TV MEMORIES NEW YEAR SPECIAL PART 3 - DRACULA (2020) EPISODE 3 - THE DARK COMPASS

 The story so far...In the first few days of 2020 BBC One (in association with Netflix) broadcast Stephen Moffatt and Mark Gatiss reimagined take on Dracula as a three part mini-series. Episodes one and two followed the basic structure of Stoker's novel, albeit with a radical new take on the traditional story.

However - the end of part two saw Count Dracula literally wake up in the 21st century. From here on in things where about to get decidedly weird.

If course - it's not the first time the character of Dracula has been transported to modern day times. Hammer did it with thier final two Dracula movies - Dracula A.D. 1972 and The Satanic Rites Of Dracula which saw Christopher Lee's vampire face the horrors of 70's "teenagers" (naturally played by people in thier thirties) in "Swinging" London. Marvel Comics also took the chance to "modernised" the Prince of Darkness in thier seminal "Tomb Of Dracula" comic book series. So in his way, Dracula is no stranger to time travel.

Moffatt and Gatiss themselves also where no strangers to transplanting characters from classic literature into a present day setting, they'd already proved themselves adept at doing just that with thier modernised take on Sherlock Holmes in the BBC'S Sherlock TV show. 

So did Dracula's latest visit to the present day actually work ?...Well...Yes and no.

Firstly the things that work - Claes Bang is again excellent as Dracula. The Count's knowledge draining skills really come in handy in this episode in helping Dracula get up to speed with 21st life. What we see is a man who is literally out of time but finding wonder in his new surroundings.

There's a lovely scene where Dracula is sat in a shabby looking council bungalow watching his first sunrise in centuries on TV. He remarks how out of all the grand, noble palaces he has visited throughout the centuries, this simple, humble home is the most fantastic place he's ever seen - because it's made things that would have been seen as miracles in his time commonplace, even mundane.

Dolly Wells returns for this episode playing a 21st century descendant of Agatha Van Helsing (in true TV/movie style she somehow manages to look EXACTLY like her own ancestor) - Zoe Van Helsing is a very different character from Sister Agatha though. Where Agatha was a nun, Zoe is a scientist. Where Agatha was upbeat, positive and witty, Zoe is much more pragmatic and due to the fact she's dying of cancer is an altogether more gloomy character.

We still get to see Wells play Agatha though. In a crazy plot twist Dracula drank from Agatha in the previous episode and so part of her is now part of him. Zoe injects some of Dracula's blood into her own veins, so now Agatha ALSO becomes part of Zoe (even though she kind of is already, what with her being her ancestor and everything...). 

The upshot of all this is that Zoe and Agatha sort of merge and as a result Zoe starts displaying some of Agatha's personality traits and mannerisms, as well as acquiring all of her ancestor's vampire fighting skills and knowledge. It's all very Marvel Comics but it works well enough and allows Dolly Wells to give an even more rounded and multi-faceted performance than she did in the previous episodes. She really is very good.

We also get a great sort of cameo appearance from co-writer Mark Gatiss playing a very geeky and socially awkward 21st century version of Renfield. He gets some funny scenes with Bang as he awkwardly tries to bond with his "Master". It made me smile anyway...

There's also a return to the more gory and creepy style of horror that was evident in episode one but toned down in the second episode. We get one character who resurrects from the dead during their own funeral...the problem is they're being cremated, as you can imagine this doesn't end well for anyone.

I think Stephen Moffatt must have a bit of a phobia about being cremated as this theme also cropped up in one of the Doctor Who episodes he penned. In that episode the souls of the dead felt every second of pain as thier bodies where committed to the flames. It's something that had honestly never occurred to me before, but thinking about it he may well have a perfectly valid point. It's something that certainly now gives me the horrors that's for sure...

The resultant mess that emerges from this botched resurrection is also pretty damn effective - a charred walking corpse. The previously beautiful Lucy Westenra (Lydia West - more on her later) is now basically a walking scab.

You'd almost feel sorry for her if her character wasn't so bloody annoying (again - more on this when we come to the bad parts of this episode).

Perhaps best of all though is the creepy little dead kid who follows Lucy home one night after Dracula takes her out on a "date" to the local cemetery (Dracula really knows how to show the ladies a good time). The kid is semi-decomposed and has a habit of saying "Peekaboo" to Lucy (although he has some kind of speech impediment so it comes out as "Peterboo" which my spell checker annoyingly keeps changing to "Peterborough", isn't technology great ?). Anyway just look at the creepy little bastard and weep...

Ok, so now we're onto the things which don't work in this final episode and unfortunately some of them are big enough to almost (but not quite) derail the entire series.

First of all we have the character of Lucy bloody Westenra !!!!!

Now don't get me wrong Lydia West is a decent actress and she puts in a good performance but the character of Lucy in this version is absolutely terrible. In Stoker's original novel Lucy is a debutante who's not too bright and something of a flirt who has several potential suitors but this 21st century version is an utterly vapid and annoying person in every possible way.

Lucy is basically a decadent nightclub hopping bimbo. She's surrounded by a sycophantic entourage of equally vapid nightclubbing mates (including the standard issue "gay best friend") who all seem to adore her. 

Christ knows what all these kids do for money as all they ever seem to be doing is falling out of trendy London nitespots at 3 a.m. in the morning, not one of them ever mentions having a job or even any studies that they have to get back to (the only exception is Jack Seward but he's such a wet blanket that he barely registers) - maybe they're all supposed to be students ? Maybe they've all managed to hit upon the ultimate Universal Credit scam and they can claim infinite benefits without ever having to look for work or maybe they're all just a bunch of rich trust fund babies (I'm going for this option) - either way they're all massively MASSIVELY annoying. You'll be praying for Dracula to launch an army of blood starved vampire bats to swarm all over these trendy twats and rip thier throats out, you really will. Unfortunately this doesn't happen...shame really.

To make matters worse is the fact that they're clearly a bunch of so-called "modern" kids that have been written by middle-aged writers. Moffatt and Gatiss are both incredibly good writers but they really struggle to write convincing "youth" dialogue.

Anyway back to Lucy...

She's undoubtedly extremely hot but my God doesn't the character know it. She gives seemingly endless speeches about what it's like to be pretty and how everyone loves you. You'll honestly be cheering and punching the air when she gets roasted and ends up looking like Freddy Krueger with tits. Self obsessed doesn't even begin to cover it with this girl.

The thing that grates the most though is that Dracula seems to absolutely fall head over heels in love with her. It's not quite the soppy level that Gary Oldman's Dracula moons over Winona Ryder but it's not many degrees separated. The thing is - I just don't buy it that this version of Dracula would be so drawn to someone like this, and yes, I know the point is that Lucy is typical of how Dracula sees the 21st Century - to him she's exotic, whereas to us she's just some airheaded party girl - it's that whole thing of the 21st century making the extreme and fantastic appear "everyday" and "mundane". Lucy is the embodiment of that, but for some reason it just doesn't sit well with me. Dracula is an undead centuries old nobleman, in reality - I'm betting he'd spend half an hour with this bitch listening to her witter on about how pretty she is whilst taking endless "duck face" selfies of herself and he'd soon get pissed off with her. Mark my words.

No matter how irritating Lucy is, she still isn't the main deal breaker in this final episode...oh no, not by a long chalk...

The ending is just ridiculous. Zoe Van Helsing exposes Dracula to sunlight and instead of disintegrating into dust, Dracula finds it can't actually harm him. His aversion to sunlight (along with most of his other "weaknesses") are all in his mind.

Up till now Dracula has been seen to be absolutely revelling in his own badassery. So what do you think this brutal, cocky, mischievous incarnation of Dracula does upon finding out that he's actually invincible ? Does he track down the descendants of everyone who ever even slightly annoyed him and drain them dry of every last drop of blood ? Does he stage a bid for world domination ? Perhaps he goes a bit simpler and more basic and finds Johnathan Harker's grave and does a merry little victory dance on it ? No...no, no, no, no, NO !!!!! Instead Dracula decides that he's finally met his match in Zoe/Agatha and drinks her cancerous blood knowing full well that it'll kill him stone dead. The two mortal enemies die in each other's arms...The End. WHAT ????? This is just SO out of character from what we've seen in the previous episodes - IT. MAKES. NO. SENSE. In ANY way - narratively or character wise. It just feels like Moffatt and Gatiss wrote themselves into a corner, didn't have the budget for a fourth episode and thought "Sod it. That'll have to do. Everyone's still hungover over from New Year's Eve three days ago. They won't notice." It's a textbook example of how to derail what was some of your most exciting work in the last ten minutes of screen time. It really is a genuine shame.

I can remember the internet basically going into meltdown over this episode. Irate fans claiming that Dracula had been permanently ruined. I wouldn't say it's that bad - it's just a bit silly and disappointing and let's the side down from what came before.

Whatever, the resultant bad feedback and negative reviews where enough to scupper the plans for a potential second series. Which is a shame as much of this was very entertaining and it was an interesting new take on an old story with a charismatic and well cast new Dracula to join the legendary pantheon. 

Claes Bang has since gone on record saying that he'd be well up for donning the famous cloak and plastic fangs one more time, but sadly I don't this will ever happen. It's a shame because for a while there on those first three evenings of the bizarre, scary and apocalyptic year of 2020 an old horror friend had a new face and for a while there it looked like he was going to be back for good. Aw well...