and then turned off your TV? It happens to me all the time. But one Friday night, I stumbled upon Dracula. Sucked in by the dramatic lighting, sumptuous costumes, sensuous actors, and sets that rival Academy Award winning films, I set down my remote.

The whole gang

Dracula poses as a wealthy American, Alexander Grayson, who takes up residence in London. He longs for love and light, both lost when his wife was burned at the stake by a secret society that cursed him with immortality. He is humanized by his grief and his need for revenge. He meets his reincarnated wife Mina Murray (Jessica de Gouw) and her boyfriend Jonathan Harker (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) which creates an interesting love triangle. The plot twists when he hires Harker, who seems to know everything about everyone, to work at Grayson Industries.

Dracula Episode 4

Grayson seduces a vampire tracker, Lady Jane Wetherby (Victoria Smurfit). She has incredible strength and is a member of the secret society. Rather than kill her, he sees Jane as the chink in the society’s armor. She has no idea she’s sleeping with the very prey she hunts. The society’s power is funded by money made in the oil industry. Dracula plans to dismantle and destroy them by introducing free magnetic power for everyone.

Dracula and Wetherby

Jonathan Rhys Meyers plays Dracula. He won several awards for his role in The Tudors and for Elvis. Born in Dublin and raised by a single mother, he spent some time in an orphanage. He was expelled from school at 16. He has a natural brooding quality perfect for this role and gives a raw and convincing performance as the nighttime predator.

Why do we need to save the Count? Because the Friday night 9:00 time slot is driving a stake through his cold heart. After four episodes of the series, the ratings have slipped. Finally, there is a show on TV worth watching and it may not be renewed.

Dracula tonight

Dracula is horror by genre, but the show is not about gore. There is blood and it has its terrifying moments, but it is tempered with a refined beauty and an unpredictable plot.

I hatched a plan. If we tweet #savedracula, maybe we can create enough buzz to attract new viewers!

Tune in to NBC next Friday night November 29th, at 9:00. Full episodes can be viewed online at NBC.com/Dracula or check out your cable station’s pay-per-view and watch them free whenever you like. Don’t let the Count go down for the count…

Have you seen any episodes?

All photos from Dracula’s Facebook Page

TV by the Numbers – Ratings

65 thoughts on “Save the Count!”

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    1. Thanks so much for stopping by to read
      I gotta believe their target audience is in their 20s-30s and most are out on Friday nights. I won’t watch anything disturbing, but so much is disguised in shadow. It’s a far cry from an Oliver Stone production.

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  3. Wow – so you really enjoyed this? Even with all the vampire overkill at the moment? You certainly make it sound intriguing. I just may check it out.

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      1. Their effects are pretty good (gone are the days of a planet’s sky painted on cardboard where you can see the actor shadows against it.), and the acting of the Dr is actually right in line with the character.
        The show Saturday will have John Hurt as a bad version of the doctor.
        If you have Netflix or something, check out the first episode of the reboot – Rose from 2005.
        there are some crappy episodes along the way, but overall, it’s been a really good run so far since they restarted it.

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  8. Like you, I have been enjoying this. I’m pretty sure that the over saturation with all things vampire is the problem. The newer, hipper vampires have all the young folks in line with just flashbacks of the original times. This Dracula is everything you say and brings me closer to what Bram Stoker had in mind when he wrote it.

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  9. It seems there is less and less on TV these days – so it’s often not on here. I did notice the first episode – it’s not really Dracula, but as you say a whole different plot line. ( It sort of had some Batman story in it?…I wandered off…) WIll give it another try. (But Dr Who rocks time)

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    1. I am surrounded by Who fans! I promise to give it another go since you will be tuning in to Dracula. 🙂 There are some Bruce Wayne overtones but with a sexy Victorian twist.
      Thanks Phil!

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    1. Thanks so much Tom! I’m sure The Count will appreciate your effort.
      Skiing was a blast! I only took three runs, but skied top to bottom without stopping so it was a good early season work out. 🙂

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  13. I didn’t think much of the first episode, but I’m really into it now. There are three Irish actors playing parts in this – Lucy, Lady Jayne and the Count himself.

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  17. I’m more inclined to floss my teeth for an hour straight, Susie, than watch any episodic series on network TV, but Milton is a HUGE fan of “The Good Wife”. So, if the Count goes down for the count, you might want to DVR TGW and watch it in that time slot.

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    1. I’ve watched TGW but don’t like where its going. Its like the writers couldn’t figure out what to do with her this season so they decided to make her snide and badass. Its not in her character… I bet your teeth are pearly white!
      Are you going to do a Thanksgiving Lame adventure?

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      1. I will try to post a Lame Adventure this coming Monday and the Monday after this coming Monday, but will either have much to do with Turkey Day, it’s too early to tell. I’m still in recovery from having to go out trick or treating as Fred Flintstone 48 years ago.

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  18. That’s really strange that a show about handsome vampires isn’t doing so well on TV, given today’s obsession with vampires. Do you think that a secret society may be trying to push the show off the air?

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  19. We still have not had a chance to see this show as we are usually out on Fridays nights. I’m more of a Walking Dead fan and now I have been sucked into Sleepy Hallow which is so over the top it’s actually a fun show.

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    1. I watched that the other night. It seemed dark but for a younger crowd like tweens. I did like the twist of finding out who he was and why he sought vengeance. But he started it!!!

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  21. This isn’t showing in NZ – I’ve seen a lot of the Dracula movies, of course, but not this one. Sounds intriguing. It’d be typical, I think, for a good show to collapse on the back of poor ratings – perhaps purely because of the time-slot it’s shown in.

    Apropos the ‘weird but true’ department, in the original Stoker novel, Dracula was despatched with a bowie knife. No sign of Buffy and Mr Pointy The Stake anywhere! 🙂

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  22. I’m not a dracula fan, but what caught my eye in your post, Susie, is: She has no idea she’s sleeping with the very prey she hunts.”
    Guess she took the saying ‘keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer” to a whole new height!! LOL

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    1. That’s exactly what he’s doing and hopes to use her emotional tie to him to defeat the society. This plot keeps twisting so there may be more to it. We’ll see.
      Thanks Denise!

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  23. I’ve watched this show every week, and there are things I like about it – Lady Jayne and her arc, for one; the simply concept of taking down an empire piece by piece (which ABC’s Revenge had done well for the 1st half of Season 1 before the writers ran out of ideas); the incorporation of 19th century science – but Jonathan Rhys Meyers horribly overacts throughout. His monologues are ridiculous. His Dracula isn’t brooding. He’s a wimpy, 1800s Tony Stark.

    I was a big fan of 666 Park Avenue, another horror show that didn’t get a fair shake in its 10PM Sunday timeslot and didn’t last a full season, so I feel your pain.

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    1. I like his manner of speaking and reminds me of Mr. Selfrige who was an American in England. To me it beats a lot of crap that’s on TV. Too much reality TV! They produce those shows because they are so cheap to make.
      A lot of shows take a while to get their bearings. We’ll see if it survives. I hope so!
      Thanks for stopping by!

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      1. Oh. Also forgot to mention. Have you seen Sleepy Hollow on FOX? That’s another good one in a similar vein as Dracula. To me, its the best of the bunch of all these horror/period pieces that seem to crop up from time to time.

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