The last time someone thought it was a good idea to attempt building a franchise around the vampire hunter Van Helsing, things turned out very, very poorly. But that’s not going to stop Syfy from going back to the well in the hopes of finding a hit. This time, they’ll be turning their lead female though and relying on writer Neil LaBute to guide this project as showrunner at a time when the cable network is in a transitional phase back toward the genre fare that put it on the map.
Vanessa Helsing (They’re still keeping the Van obviously) will be at the center of this version, fighting against a world controlled by vampires. When she is resurrected five years in the future, she learns vampires have taken over and she, as usual, is mankind’s last hope for survival.
The first season will head before cameras in January for a 13-episode run set to premiere sometime in Fall 2016. Let’s hope, for everyone’s sake, it turns out better than Hugh Jackson’s stab at the character. I’m not sure it can be any worse.