Dracula

An overabundance of ingredients hurts both Dracula and its Dracula, the latter of which is constructed from the discarded bits of characters within and without the public domain.

This supernatural thriller is much more attuned to the times than PBS’ costume period piece “Downton Abbey,” which filters such hot topics as women’s rights and homosexuality through a modern lens.... Mina’s aspirations to become a surgeon are publicly disparaged by the person closest to her next week in a moment that hits harder than the onscreen horror. Dracula’s visit to an under­ground gay club next week is well, bizarre, but it captures how homosexuals dwelled in the shadows, terrified of exposure. Those moments are far more biting than any of the so-called scares.

Meyers' Dracula is in line with the seductive, brooding bloodsuckers we've become used to lately, sipping fine whiskey as often as he does blood. The pilot moves very slowly, but the production values are outstanding.

Rhys Meyers is mostly effective during such inserting, exuding exotic appeal and sensitive yearning—at least when he’s gazing on his object of desire from afar. When he speaks, his appeal is dulled by his flattened, put-on American accent, which makes him sound like Chris Pine.

There’s nothing overtly bad about the first two episodes of Dracula but neither was there anything compelling.

Watching NBC’s Dracula isn’t always easy, and not only because its Dublin-born star, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, is often compelled to speak with a cartoonish American accent.... The biggest distraction of all may be the series’ sociopolitical construct, seemingly ripped from the headlines about Occupy Wall Street, as told to climate-change zealots and written up by Dalton Trumbo.... To its credit, this one isn’t camp and doesn’t clown around.

Turning Dracula into a fanged insurgent battling ruthless oligarchs is a nifty idea, and the electricity plot allows for diverting steampunk-meets-“Bride of Frankenstein” visuals. But nothing about the show is as much fun as it should be. The storytelling is slow and anemic, spelling everything out at length.

Unfortunately, this Dracula isn’t fun at all. It’s not really scary, either, although it does spill a lot of blood.

NBC sent critics five episodes of the 10-episode season. Bored, I bowed out after three [episodes].

Dracula flirts with camp, without quite committing. Unlike Fox’s Sleepy Hollow, in which Ichabod Crane finds himself alive in the present day, Dracula does not seem to be in on the joke of itself.