The team of Steven Moffatt and Mark Gatiss reconvene to provide us with their own take on the legend of "Bram Stokers: Dracula". With their halo slipping a little after the later episodes of "Sherlock" my anticipation is a little tempered for this, but the opening episode was excellent.
Unconventional nun, Sister Agatha (Dolly Wells) is interviewing what remains of Jonathan Harker (John Heffernan) in a convent. Through flashback, we see Harker arrive at the stately home of Count Dracula (Claes Bang). As Harker's heath deteriorates, his host appears to get younger with each meeting. As the truth comes to light, Agatha comes to appreciate that she's not as safe in the holy house as she would have hoped.
I liked this a lot. Tonally, I think its spot on. A true horror story, pushing the limits of the BBC CGI limitations to the fore but not without humour and wit, both for the cutting one liner, from the phenomenal Dolly Wells - or some high camp from the Count himself. I'm not sure how he gets away with some of the lines he does. It's not a straight adaptation, using the bones of the novel as a starting point for taking aspects of the story to different places, but it's all the better for that. I picked up on references to both "Sherlock" and "Dr Who" (is it too much to hope that a Victorian Nick Fury appears in a post credits scene as says that "He's putting together a team).
I do feel like this is a little longer than it needs to be, maybe sticking to that "Sherlock" format a little too rigidly. So it's a bit padded. But this is a minor complaint about a show that comes alive whenever Dracula appears (ironically) and has found an excellent foil for him in its Van Helsing.
