Dracula on BBC: Will Sherlock appear? Are Sherlock and Dracula in the same universe?
BBC series Dracula premiered yesterday (Wednesday, January 1) and will be broadcast on over three consecutive nights, going head-to-head with ITV police drama Bancroft. Dracula is a re-telling of the seminal Bram Stoker horror novel about the reclusive Transylvanian count (played by Claes Bang) and his encounter with English lawyer Jonathan Harker (John Heffernan). The opening episode called The Rules of the Beast saw Harker grilled by a group of nuns about his dealings with Dracula.
During the conversation, lead interrogator Agatha Van Helsing (Dolly Wells) made a throwaway comment about an associate she had in London.
The nun told Harker: “Having established your identity, it was not difficult to trace you back to England and find your worried fiancée.”
She added: “I have a detective acquaintance in London.”
There’s since been speculation about whether fans could see Sherlock Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Dr John Watson (Martin Freeman) making some sort of appearance in Dracula.
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Given both Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss are fans of sci-fi after working together on Doctor Who, there’s a strong possibility of a crossover of sorts in the future.
The pair even did a Sherlock Christmas special set in the Victorian era and harking back to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s character in his original form.
Along with the Sherlock nod, there was also a Doctor Who reference after Mina Harker (Morfydd Clark) mentioned in one of her letters a barmaid working at The Rose and Crown pub.
Many Whovians realised The Rose and Crown pub was the same establishment where Clara Oswald (Jenna Coleman) worked in Doctor Who.
Both Gatiss and Moffat have addressed the line in Dracula with the former Doctor Who showrunner joking: “I thought no-one would get that!”
While Gatiss quipped: “Really it’s Sexton Blake,” suggesting they were harking to a 1980s detective.
He added: “We’re just messing with you.” So from this, it could all just be a joke on the viewer.
The pair also spoke about the inception of Dracula and how it was actually inspired by a shot from Sherlock.
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Gatiss explained to the Radio Times: “We’d been shooting series two for two days, and we had to come back to go to the RTS awards.
“We’d just done the shot of Benedict coming back from the dead, and there was a silhouette of him in his coat outside Mrs Hudson’s door.
“And I had a picture on my phone and I showed it to Ben Stephenson the head of drama. I said it looks like Dracula. He said, ‘Do you wanna do it?’ And that’s how it began.”
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The remaining episodes will see the story continue to play out as Dracula seemed to gain the upper hand by the end of the opening instalment.
Dracula may be the eponymous character but it was Sister Agatha who seemed to have the best lines in the show as she tried to find out if there was any shred of humanity left in Harker.
She also showed off her knowledge about the occult and vampires as she fended Dracula off from the convent.
Whether she’ll be killed off by the count or become a firm foe remains to be seen.
Dracula continues on BBC One tonight at 9pm
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