Out of all the vampire properties in pop culture today from “True Blood,” to “Twilight,” to Anne Rice’s books, “The Vampire Diaries” is the least annoying franchise of the bunch mainly because since its premiere and evident take off in to longevity, Warner Bros. has completely undersold the series and snuck it under the radar in spite of its solid ratings. “The Vampire Diaries” is essentially like “Twilight” with a girl afflicted by tragedy, a series of vicious murders in her town, and a new student who sneaks in to her school with the obvious love for blood who begins stalking and romancing her. Sure Stefan looks like he could be well in to his thirties, but when you’re a vampire I guess you can get in to any place without trouble. Especially since the series makes note of pointing out that these vampires have mind-control abilities. A la “Gossip Girl,” most of the characters keep diaries of their thoughts and wants and desires.
But mainly it’s to provide exposition where the writers lack the ability to. So the new vamp in town Stefan keeps diaries about his need for blood and his near misses with his victims, while Elena (as played by the gorgeous Nina Dobrev) chronicles her confrontations with the undead and her turmoil with school and her friends all of whom are walking on egg shells after her vicious car accident. Elena is a girl still reeling from her accident and Stefan is taking a liking to her more and more, following her around and giving her rape eyes and Elena is loving every second of it. Stefan is of course a vampire who has set his sights on Elena for reasons that we all know and love. Take a guess. I’ll wait. She is the re-incarnation of Stefan’s first love! Head of the class. 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.”