Dracula doesn't quite get the Blood flowing with its Premiere

Fantasy and horror continue their TV take overs this year. First we got the captivating Sleepy Hollow, followed by Once Upon A Time in Wonderland, and Reign. Admittedly these have all been added to my overly full DVR. Today marks the latest entry in Dracula, but does it have enough bite to make it into the weekly lineup?

The pilot opens with Dracula’s return from a shriveled up decrepit state. Two men find a tomb, they've been searching for a long time for it. Its full of gold, and trinkets, but that's not the prize. One of the men kills the other, spilling his blood over the coffin and feeding the beast below, who regenerates into the lovely but hungry Dracula. He is reborn.

Flash forward to London, 1896, Suave. Dracula readies for a demonstration, and a new identity. He masquerades as an american, Alexander Greyson, with a fairly hideous accent. The British one suits his mouth so much better.

Grayson's party is overly posh and lavish, and looks very much like the masquerade out of Van Helsing. Grayson instantly falls in love with Mina, and he sends Renfield to dig up the goods on her while he plays the good host. Then in a scene straight out of The Prestige, Grayson illuminates dozens of wireless light bulbs using energy harnessed from the magnetosphere, but only long enough for everyone to stare in awe before his steampunk factory has a meltdown, one that could have been avoided   if the board members of the British Imperial Company would be willing to sell an "american" their coolant patents. But instead worried over their futures and see Grayson as a threat.

And he is a threat, but not just in the way that they think. The British Imperial Company is a front for the centuries-old Order of the Dragon, an evil Illuminati that Grayson plans to take down at all costs. Long ago they burned his Mina doppelgänger. But they didn't just stop there,  The Order of the Dragon also slaughtered Van Helsing's family, so the two men are in a rocky partnership, which may not be what it seems, though he was the man who freed Dracula from his fancy iron box.

Another double player is Lady Jane, who seems to be not only pursuing Dracula, but also hunting him, and other vampires. At one point she's sexing Grayson in her opera box and later tries to get information from a captive vampire, who refuses to give up her sire.

The main problem with Dracula is that it isn't what you would expect. Sure there's bloodshed, but Rhys Meyers brings such an eroticism to it that there is nothing fear worthy. The darkness of Dracula is utterly absent.

It has the beauty one expects a Dracula piece to exude, but lacks the panache. Establishing such a well known character, in fact many well known characters, takes entirely too long. There are very few changes made from their classical literature predecessors and while Rhys Meyers is lovely and a great actor, that perfect compulsive and obsessive nuance that Gary Oldman captured so perfectly in regard to Mina in the film of the same name is lacking here. There's no intensity, no intricate paring on fear and desire on a razor's edge. So far the chemistry between Rhys Meyers and De Gouw is non-existent. It's not that white hot fury he displayed with Natalie Dormer on the Tudors. It's definitely intriguing enough for another view, but so far I'm not completely sold on the series, though it certainly doesn't lack potential.