15 years ago, the first novel in a series of YA vampire romance dramas from author Richelle Mead was released, called Vampire Academy. In 2014, the first attempt to bring it to screen was made in the form of a film, although with its heavy departure from the source material and low ratings it ended up being a commercial flop. Now, in 2022, we’re seeing the second attempt to bring Vampire Academy to non-reading audiences in the form of a Peacock original television show.

The pilot episode opens up with a (much-needed) introduction to the world we’re in — a world where vampires no longer live in the human world but one of their own. In this world, there are also three types of vampires: Moroi, Dhampir, and Strigoi. The Moroi vampires are the ruling class of vampires. They feed on humans but not until death, have elemental magic powers, are mortal, and are born through conception. The Strigoi are vampires that drink others to death (including Moroi vampires), have superhuman abilities, are vulnerable to the sun, and can’t be born, only made. The Dhampir are half-human half-vampire, born when a Moroi male mates with a Dhampir female. They have some superhuman abilities, and they’re tasked with being Guardians to the Moroi, who lack the physical capacity to defend themselves from Strigois. The vampires all live in a kingdom, except the king or queen can be chosen from any one of twelve Moroi royal families.

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Image via Peacock

RELATED: How Does the 'Vampire Academy' Series Differ From the Novels?

Keeping up with this? Great! Because that’s only the exposition from the prologue; we haven’t even started the show yet. We’re then introduced to our two leads: Rosemarie (Rose) Hathaway (Sisi Stringer), a Dhampir Guardian in training, and as well as Rose’s best friend, Vasilisa "Lissa" Dragomir (Daniela Nieves), a royal Moroi. The episode begins with Lissa bringing Rose to a formal Moroi event, though Lissa’s choice to bring her is considered inappropriate as Dhampirs are a class below the Moroi. It's at this event that we find out the current Moroi Queen (Pik Sen Lim) is going to be vacating the throne and picking Lissa’s older brother, Andre (Jason Diaz), as her heir. After the announcement and our party ends, the Dragomirs and Rose leave in a limo celebrating Andre’s achievements and the lives they lead when something happens and they get into a car crash. It's an accident that ensues everyone in the car is killed, barring our two leads. This is where the prologue ends and the story truly starts.

A few months later, Lissa has decided to end her mourning for her parents and head back to school, while Rose has been training at the academy and maintaining her spot as the number one ranked prospect for future Guardians. After the time skip, we are introduced to a few new key characters, the first of which is Lissa’s new Guardian, Dimitri (Kieron Moore). We soon find out that given the death of all other Dragomirs, Lissa now needs to step up as the new head of the family. It's a tall task for a young person, one which comes with many responsibilities, rituals, and politics. In order to be truly recognized as the new head, however, Lissa must complete an intitation-like ceremony in which she will read a passage of Old Moroi (the ancient language of the Moroi vampires) in front of the other royal Moroi families.

While practicing her Old Moroi in preparation for the ceremony, Lissa meets another key character, Christian Ozera (André Dae Kim). At this point, we learn that Christian’s parents (royal Moroi themselves) made the decision to become Strigoi vampires and as a result, he has been shunned by almost all other vampires, especially the other royal Moroi families. While Lissa struggles with her new duties we also see Rose in trouble. Rose, distracted by Lissa’s return, has lost her way in her studies and dropped from the #1 ranked to the #5 ranked prospective Guardian. Though this may not seem like a significant drop, it is one that Rose cannot accept, and she attempts to gain her place back by challenging the new number one ranked to a sparring match. This individual is another new character, Mason (Andrew Liner). As the two are fighting, though it seems close, Rose looks to be getting the best of Mason ever so slightly — until she’s suddenly distracted by a vision of Lissa, which ultimately ends up costing her the match. The vision seems to coincide with and be in response to Lissa’s PTSD-induced panic attack, but why or how the connection exists is not yet made clear.

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Image via Peacock

The next day, Lissa and Rose meet and catch up on their lives and their troubles since they last saw each other. As the sun begins to set, we find out that the two have actually snuck outside the walls which confine them to the kingdom and keep them safe from Strigoi. It's when they being to head back that we get our first true glimpse of Strigoi as they’re attacked from the woods on their trek back home. Rose manages to keep the Strigoi away from Lissa but is about to be eaten when Dimitri makes an appearance from the shadows to save her life. In the aftermath of the events, Rose and Lissa must face consequences for disobeying the rules. Namely, the two are no longer allowed to be roommates at the academy. As we slowly approach the end of the episode, and you’re finally lulled into a sense that the exposition might end, the Queen decides to throw one more narrative curveball at us and announce that the new heir will be Lissa. It's a shocking but hard-to-follow twist after an episode shoved so full of exposition you might as well have read a lore book (or recap) than actually watched the show!

Was that a little harsh? Definitely. The episode is far from terrible and certainly has enjoyable moments. Yet, its break-back pacing and constant exposition can make it not just a bore at times but even hard to follow. That being said, it also introduces us to a very different world than any teen vamp show I’ve seen before (and this is my specialty). Not only that, it sets up a million different interesting avenues and subplots to take the story down. In a sense, the endless exposition was necessary to accomplish all of that, but only time will tell if it was actually worth it.

Vampire Academy premieres new episodes every Thursday on Peacock.