''Dracula'' is a drama-horror television serial developed by

Mark Gatiss Mark Gatiss (; born 17 October 1966) is an English actor, comedian, screenwriter, director, producer and novelist. His work includes writing for and acting in the television series '' Doctor Who'', '' Sherlock'', and '' Dracula''. Together with ...

and

Steven Moffat Steven William Moffat (; born 18 November 1961) is a Scottish television writer, television producer and screenwriter. He is best known for his work as showrunner, writer and executive producer of the science fiction television series ''Doct ...

, based on the 1897 novel of the same name by

Bram Stoker Abraham Stoker (8 November 1847 – 20 April 1912) was an Irish author who is celebrated for his 1897 Gothic horror novel '' Dracula''. During his lifetime, he was better known as the personal assistant of actor Sir Henry Irving and busi ...

. The series, consisting of three episodes, premiered on 1 January 2020 and was broadcast over three consecutive days on

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...

before releasing on

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a ...

Claes Bang Claes Kasper Bang (; born 28 April 1967) is a Danish actor and musician. He is best known for playing the leading role of Christian in Ruben Östlund's 2017 film '' The Square'', which won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and for the ...

stars as the

title character The title character in a narrative work is one who is named or referred to in the title of the work. In a performed work such as a play or film, the performer who plays the title character is said to have the title role of the piece. The title of ...

Premise

The series follows Dracula from his origins in Eastern Europe to his battles with

Van Helsing A van is a type of road vehicle used for transporting goods or people. Depending on the type of van, it can be bigger or smaller than a pickup truck and SUV, and bigger than a common car. There is some varying in the scope of the word across ...

's descendants and beyond. Netflix's description reads: "The Count Dracula legend transforms with new tales that flesh out the vampire's gory crimes—and bring his vulnerability into the light."

Cast

Episodes

Production

Development

Development on ''Dracula'' began in June 2017, with

and

reuniting to write the episodes. In October 2018, the series was officially commissioned by the BBC, to air on

and

was set to star as the eponymous Dracula in November 2018. According to the writers, Dracula in their version is "the hero of his own story" – the central focus of the narrative and main character, rather than a shadowy villain for more traditional heroes to overcome. As with their TV series '' Sherlock'', they aimed to make their version of Dracula both faithful and faithless at the same time, taking details from the original novel, adding "a lot of new stuff" hat was not in the noveland ignoring some passages from it. While the series includes a scene in which it is implied that Dracula and Harker have sex, Moffat has said that it is not correct to describe their interpretation of Dracula as

bisexual Bisexuality is a romantic or sexual attraction or behavior toward both males and females, or to more than one gender. It may also be defined to include romantic or sexual attraction to people regardless of their sex or gender identity, whic ...

: "He's bi-homicidal, it's not the same thing. He's killing them, not dating them." He also added: "He's not actually having sex with anyone. He's drinking their blood."

Casting

In February 2019, John Heffernan,

Dolly Wells Dorothy Perpetua Wells (born Gatacre; 5 December 1971)Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, vol. III, 2003, pg 3046 is an English actress and writer. She co-wrote and starred in the Sky Living series '' Doll & Em'' (2014–2015) with Emil ...

Joanna Scanlan Joanna Marion Scanlan (born 27 October 1961) is a British actress. On television, she is known for her roles in British series such as ''The Thick of It'' (2005–2012), '' Getting On'' (2009–2012), ''Puppy Love'' (2014), and ''No Offence'' ( ...

Morfydd Clark Morfydd Clark (born ) is a Welsh actress. She is best known for her role as Galadriel in the Amazon Prime fantasy series '' The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power'' (2022–). She received a number of accolades for her performance in the fil ...

and Lujza Richter joined the cast, with Gatiss also set to appear in the series. In April,

Jonathan Aris Jonathan Aris is a British actor who has appeared in films, television and the theatre. He has narrated three TV documentaries produced and aired by the National Geographic Channel, and appears as Philip Anderson in the BBC television series ' ...

Sacha Dhawan Sacha Dhawan (; born 1 May 1984) is a British actor from Greater Manchester. He is best known for playing Akthar in the play '' The History Boys'' (2004–2006) and its film adaptation (2006), Paul Jatri in the BBC One comedy drama series '' Las ...

Nathan Stewart-Jarrett Nathan Lloyd Stewart-Jarrett (born 4 December 1985) is a British actor, best known for starring as Curtis Donovan in the E4 series ''Misfits'' and as Ian in the Channel 4 series ''Utopia''. Early life Stewart-Jarrett was born in Wandsworth, ...

, Catherine Schell, Youssef Kerkour and Clive Russell joined the cast with

Jonny Campbell Jonny Campbell is a British director. Biography Campbell studied French and German at Durham University and began his career at Granada TV working on documentaries. He soon moved into drama. Selected filmography Film * '' Alien Autopsy'' (2006) ...

, Damon Thomas and Paul McGuigan announced as directors.

Filming

Moffat revealed filming on the series had begun on 4 March 2019. Filming took place at Orava Castle,

Banská Štiavnica Banská Štiavnica (; german: Schemnitz; hu, Selmecbánya (Selmec), ) is a town in central Slovakia, in the middle of an immense caldera created by the collapse of an ancient volcano. For its size, the caldera is known as the Štiavnica Mountai ...

and Zuberec in

Slovakia Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the ...

and at

Bray Studios Bray Productions was a pioneering American animation studio that produced several popular cartoons during the years of World War I and the early interwar era, becoming a springboard for several key animators of the 20th century, including the ...

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; in the 17th century sometimes spelt phonetically as Barkeshire; abbreviated Berks.) is a historic county in South East England. One of the home counties, Berkshire was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II as the Royal County of Ber ...

. Filming was completed on 1 August 2019.

Title sequence

The title sequence was made by Peter Anderson Studio. In 2021 it was nominated for a BAFTA at the British Academy Television Craft Awards in the category "Television Craft – Titles & Graphic Identity".

Release

Broadcast

''Dracula'' premiered on BBC One on 1 January 2020, and was broadcast over three consecutive days. The three episodes were released on Netflix on 4 January 2020. The documentary ''In Search of Dracula'', with Mark Gatiss exploring the legacy of the famous Count, aired alongside the series on

BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream a ...

on 3 January. The overnight ratings for the three episodes were 3.60 million, 2.85 million, and 2.70 million respectively.

Marketing

To mark the series premiere, BBC Creative and Talon Outdoor constructed billboards stabbed with wooden stakes that would cast a shadow of the Count after sunset, and below the billboards was a stake inside a case with the label "In case of vampires - break glass". These billboards were put up on Brixton Road in London and Upper Dean Street in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...

. The billboards won a number of awards and £100,000 worth of media space for the creators at the 2020 Outdoor Media Awards organised by

Clear Channel UK Clear Channel UK is the British division of iHeartMedia, a global media conglomerate based in San Antonio, Texas, United States of America. It operates through a complex group structure, with some 70 UK subsidiary companies. As with its U.S ...

in partnership with Campaign.

Reception

Critical reception

The series was met with positive reviews. On

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

, the series garnered a 71% approval and an average rating of 7.2/10 from 55 critic reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "A delicious blend of horror and humor that more-or-less balances modern sensibilities and the character's beloved legacy, ''Dracula'' is a frighteningly fun — if not always faithful — time."

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

assigned the series a score of 75 out of 100, based on 8 reviews, signifying "generally favorable reviews".

Accolades

Future

In February 2020, Bang expressed his interest in a second series. Gatiss said "Apparently if you pour blood onto Dracula's ashes he comes back. Who knows? Dracula tends to come back, that's what vampires do – but we have no idea

f the show will return F, or f, is the sixth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ef'' (pronounced ), and the plural is ''efs''. His ...

References

External links

* * * {{Netflix original ended series (2019–present) 2020 British television series debuts 2020 British television series endings 2020s British drama television series 2020s British television miniseries BBC Television shows Television series by Hartswood Films British horror fiction television series Dark fantasy television series Dracula television shows English-language Netflix original programming Television series set in 2020 Television series set in the 1890s Television shows set in London Works set in castles Television shows filmed in Slovakia Television series by BBC Studios