TV MEMORIES NEW YEAR SPECIAL PART TWO - DRACULA (2020) EPISODE 2 - BLOOD VESSEL

 The second of January 2020 - and a virulent and deadly danger is about to be unleashed upon the modern world...

...But I'm not here to talk about COVID 19, I'm talking about another virulent foe that arrives in the modern world - Count Dracula, because that's exactly what he does in episode two of Moffatt and Gatiss' take on Bram stoker"s horror classic.

Episode two - Blood Vessel deals with Dracula's sea voyage to England (the so-called "modern world") on board the Russian passenger ship The Demeter.

We get to see Cleas Bang's Dracula at his urbane and gleefully sadistic best in this episode as he mixes among the mortal crew and passengers. Bang is again great fun to watch in this episode as we see Dracula get up to all sorts of vampiric mischief. One moment he's seducing an elderly German countess who he wooed back in her younger days. The next he's draining the blood (and knowledge) of a German crew member, just so he can obtain the crewman's knowledge of the German language and "brush up" on it. That's right - Count Dracula takes a man's life just so he can show off his language skills to an old flame. He's a total arsehole but somehow you can't help but like this version of the Count all the same - he's basically a loveable (albeit deadly) rogue.

This trope of black humour flows throughout this episode (even the title "Blood Vessel" is a pun). We also get to see Dracula's more feral side - there's one moment where a character is injured and starts to bleed, Dracula visibly has to fight his own urge to drink the blood so that he can maintain his human facade. He's like a junkie going cold turkey - it's a great moment and goes to show how Dracula actually ISN'T as in control of things as he likes to think he is.

Bang is accompanied on this voyage by an excellent supporting cast including Sacha Dhawan (the latest actor to play Doctor Who's arch enemy - The Master) as a vampire hunting medic, Patrick Walsh McBride as a bi-sexual aristocrat Lord Ruthven who has fallen under the Count's spell and Jonathan Aris as the captain of the doomed ship.

I particularly liked Samuel Blenkin as Piotr - the deckhand, and Youseff Kerkour as Olgaren - the ship's cook. The two form a firm friendship over the course of the episode which adds a much needed dose of humanity to the proceedings.

Dolly Wells is also on hand again as Sister Agatha Van Helsing, she's every bit as good as she was in the first episode and we once more get a sense of the depth of grudging respect and admiration the two arch nemesis are harbouring for each other.

Of course, it's the last ten minutes of this episode that REALLY got people talking at the time. A dying Agatha blows up The Demeter and Dracula seemingly goes to a watery grave. However the wily prince of darkness takes shelter in a handy coffin and sinks to the bottom of the ocean depths. Sometime later he comes round and literally walks the rest of the way to England on the bottom of the seabed.

Drac arrives in Whitby (as per the novel) where he has a welcoming committee in the shape of a SWAT team (complete with armed helicopter) headed by Dolly Wells as a modern day counterpart of Sister Agatha. Dracula has made it to "the modern world" alright... LITERALLY ! The implication is clear - Dracula slept for longer than he intended in that submerged coffin and he's now undead and well in 21st century Britain.

I can remember people online where buzzing over this twist - some thought it was great, others thought it was a cop out, Stoker purists where frothing at the mouth. For what it's worth I really enjoyed this twist but I can see why it would piss some people off. Blood Vessel was a brilliant episode, not quite as spectacular (or gory) as the opener but a satisfying slice of gothic horror all the same.  There was a huge sense that all bets where off for the third and final episode which was to transmit the following evening...but more on that next time.