10 Horror TV Shows That Wasted Incredible Characters

Buffy The Vampire Slayer is known for treading its own path through horror mythology, turning the Final Girl trope on its head by positioning a blonde cheerleader as its ass-kicking heroine, putting a '90s twist on the vampire myth, unleashing Frankenstein on the college campus, and sometimes even raising the dead.

Perhaps the show's most obvious display of intertextual deference comes in season five's opening episode, the unambiguously titled Buffy vs. Dracula. Here, we are introduced to the Count himself (Rudolf Martin), who has come to Sunnydale seeking to make the Slayer his bride.

Dracula is slathered in mystery and sex appeal, wielding shapeshifting and regenerative powers unlike any other vampire in the show. Contrary to the frequently hell-bent evil of Buffy antagonists, he possesses a charm and anti-hero flexibility in his sentiments that would have made him the perfect fodder for a long and complex arc.

Little did we gentle viewers know, however, Dracula was not the new big bad but merely a disposable monster of the week. Granted, the character has been done to (un)death in a thousand different versions, and the show was at its best when spinning an original yarn, but this version of the Count was tantalisingly cool and pre-loaded with a backstory we never got to witness (Dracula and Spike, anyone?!).