NBC's "Dracula" cancelled after 1 season.

The NBC fall lineup was announced earlier in the week and amongst the shows who got the ax was the Friday night vampire drama "Dracula".

Dracula which starred Irish actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers as the Hungarian count rebuilding his life as an American entrepreneur living in London (confusing right?) debuted last fall to a lot of hype and high ratings but failed to live up to that hype and was downright bashed by many critics followed by viewership regularly falling as the weeks went on.  With the vast popularity of the vampire drama amongst the female demographic how exactly did this show go wrong?

IF IT ISN'T BROKE FIX IT ANYWAY
This seemed to be the idea used with the plot of this show.  The character "Dracula" has a following that spans almost a century and the idea of building a show around his love life should work as that is what is currently popular amongst fans of the genre (see Twilight, Vampire Diaries, True Blood and the return of Anne Rices "Lestat").  But instead the show seemed to spend more time building the character as a hero and political figure.  Over 5 million viewers mostly women tuned in on October 25th for the debut of the show to see a sexy young Dracula swoon, slobber and bite women and instead they got a show about POLITICS.

Dracula spent most episodes having flashbacks, complaining, performing experiments to try to cure his vampirism and attending board meetings.  Imagine Vampire Diaries but instead of all the relationship rollercoasters and supernatural creature fighting it was an hour of the mystic fall kids worrying about their grades.  While there was tons of room for improvement in a season 2 it really didn't feel like the plot was moving along fast enough to save the show and low and behold it got cancelled.

THINGS THAT COULD HAVE HELPED THE SHOW
 - Stick with the core Dracula values:  Dracula wasn't an environmentalist and civil rights activist and if he was it wouldn't be for moralistic reasons.   As goofy as this may sound he should have been patterned more like the 1990's teen drama Dracula: The Series which had a similar plot but took place in a more modern era.  

- More eye candy:  Dracula deep down was a love sick puppy who collected women for his amusement but only had sites for one.  If this show was to delve into his everyday life the guy should have been a womanizing playboy.  By this point in the Dracula history he should've had enough vampire brides to make his own Robert Palmer video.

 Instead not only is he brideless but the only person who lives with him is Renfield (who's now a big black guy from the US).

- Turn on a light:  I realize that the show takes place pre Thomas Edison and one of the main plot points is that Dracula was pushing to invent a source of self sustaining energy (have I mentioned NBC Universal is owned by General Electric yet?) but it's a major problem if on a high definition television no matter how much you adjust your TV you can still barely see what's going on.  Any of the scenes at night (IE most of the show) might as well been a radio show.

In the end another one bites the dust which we should be used to by now (Moonlight, the Gates, Dark Shadows remake,).  On the bright side The Vampire Diaries, the Originals and From Dusk Till Dawn have all been renewed, there's still one more season left of True Blood which starts in June and FX debuts The Strain this summer.

The one thing I will give them is they went out on a positive note as the last 10 minutes of the shows existence saw the ONLY female main character who gets turned.  In the series finale episode "Let There be Light" Lucy (Katie McGrath) gets bitten earlier in the episode by an angry Grayson for moving in on his territory (yep she tries to go lesbo on Mina and when Mina rejects her sleeps with her fiance Jonathon for revenge). The first person Lucy sees when she wakes up is her mother and the result is below.

 Yeah it's like shooting off the best fireworks after everyone's already gone home and are in bed but at least it happened. 

Trailer for NBC's new fall series "Dracula"

Courtesy of NBC here is the trailer for their upcoming new fall series "Dracula"

There is a quick shot of what seems to be Dracula's Brides here so it's safe to say they should be involved in the show (more than likely a flashback).  For more on potential female vampires on the series see my show preview HERE.

New Vampire Series coming to NBC this Fall!

So for awhile NBC has been looking to get into the vampire TV show business that it seems all the television networks in the US had dipped their hat in but they've pretty much avoided since the abrupt end of their Dark Shadows remake in 1991.  Originally it was believed that this would end up being the dramatic "Munsters" remake "Mockingbird Lane" but that idea was eventually scrapped and reduced to being a comedic one time holiday special.

The more things change the more they stay the same as they have now begun casting for a TV show which centers around the Dracula character in an original storyline.  As the preview summary of the show states, Dracula has moved back to London disguising himself as an American entrepreneur named "Allen Grayson" who has a secret vendetta against several people and is using this disguise to get his revenge on them while at the same time doing the normal Dracula lusting thing after Mina Murray.

Now with the exception of the ones based off of the best selling novels such as The Vampire Diaries and True Blood.  Vampire TV shows don't tend to last long, ESPECIALLY on network TV.  I mean honestly, how many people even knew shows like Moonlight and The Gates even existed let alone were vampire shows?  None the less, if it's anything like The Gates, even if it doesn't make it past it's first season I'm excited for it anyway.

While there are no confirmed vampiresses in the cast yet, we do have characters who we know become vampires in the original Dracula so it should be only a matter of time.  Here is the rundown.

Victoria Smurfit (Lady Jane)

 The only thing we know about Lady Jane (besides the fact that she was kind of butchy in the GI Joe cartoon) is that she will have a thing for Dracula/Grayson from the start.  If you've watched enough Dracula films you know that normally this means she's going to be turned just to shut her up and she'll then be used to help him seduce Mina and run interference on Jonathan Harker.  At least we hope.

Katie McGrath (Lucy Westenra)

In every Dracula story ever Lucy ends up a vamp.  Unfortunately in every version of Dracula she also ends up offed about five minutes after she turns so we hope that rule gets broken.  Lets face it, Katie has the gothic classic vampire look already so I think it's safe to call this one.  She's turning. 

Jessica De Gouw (Mina Murray)

Now if history tells us anything, we have no chance of seeing this lovely Aussie with fangs unless the show lasts past one season.  Otherwise it'll be a lot of flirting and coming really close but no real payoff whatsoever.

With that, there is TONS of potential for this series.  Hopefully it'll live up to that potential when it debuts in the Fall 2013 television season.