Review: Series 1 Van Helsing

Stars
Kelly Overton, Jonathan Scarfe, Trezzo Mahoro

No. Episodes
13

Episode Length
44-47 mins

Van Helsing well here's a conundrum wrapped in a riddle, it's b-movie grade movie quality filming, acting and writing yet stretched over a series. It's a sci-fi channel thing which explains the b-movie grade quality things about this series.

This is also prevalent in their other series Z-Nation, except it seems to work better in there for some reason, maybe its the comedy or the lightheartedness of nation that helps. you know it doesn't take itself seriously. Van Helsing does unfortunately.
Now don't get me wrong this doesn't make it bad, bad but doesn't give it that level Z-nation has achieved. So that's some of the things that are wrong with this in my eyes, more to come on things wrong with this later.

Now people may think I dislike this show with my gripes and more to come, this isn't the case. Despite it's b-movie qualities and being a bit more serious than it should be it has some very interesting plots and story in it that are keeping me interested.
I want to know WHAT Vanessa is and i'm invested in it until i find out what it is. How did all this happen and why, there is some master plan here that seems like it was mostly explained at the end of season one but i think there's more to it.

So Kelly Overton is Vanessa Helsing she doesn't know it but she is a descendant of the vampire hunter Van Helsing, nor does it matter until a catastrophic volcano eruption throws loads of ash and pollutants obscuring the sun allowing the vampires to come out in the day time.
Vanessa had a husband and they have split for some reason, they have a daughter together and when the vampires attack one breaks into their apartment. Vanessa is bitten and tries to rescue her daughter before she passes out from blood loss and dies.
Unknown to her at the time she wakes up 3 years later well into a vampire controlled world, she is being guarded by Axel (Scarfe) a soldier who was assigned three years ago to watch over her until further orders. The doctor also assigned is locked up as she has been turned into a vampire, Axel feels some debt towards her as he thinks she got infected trying to save people.
Vanessa finally wakes up as vampires attack and we see she has amazing strength and later in the episodes find out that if she bites or is bitten by a vampire they turn back into a human.
Over the course of the series most of the first half is set inside the hospital and defending it, this is obviously to keep production costs down. survivors come and go and a few stay for quite a while (more on that later) the second half is outside discovering new places.
There are different vampire tribes that don't trust each other and are continuously trying to undermine each other. Even a brother and sister vampire duo who work against each other, one helping the human resistance to her own ends.
All the while Vanessa is mostly just focused on finding and saving her daughter, which is stretched out to all the way to the end of the season.

Now onto my biggest gripe about this show something that really bit into me (pun!) this show has obviously taken a leaf from the walking dead. In that it's taken the thing that a character death is a big thing, you know someone you get invested in someone you like and bang hole in your heart when they are inevitably greased by someone.
Van Helsing unfortunately does this literally over the top, it goes waaaay to far in the deaths department. You can't get invested in anyone because literally they die not a season later but two or three episodes later. I won't spoil who dies of course.
There are also people that do survive but it seems like the people you want to see more of get whacked before they get to expand.

So despite these gripes I think they do balance out with some occasional decent acting and interesting plot points. I'm going to invest in the second series and see where it goes, it doesn't seem to have done to well so maybe the second season is all we'll get. Give it a try though it's definitely worth giving it a chance just to see if you do like it, THN awards Van Helsing 3/5 stars.