Review: BBC and Netflix’s Dracula Is a Gory but Banal Adaptation of a Classic – slantmagazine

We will likely look back at the 2010s as a simpler time, when sea levels remained relatively stable, Disney hadnt decimated the last remaining movie houses, and there were only three networks: Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu. Two thousand and nineteen was a watershed year for the expansion of streaming, so it seems like a fitting moment to reflect on the events that led to the Great War.

If the aughts represented a new golden age of television, then the following decade proved that the future of the medium lies in its ability to democractize via technological growth. Event television has replaced appointment television, as the sheer volume of content continues to balloon and more viewers shift to on-demand viewing. Our expectations, too, have evolved as the format bends and morphs to adapt to its new environment, with years-long gaps between ever-shorter seasons and shows once thought dead resurrected like zombies from our salad days.

And yet, humans crave familiarity: Game of Thrones reinvented the viewing party; networks rebooted or revived well-known properties, albeit to varying degrees of success; and weve replaced our old cable bill with an la carte menu of streaming options that add up to more or less the same price. More importantly, as we venture out into the proverbial Wild West, and as the boundaries between TV and film continue to vanish, one thing remains constant: our desire for stories that reflect who we are, what we fear, what we treasure, and what we find side-splittingly funny. But then, even those lines have begun to blur. Sal Cinquemani

The array of archetypes portrayed by Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen on Portlandia arent impressive in their scope so much as their narrow specificity, each one delicately carving Portlands milieu into a well-observed sub-niche. Armisen plays multiple variations of the emasculated goof while Brownstein portrays a bevy of self-righteous killjoys with great aplomb. Yet Portlandia is so much greater than the sum of its caricatures. That the shows humor is entirely derived from its two co-creators gives it a winning constancy, while the improvisational aspect adds an almost surreal element to much of the dialogue. In fact, the bizarre obsession with food (a mixologist crafts a cocktail with rotten banana and eggshells, 911 dispatchers are inundated with calls from beet-eaters) suggests the fever dream of a very hungry hipster. Peter Goldberg

House of Cards allowed David Finchers seductive aesthetic sway to carry on well beyond the inaugural diptych he helmed, despite TVs well-noted preference for story over artistic signature, but thats almost besides the point. The scheming exploits of Kevin Spaceys silver-tongued congressman-devil provide a galvanic shock of political satire and thrillingly modern melodrama, but the real hook is Robin Wrights stirring performance as the politicians better halfand worse half in the shows botched final season. In the thick of it, this addictive series convincingly depicts a shifting political landscape, wherein an ascending class of strong and brilliant women retools mans ruthless personal and professional strategies to better advance a contentious, testosterone-weary nation. Chris Cabin

Marvels Jessica Jones breaks so many molds, and with such brio, that it feels almost super-heroic. In immediately denying us Jessicas (Krysten Ritter) origin story, it keeps her at arms lengtha masterstroke because the series understands that its a story Jessica isnt ready to give yet, freely and under her own terms. If the violence on Marvels Daredevil, no matter how kinetic and operatic in its brushstrokes, is primed to excite, the violence on Jessica Jones seeks to disarm our pleasure centers. And if this violence is so discomforting, its because of how hauntingly, stubbornly, necessarily its rooted in the traumas that connect the victims of the ominous Kilgrave (David Tennant). The aesthete in me wishes the series exhibited a more uncommon visual style. At the same time, maybe the shows portrait of abuse, of heroes and villains whose shows of strength and mind control are so recognizably human, wouldnt exert half the chill that it does it didnt approach us so unassumingly. Ed Gonzalez

With Killing Evewhich Phoebe Waller-Bridge adapted from author Luke Jenningss Villanelle seriesshe uses the whip-smart voice she employed in Fleabag to explore women whose bad behavior extends beyond the limits of rapacious sexuality and crass humor: specifically, to murderous psychopaths. The series suggests a delightfully demented, considerably more violent spin on Broad City, Insecure, and Fleabag. Those shows are wryly comical and sexually frank, with complex female relationships at their center, and Killing Eve brings us all those attributes in the guise of a crackerjack mystery. The series combines a dry comedys affection for the mundane with the slick look and tone of a psychosexual thriller, and the result is something wholly original, suspenseful, and caustically funny. Julia Selinger

Sherlock has always shown a keen but loving disregard for its source material. Despite serving up a bevy of classical crime-solving tropes, its fluid aesthetic and modern-day realism eschew the stuffy reverence of countless other re-toolings of Arthur Conan Doyles celebrated series. Instead, co-creators Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat have allowed Benedict Cumberbatch to chart his own course as a character whos become a landmark of fiction. The actor effortlessly owns the role with his ice-cold stares and burly voice, and yet what makes the series such a distinct interpretation is how it envisions the complicated relationship between Sherlock Holmes and his partner, John Watson (Martin Freeman), whose everyman humanity serves as a spiritual contrast to the impenetrable title characters isolated genius. Ted Pigeon

Its the tension between Ramys (Ramy Youssef) secular and spiritual leanings that serves as the thrust of the Hulu series that bears his name, as he considers what kind of personwhat kind of Muslim, son, and manhe wants to be. Intensely critical of himself, Ramy recognizes that hes done much self-mythologizing, mostly in regard to his religious observance, and acutely feels his lapses in judgment, and Ramy derives its soulfulness from the ruins of the myths that Ramy and his family and friends tell themselves and those around them. Theres profound pain to be found amid the rubble. And, maybe, peace. Niv M. Sultan

David Simon and Eric Overmeyers abbreviated fade-out on post-Katrina New Orleans is tattered yet hopeful, perfect in its soulful imperfections. Decisions in the Big Easy are slowed down by good booze and better boogie, and by the time the Big Chief (Clark Peters) bows out, very little about this intoxicating menagerie of musicians and other truth-seekers has been convincingly settled on. Lifes not tidy in the Treme and the shows creators let all the bad omens hang out, including the impending birth of Delmonds (Rob Brown) first child and Janettes (Kim Dickens) third restaurant opening. Of course, all the trouble made the music sound all the sweeter, as careers begin to congeal and legacies found (temporary) footing amid the citys riotous buzz. The fat lady is singing for Treme, and shes belting it out loud, if not for long. Cabin

Few television shows can match the commitment of The Handmaids Tale to withholding catharsis from audiences. The series, which maintains a visual lyricism that both clashes with and magnifies the brutality on screen, is most heartbreaking during moments of doubt, when Elisabeth Mosss June appears resigned to her fate. Yet it consistently obscures her true motivation, mining mystery from her submissiveness: Is it genuine, or another tactic? When shes able to seize, however briefly, the upper hand from her tormentors, the series offers tantalizing glimpses of their chagrin. For a moment, were prompted to envision that chagrin morphing into sorrow, shame, maybe even fear. That would spell some kind of catharsis, but until it actually arrives, The Handmaids Tale remains intellectually nourishing, easy to admire, and difficult to endure. Its a beautiful test of stamina, offering only small reprieves from Junes suffering. It embeds us alongside her, and remains dedicated to illustrating how exactly the villains can win. Michael Haigis

High Maintenance more than made good on its transition from the Internet to HBO. Its intimacy has been retained, and yet the narrative strands have grown more thoughtfully variable and distinct in their reflection of the adult rituals, wild yearning, and long-overdue release that power the denizens of New York Citys boroughs, revealing their neuroses, deep-seated fears, self-delusions, and artful exercises. More than ever, the shows tapestry of unexpected connections and backstories reach deeper into the quotidian experiences of city life. Cabin

Genndy Tartakovskys work as an animator is most striking for its embrace of silence. Even in the cacophonous realm of childrens cartoons, the Samurai Jack creator favors wordless moments that lean on the flapping of cloth in the wind or the exaggerated sounds of a clenching fist. Adult Swims Primal, then, feels like something Tartakovsky has been building to for much of his career, a dialogue-free miniseries following a caveman and his T. rex partner fighting to survive in a violent, unforgiving world. The shows violence is a reflection of its characters existence, a cycle from which theres no escape. Children are swallowed whole, prey is devoured on the spot, eyeballs are smashed in by rocks, and dino jaws are smeared in vivid red blood. The story of the caveman and T. rexs survival, in Tartakovskys hands, is totally enthralling, as terrible as it is beautiful. Steven Scaife

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Review: BBC and Netflix's Dracula Is a Gory but Banal Adaptation of a Classic - slantmagazine

Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero