Nattens arvinger/Heirs of the Night | A great concept, a little rant.

Yet again, I should have spent the day revising my thesis, instead I binged this entire show.  This rant should be rather small... my time is limited.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

**Warning: The text below might contain spoilers and a fair amount of sarcasm**

**Disclaimer: All of this is purely my personal opinion. That means that it's not worth anything for anyone but me.** 

The concept is this show is great, but it is very clear that the budget was very limited. With a bigger budget this should could be fantastic. And with a bit of better writing as well...

Regarding the budget, I would say, give up on the some special effects and invest more on practical stuff. Most of the special effects and CGI is already sparsely used, for example when some character shapeshifts into some animal, we only see part of the transformation... show us that part once, and then just make the character shapeshift behind something. We have seen it once, we know how it works, we don't need to see it again, save money on that. Save money on the eyes, most of them don't need to be as intense as they were, save money on the magic, it can still be cool, while being less intense. Then invent the "spare" money on practical things, the scenarios,  the character's wardrobe, and so on.

It is clear they the producers tried their best, for that they deserve some praise. The writers, on the other hand... well. Lets just say, that it's not bad... but rather it's mediocre. I think that, even with a limited budget, the series could be a lot better if the writing was improved. There are moments where I had to use extreme suspension of belief... for example, when the heirs are having one of their classes, and people keep sneaking away from class, even worse, sneaking away from the ship! Or when characters talk, fight, scream with each other, on prow of the ship... and no one else on board notices it? Have you seen that ship? No? Look at it!

That's a tiny ship! If someone sneezes on board, everyone knows! So, if you having two characters sharing a secret conversation, or kissing, or whatever, at least stick to the rules that you have already established (more on this next paragraph), and make it so that they do the "secret action" away from other characters! For example, two characters are not supposed to fall in love, and they are literally kissing behind a hanging ragged piece of cloth! And then our main character sees them and tells them to be careful, no one should know that they are in love... bruh, everybody could see them as long as they had eyes!

Now, the ship, I think that it is great that the series managed to get a real replica of a ship to film on. Although, when the ship is sailing, it is clearly not the same ship, probably a miniature or CGI. Take some money out of the magic CGI (make it more practical effects), and please just put some CGI masts on that damn ship. I understand the the replica that you are using doesn't have the top part of the masts but, if you show us the ship sailing with full masts, then at least add those in when the ship is docked... Still on the ship, again due to constraints, it is understandable that the ship is small on the outside, and then it turns out to be huge on the inside. From the inside it appears to be a really big ship, with ample rooms (for a ship), from the outside, well, you can see by the image. Going back to the subject of the secrecy, if you ask the viewer to suspend their beliefs regarding the size of the rooms inside the ship, then use and abuse it! Make those "secret" scenes take place in some cabinet of the ship, or an empty room. Sometimes the ship looks so big that a character can have a secret conversation in a empty room, or have a fight in one part, and no one is around or notices it... and then there are scenes where the characters need two minutes alone, and it seems impossible because the ship is tiny!
Choose one! Either the ship is small, like the viewer sees it, or it is small on the outside and big on the inside! I can't keep changing my suspension of belief every five minutes!

Now a pet peeve, ok the ship probably has some meaning, being named after Dracula's love and etc... but come on... it's 1889! That looks like a XV century ship! You know what kind of ships where put to the sea in 1889? Look:

This is the French cruiser Alger, put to sea in 1889! No wonder the vampires are going extinct! They are ~400 years behind in technology!

Anyway, pet peeve over. :3

Oh, back to special effects, (because it's my rant, I can write in circles as much as I want, no one reads this anyway, muahaha), it must have been a pain, having to film a series about vampires that basically only are active at night, during the day! It led to some really "wacky" and strange effects, where they reduced the lighting of the scene, digitally? Maybe? I dunno, it clearly was obvious that it was all filmed during the day, with some weird filter or something... but I guess it passes. Again, gets a green card due to obviously having a small budget, suspension of disbelief takes care of that.

Ok, moving on to the acting! Some of the actors where children, but they all did a pretty good job overall, by the standards of child actors. The "teenager/young adult" actors vary a bit. The main actor,
Anastasia Martin, does a brilliant job, for me she clearly stood out in relation to the others. The adult cast was pretty good, no complaints there... (Christina Chong please marry me).

I particularly liked that each character maintained a bit of their cultural identity during the series. Lets be honest here, if this was an american series, the characters might have said one or two words in their native language when they first appeared on screen, but then they would switch to english-american with ease. Here each character clearly uses english as their second language as a mean to communicate with others that don't speak the same native tongue.

Finally, the story! I think the idea was brilliant, but it lacked in some key points, where things happen simply to move the plot along, or they happen and make no sense, according to what has been established. A good example is the death of the Condensa, like... she was supposed to be one of the strongest elders, but she gets overpowered at least twice by a single enemy, never giving much resistance, and then lets herself die...? What the hell... the other vampire, that was holding her, had time to run to the shade, and she just stands there, on her knees waiting for the Sun to turn her to dust? Use your legs woman! Move!

The idea of the core of the story being the vampire clans against Dracula seems great (I've done some research and it seems that the series is based on a book/series of books? I don't think they are translated to english at least... maybe with the series they will be translated).

But, the moment I saw the ship, I saw a big missed opportunity to make a series about vampire pirates, of course it could not be set in 1889, but still...

Anyhow, a small problem that I saw with the story was that, basically, every single problem that the characters had, could have been solved with one single action, yet they never do it... and then do it after the main "treat" of the season is dealt with. They have someone trying to steal their crystals, and the "red masks" hunting them, but... dudes, you are on a SHIP! Set sail god dammit! It's a wide world out there, your enemies would have to keep chasing you endlessly! Unless, the characters realize that their ship is more a tub than a ship, compared to other ships of the era, and are scared shirtless of traveling far with it! But they did get from Norway to Italy in that tub... so, why not keep moving?

Maybe they are indeed afraid? In this series, vampires also fear the ocean, they become immobilized in the water, unless they are in the possession of a crystal that allows them to swim. And yet, they decide to stay on a ship? If I commanded the Red Mask, I would just try to intimidate the vampires into setting sail, get any ship 1/3 (or even less) of the size of the Alger, caught the Elizabetha on open waters, fire upon it, and BAM, job done, to the button of the sea with all of your fangs!

Although the Red Masks might not be able to afford a ship of any kind, they seem to struggle financially (since they use all the silver against the vampires, rip) because they use a lot of bows and swords... for 1889 I would expect a lot more revolvers and bolt action rifles... but ok.

Anyway, it's late again, and my brain is shutting down.

The story is set up for a second season, I really hope that they manage to get the funding for it.

Mmmh, lets give it 3.5/5 (with 0.2 for the effort and 0.3 extra for Christina Chong).