Vampire Academy

Take the fairy-tale opulence and elaborate social rituals of Bridgerton and the class-revolution themes of The Hunger Games, toss in a warrior class à la the Dauntless from Divergent, add a light sprinkle of Harry Potter‘s boarding-school shenanigans and just a dash of Game of Thrones’ endless power struggles, and you might cook up something like Vampire Academy, based on the YA series by Richelle Mead that hit bestseller lists right around the height of Twilight mania.Vampire Academy Season 1 Download.

If that sounds like a lot to cram into one show, that’s because — for both better and worse — it is. Vampire Academy‘s scope is massive in some ways, encompassing everything from the everyday angst of lovelorn teens to the tug-of-war between church and state for the future of the entire vampire realm, and its breathless pacing practically compels a viewer to keep clicking the “play next” button. But the more intricate its lore becomes, the more the entire thing threatens to buckle under its weight.

And its lore does get intricate. Heck, it starts intricate. Created by Julie Plec (The Vampire Diaries) and Marguerite McIntyre (The Originals, Legacies), Vampire Academy unfolds in a tightly sequestered dominion divided between two different types of vampires. Comprising the royal and elite classes are the Moroi, who avoid sunlight and drink blood (without killing) but otherwise comport themselves more or less like old-money humans. Sworn to guard them with their lives is a class of vampire-human hybrids known as Dhampirs, who look and act even more like regular humans, only with enhanced fighting abilities. Both live in fear of the Strigoi, feral immortals who more resemble the fast zombies of Army of the Dead than either the Dhampirs or the Moroi.Within that setting, the fierce friendship between Lissa Dragomir (Daniela Nieves), a kindhearted but sheltered Moroi ro