Dracula series on Netflix - starts great, fizzles quickly

Even though I think i am with a majority of people when I say that I am kind of sick of the rehashing of old stories over and over again I was excited when I saw that Dracula as a new series release on Netflix. The show appeared to have a high level of money pumped into it and had a fantastic ambiance right from the start.

It is clearly based on Bram Stokers's recounting of the story as you can almost imagine Keanu Reeves in the part of Jonathan Harker, whom we are introduced to straight away in a chilling sequence where he is recounting his time at Dracula's castle. At this point the show is still really good.

At this point most people are probably already very familiar with the story as it does mirror the original novel and the 1992 blockbuster film where Keanu Reeves put on what might be the worst British accent of all time in film. I was still enjoying the show during all of this. Unfortunately, by the end of the first episode things start to spiral into a "modern twist" on the story that I am certain was their intention all along and well, it is even part of their marketing ploy in that they used the phrase "The Legend gets some Fresh Blood."

But it invites the question from me and many others - "Did it need it?"

Dracula starts out looking like Gary Oldman's portrayal in the 1992 film but within the first 30 minutes has changed into what appears to be a completely different actor who is more Pierce Brosnan in a 007 sense than he is Dracula. The comedic elements that are introduced into his character made me feel at times as though he was being played by Ricky Gervais.

I can appreciate what they were trying to do but in my mind (and I am speaking contrary to the current overall opinion by the online approval rating) to be a bit lame. Basically, it stopped being creepy and had a more whimsical aspect to it.

The problem I have with this presentation might have a lot to do with me not enjoying when directors and producers take a finished product that was already done quite well and then muck about with it to the point where they are so desperately trying to not "copy" an already finished product and then try to make something new that we didn't really need.

The series is only 3 episodes long and by the time I got to the end of it I was genuinely bored with a great deal of it, especially once they attempted (and i guess succeeded) in putting the Van Helsing bloodline into it all.

I also didn't like the fact that each of the episodes are as long as a full-length film and honestly, despite the fact that I love Netflix to a much higher degree than a person probably should, was just too damn long for me.

I felt as though the series seemed very "Sherlock" ish and I suppose you could say that I wasn't terribly surprised to find out that this is precisely who is behind this production. Mostly, I'm going to go ahead and disagree with the 80% of people that have said they thought this was a good show and go out on a limb and say that I was terribly disappointed with most every aspect of this series.

I think that right now, and perhaps forever, stretching the story of Dracula into 4.5 hours and introducing elements into it that have nothing to do with the original story doesn't need to be done and I found it boring. That's my 2 pence.