My first item completed in 2019 is Young Dracula, a children’s program about Vlad Dracula who would rather be human than a vampire and how he is trying to live a normal life despite his unnatural life. However that’s near impossible when you’re the son of Count Dracula.
I will be going into spoiler territory as I discussed this series. So if you haven’t seen Young Dracula and don’t want any spoilers this is your chance to leave.
The is a series that I’ve seemed part way through when it was on TV. I knew before I started my re-watch that I had seen series one all the way through, what did surprise me is that I haven’t seen any of the second series and that I had seen all of series three and only parts of series four and five. Young Dracula feels like two different shows. The entire series covers Vlad, his sister Ingrid and their father Count Dracula. The first two series have a different feel then that last two series. The first two series are light airy coming into vampire powers a little bit comedyish. And the later series have a darker tone to them.
The first two series are set in a town called Stokely where Vlad and Ingrid attend a local school, taking on the last name Count instead of Dracula. With normal students which they call breathers. One of the students at school is a boy called Robin Brenner, he is an outcast because he wants to be a vampire. Robin ends up becoming fast friends with Vlad and works out the family secret immediately. Robin doesn’t understand why Vlad doesn’t want to be a vampire and is there encouraging Vlad along with his younger sister Chloe as Vlad’s vampire powers begin to develop. The rest of the family have no clue that the Dracula family are vampires. Robin and Chloe’s older twin brothers Ian and Paul are trying to vie for Ingrid’s affections. Mr Brenner is wary of the entire family while Mrs Brenner insists that they are normal while a little bit eccentric. In light of the affection that Count Dracula has for her.
The other family that important to the series is the Van Helsing family. The woodwork teacher Mr Van Helsing comes from a long line of vampire hunters and he wants his son Jonathan who’s called Jono for short, to follow in his footsteps. Jonathan is in the same class as Robin and Vlad and is shown to have an interest in Ingrid during the first series. He doesn’t believe the family are vampires. In the second season Jonathan has accepted that the Dracula family are vampires, his crushed on Ingrid’s disappeared. He’s trying to hunt the family while keeping it a secret from his mother who doesn’t believe in vampires and doesn’t want him following in his father’s footsteps.
During the early series we see Count Dracula who is training Vlad to be his heir and the future prince the darkness. While Dracula ignores his daughter Ingrid who’s trying to do everything to show that she should be the heir instead of Vlad who doesn’t have an interest in being the heir. The Dracula the family has a human servant Renfield who wants to be turned into a vampire. He has been loyal to the family his entire life and comes across as dim, he loves disgusting food but is shown to be intelligent when it comes to the potions that he makes throughout the series and his knowledge of vampire illnesses and ailments.
I love the entire Dracula family especially, Ingrid especially was my favourite, she’s the underappreciated older sister who wants to be the heir of the Dracula family and have recognition from her father. She keeps getting pushed aside because she’s a girl something that she doesn’t at all appreciate, and wants to prove that girl can be powerful vampires too. By the series it is shown that Ingrid is the first woman on vampire Council. But that doesn’t mean her trials are over she still underappreciated at Council.
The father is played by Keith-Lee Castle who is someone I always thought fit the role of Dracula perfect. I always believed he would have made a good Snape if the Harry Potter series was cast differently. Don’t get me wrong I love Alan Rickman as well, it’s just that he’s someone else that I thought would fit the role.
Vlad and Ingrid’s mother Magna is a recurring character in the first three series. She comes and goes usually with a plot to take power from the Dracula family. She left the Count, leaving him for a werewolf and Patrick. They together have a son named Wolfie who was born during the second series.
There was a few years break between series two and series three. Which meant the entire cast had aged up. Instead of making the show still aim for the younger audience that it was for originally, they age the show with the characters. The later series is aimed more towards teenagers and takes a darker tone in the early two series. We also no longer have the Brenner family and the story is set in a different location then it was originally. In the first two series Vlad has come into his powers and is learning to control them. In the later series Vlad has fully come into his powers and surpassed his father. That doesn’t mean his training is over. He’s still training and as the chosen one he’s trying to use his influence to create a safer environment for both breathers and vampires.
The later series is set in a private school called Garside Grange which Count Dracula is the owner of. The family live in the attic of school, the only member of the school that we see on a regular basis is Ms McAuley the school principal. Count Dracula is shown to have an interest in her throughout the series. We also get introduced to a new character during season three that I didn’t really like. She’s a slayer whose brother has been turned into a vampire and she’s trying to save her brother by getting close to the family that turned her brother into a vampire in the first place, and a member of the family from the Dracula family who turn her brother is Ingrid. At first Erin disguises herself as a new vampire. Vlad eventually discovers Erin’s secret and slowly falls in love with her and eventually they get together and date throughout the series but it’s full of secrets and Erins side and it doesn’t end up working out and I was very happy when she didn’t return and series five. About the only character I was happy that to see didn’t return series in series five.
We get to see Jonathan Van Helsing again along with his mother who is now the head of the slayers guild. I don’t know how she did it because of such a short amount of time between the series. One member of their family however is missing and that Mr Van Helsing the woodwork teacher. It is said that he was killed between series and was killed by vampires and Jonathan blames Vlad for his father’s death since Vlad wiped his father’s memory and because Mr Van Helsing couldn’t remember about the vampires he was unable to defend himself. And it is something that Jonathan is shown to eventually forgive Vlad for and come to understand why Vlad would wipe the vampires form his father’s memory in the first place, if fact he wiped the vampires from the whole Brenner family memories. But it is not shown how Jonathan and his mother remembered that vampires were real. One thing that disappointed me about the fifth series is that Johnathan isn’t in the fifth series and the only character that didn’t return and the fifth series. Wolfie, Vlad and Ingrid’s younger half vampire half werewolf younger brother had also didn’t return along with Ms McAuley who hasn’t returned since the school has been shut down between series four and five.
The fifth season has a different story line again. Vlad has been shown to be losing his powers that were once more powerful than his fathers. And he learns that this is because his father has not been truthful about his heritage and that Magna isn’t actually his real mother. His real mother is a breather named Sally. Vlad tracks his mother down and invites her to the now-closed school to make an art piece for the vampire hotel that Dracula plans to open on a whim but never actually gets around to. His mother arrives at the school with his younger half-sister Georgina who prefers George. George thinks it’s great having a vampire older brother, while Sally is having a hard time adjusting to the vampires being real and that her son is a vampire and that danger that involves having a vampire in the family. She loves Vlad but she does not want to put George in danger so in the end Sally and George both leave.
One of the things that amused me at the end of the series is Ingrid ends up with a breather but her family seems to forgotten that her first boyfriend was a breather. Cause they are surprised about it when she ends up with one.
I love this series and I’d love to see more of it. If I had my way I’d like to to see two more series. One with the return of Robin and Jonathan and another one set hundreds of years later seeing how Vlad and Ingrid cope being hundreds of years old since was only seen them as teenagers and in their early twenties.
This is a very well done children show one that I believe can be enjoyed by adults especially in the later series which are aimed at that older audience and its proper vampires if you love proper vampires this is a great show to watch.