A while ago, those generous folks at Warner Bros sent me the DVD of the first season of The Vampire Diaries.
And what better day to publish my review than Halloween.
*Switches on dry ice machine* Mwahahaaahaahaaaaaaaaaaaa
This took me back to my days as a big fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
I was 24 when Sarah Michelle Gellar started kicking bloodsucker butt, and 30 when she saved the world from the undead one final time.
And I suspect VD (unfortunate initials, don’tcha think?) is aimed at a late teen/early 20s market, just like Buffy.
Can’t see how they’d be disappointed, with Stefan, Damon and Elena forming a beautiful love triangle and a plotline with enough cliffhangers, twists and turns to keep viewers guessing.
But for a 30-something bird like me, it’s hard not to make a comparison to the hit series I grew up with.
It took a while for me to warm up to this show. It doesn’t start as kick-ass as Buffy did, with action from the very start.
Four or five episodes had to pass before I really got into the storyline and started to care about the characters.
But if you stick with it, Vampire Diaries is worth the wait.
If it wasn’t for Damon, I’d have switched off early. This bad boy saves the show by acting like a real vampire should, compared to good brother Stefan, a wussy vampire who doesn’t kill anyone (too good to be convincing).
Played by Ian Somerhalder (from Lost), Damon is the Spike character of this series. Spike was only supposed to be in a couple of episodes of Buffy, before he was killed off. But fans reacted so much to him that he remained a firm favourite right through to the end of the cult show.
These brothers haven’t seen each other for 10 years, until they return to their hometown where Elena the high school beauty queen catches their eyes.
There’s no burning up in the sunlight for these two – they have become daywalkers by wearing a special magic ring.
But with the world moving forward with new technology all the time, why shouldn’t vampires develop their own ways to make life easier?
I tend to watch box sets rather than follow a series on TV. Mainly because I don’t have the patience to wait a week to find out what happens next.
Watching this has made me record the current series of VD on ITV2 to watch, back to back, once it’s finished.
It’s not as dark as True Blood, but in my opinion it’s better than Twilight (I’m now going to be stoned to death by R-Patz fans!)
But when I discovered it comes from the mind of Kevin Williamson, the man who brought us the slow-burn love triangle in Dawson’s Creek, I really wasn’t surprised.
Vampire Diaries season 1 is available from Amazon at around £8.25
I was sent a copy of Vampire Diaries on DVD for review. All opinions are my own
