You’d be forgiven for missing out on the first season of Invasion, the Apple TV+ series that explored a harrowing alien invasion from a humanist perspective. The 10-episode epic combined the ground-level terror of War of the Worlds with the day-to-day melodrama of something like The Leftovers, following pockets of humanity as they fight to survive a threat they don’t understand.

Aside from a rogue crop circle or an alien vessel hiding in plain sight, few characters in the series are aware they’re even dealing with an extraterrestrial threat. Invasion chooses instead to focus on an estranged husband and wife working to keep their family together, a group of middle school kids weathering a mysterious meteor shower, and an aerospace engineer investigating the disappearance of her lover. It certainly made the series’ central mystery all the more compelling. But when Invasion wrapped its first season on a baffling cliffhanger, it failed to deliver the answers that most were expecting.

As Invasion returns for its second season, expectations are higher than ever. And while Season 2 makes an admirable effort to expand on this world, Invasion can’t shake the issues that have plagued it from the beginning.

In the 101 years since Nosferatu ripped off Bram Stoker’s Dracula and invented a new film genre, over 80 movies have been made featuring the Prince of Darkness. So how do you tell a new type of story about Dracula? The answer lies in an overlooked chapter of Stoker’s original novel.

“Dracula has been done and done and done so many ways at so many levels because it's public domain,” producer Brad Fischer tells Inverse. “It's the sort of curse and blessing of public domain as IP. Anybody can do it. And anyone could have done this, but this story hadn't been told.”