| And of course there
is a picture of her with Dobrev in period garb to
make it perfectly clear for the audience that Stefan
is in love with Elena because she resembles her.
Nevertheless "The Vampire Diaries" is an overall
solid if soapy chick soap opera with vampires that
dabbles on the typical teen drama doldrums of the WB
legacy with demons from the past, conflicts
unresolved, rivals vying to one up our main
protagonists, all of which are set to the tune of
the undead bloodsuckers, one of whom is a man
struggling to live a normal life who conveniently
meets the woman who resembles his first love, and
another vampire named Damon who has also just come
in to town and is anxiously trying to make Stefan's
new life a living hell knocking off characters and
committing to his oath of making Stefan's new life a
bonafide walking nightmare. Nina Dobrev was never
much of an interesting actress, and her she's not
very convincing as an interesting heroine. Here's
she's mainly just a hot Bella Swan, and Stefan is a
more rugged Edward Cullen with a dash of Angel from
"Buffy," a man in touch with his humanity struggling
to keep his urges behind and protect Elena from
outside forces. The supporting cast
relatively makes the grade for this series, and
while it's an array of gorgeous women and hunky guys
(Every CW show is painted like a Abercrombie and
Fitch catalogue, I swear you will not find one geeky
or heavy person on these series), there are some
good performances especially from Ian Somerhalder
who has a ball as the mustache twirling evil brother
of Stefan who corrupts his life constantly and seeks
to romance Elena from Stefan, all the while playing
him for a puppet more times than not.
The series
does get interesting with Damon's victim Vicky who
was bitten and lived to tell about it and is faced
with horrible visions and midnight hallucinations
that may or may not be vampirism coming in to play.
The sub-plot with Vicky is pretty engrossing and
further paves the notion that Damon is one psychotic
vampire bastard who gets off on victimizing whomever
he can to make Stefan angry. What is Damon planning
by stalking Stefan's new friends? What is his idea
for these young women? While it does have shades of
"Twilight," I found myself entertained by most of it
mainly because the series begins as a Stephanie
Meyers clone and then works gradually against its
pre-conceptions that its another tame lame ass
vampire romance. In the end though... it pretty much
is, but it has entertainment value to it and it's a
guilty pleasure I had a good time with. It
pales in comparison to its harder edged big brother
"Supernatural," but it's still a respectable genre
time filler and one I took great joy in sitting
through as the season went on reveling in surprise
twists, tragic deaths, and interesting character
turns that develop with every episode. I'm not
ashamed to admit I had a good time and I intend to
follow the series as much as I can until I lose
track or get sick of it. I suggest it to anyone with
an open mind looking
to get experimental.
The DVD offers 5.1
Surround Sound, and 1.77:1 aspect ratio and features
"Into Mystic Falls" a look at the process of
converting the novels in to the big screen, a small
featurette pondering the popularity of vampires in
pop culture, a look at the casting of the series and
the intricate formula in casting Stefan and Damon,
we get a slew of unaired scenes, and Rules of the
Vampires (obviously rules of the series' vampires),
we get commentary from the director and producer on
the pilot episode, "A Darker Truth" webisodes from
the series, a pretty humorous gag reel, and a
downloadable audio book of L.J. Smith's "The Vampire
Diaries: The Awakening." |
