Review – The Vampire Diaries
The Vampire Diaries – The CW – 8:00/7:00pm Thursday – USA / GO! – AUS
Back in the late 90’s Kevin Williamson was the king of the teens. Dawson’s Creek was lighting up the airways with over the top dialogue, movie references and James Van Der Beek’s enormous forehead. Scream was making truck loads of cash on the silver screen with over the top dialogue, movie references and Neve Campbell’s complete lack of personality. So to hear the news that Kevin Williamson would be back on the CW with a show that would dive into the worlds of both horror and teen drama had to be at least somewhat good news.
The Vampire Diaries opens with Stefan narrating that “I am a vampire and this is my story.” before we’re treated to a scene straight out of the Kevin Williamson playbook. A couple are driving along in their car, they name drop James Blunt, drive into some fog and accidently hit a stranger with their car, but the stranger isn’t dead and he kills them both. Kind of like what happened in the Kevin Williamson hit I Know What You Did Last Summer. Of course Last Summer included more Jennifer Love Hewiit cleavage and less vampires, but still, it’s basically the same thing.
After the vampire attack we get to meet Elena as she’s writing in her diary about how this year’s going to be better than the last. Elena lives with her Aunt Jemma because her parents are dead, sort of like a cross between Joey from Dawson’s Creek and Sidney Prescott from Scream. Her best friend is Bonnie, who thinks she may have psychic powers. As this pair wander into the school we’re treated to dialogue only the scribe behind Dawson’s could write: “Major lack of male real estate.” JUST LIKE REAL TEENAGERS!
New to the school is Stefan. He’s a total hottie and if my understanding of how teenagers speak he should “get a real estate agent, as this block of land has dreamy ocean front views, yo.” Stefan’s a vampire, and he also keeps a diary. Stefan has a diary. Elena has a diary. It’s almost as if this show should be called The Vampire Diaries.
Stefan falls for Elena because she looks suspiciously like a Katherine he knew in 1864. Vampires never age you see, and this may be the first time a CW show can use the excuse “he’s supposed to be really old” to explain away why a 27 year old is playing a high school student. Stefan’s one of those “good vampires” that survive by eating squirrels and not humans, but his brother Damon (Boone from Lost) on the other hand is not so nice. Damon loves to eat people, he ate the couple from the opening scene and he lets us in on a few vampire secrets.
Did you know that these vampires wear a special ‘stop the sunlight from killing me’ ring? Also, everywhere vampires go they’re surrounded by clouds of fog; it’s almost as if they’re followed around by roadies with dry ice. When Stefan tries to enrol in school despite not having complete records he’s able to convince the school secretary to let him enrol, apparently vampires have Jedi powers as well.
As far as teen dramas go The Vampire Diaries is good, obviously it’s not in the same league as Friday Night Lights but compared to the other offerings on The CW Vampire Diaries is right up there with Gossip Girl and miles better than that Melrose Place trash we were subjected to early this week. How does it stack up against other vampire dramas though? Well, imagine if True Blood wasn’t so wanky and full of itself… you can’t, because it’s made by Alan Ball and that’s just how he rolls. The vampire fight late in the first episode also reminded us that vampire fights still look as stupid as they did during the first season of Buffy.
Will The Vampire Diaries devolve into melodrama, ridiculous dialogue and vampire clichés? Well, it is made by Kevin Williamson but for now his dialogue splattered with big words and Hitchcock references makes us feel like we never left the Creek and all that happened in the intervening years was that Pacey developed a taste for blood.
Good, Alright, Bad Or Ugly?
Alright
