Welcome back, my fellow dumpers. After an arduous moving-to-a-new-place-and-settling-in period, I am finally back and ready to binge. It’s perfect timing, it seems, because in my absence, Netflix has added a bevy of content for your boy to explore. And that’s what I do — I explore Netflix’s mounds of content.
Several weeks ago, I traveled back in time to a version of the 1980s that never really existed. But this week’s Netflix Sunday Time Dump is the first season of Van Helsing.
That’s right, Van Helsing, a Syfy original series from 2016 that stars a lady as Van Helsing. I have to give Syfy credit, they consistently create content with genuinely strong and often interesting — if not also somewhat generic — female protagonists. Although they all seem to wear the same boots…
I’m also glad to see the Swede from Hell on Wheels, this time playing a deaf badass with a pension for baseball bats. As far as the other characters, every trope or variation on previous Syfy characters is here.
You got your marine, your suspicious guy, your lady that doesn’t have much personality in case they need a shocking death, your kid — this time black — and, of course, a doctor. And for a majority of the actors (some Canadian Syfy alum), they mostly add just enough color to otherwise stock personas.
This show isn’t going to set the world on fire, at least any more than it seems to already be ablaze. And really, these fires should have probably burned out by now. But I digress.
What Van Helsing‘s first season does manage to accomplish — aside from its handful of truly awesome action moments — is that it offers unique takes on genre staples. It also explores vampires in a fresh way, even if only in small doses. For example, using fallout from a volcano to allow for nightwalkers to go on day strolls.
I will forewarn you that the second episode takes a long detour to establish some of the background and history of this world and its inhabitants. But it pops off proper at the tail end, and from there the show really finds its legs and does some cool things.
You can check out the (admittedly low-rent) trailer below.
