The Vampire Diaries: a series to sink your teeth into

14 September 2010

Gerard Wood

Before sitting down to watch The Vampire Diaries I took it for granted that I was not in its target demographic, one that I supposed to be young (well, younger than me) and female. Over and above the inescapable reality of my age and gender, there's an equally inescapable matter of taste: my top pick of the flicks this year is the brutal and mind bending Valhalla Rising and the just plain brutal Centurion. Seek high, seek low, you won't find a sensitive new age vampire or  even a diary for that matter in either of those! And if there are two genres of popular entertainment I have little time for they are the American high school drama and that new breed of vampire tale that features the dreaded SNAV, the Sensitive New Age Vampire epitomised by Edward Cullen in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series. Bring these together in a television series as Kevin Williamson has with The Vampire Diaries and my interest approaches zero. 

So why watch it at all? One thing piqued my interest enough for me to put my hand up when Season One of The Vampire Diaries came our way for review: by all accounts the writers did not shy away from horror. (As it turns out, they don't, and the horror is often genuinely shocking.) This intrigued me. Was Kevin Williamson in some way emulating David Lynch and exposing the beautiful young things who inhabit the American high school drama to the horrors that lurk just below the surface of their mundane reality? I had my fingers crossed. And if there was real horror, maybe the SNAV wasn't all that sensitive after all?

The answer to the first question turns out to be a qualified yes: I wouldn't want to take the parallel between say Lynch’s Blue Velvet and The Vampire Diaries too far, but both do indeed peel back the layers of middle America to reveal something dark, dangerous and unsettling lurking just beneath the surface. The answer to the second question is a qualified no: when we first encounter Stefan Salvatore (Paul Wesley), he's a Byron-esque brooder of the very first order, all sad eyes and furrowed brow. Oh yes, he's a SNAV.

It's a qualified no however because what we believe we know of Stefan in the early episodes is simply the tip of the ice-berg and over the season a complex personal history is revealed which accounts for his reserved, thoughtful and somewhat tormented nature. The front he presents to the world is a fragile facade maintained through inhuman discipline: at any moment he is one taste of human blood away from becoming the monster his curse has made him.

In case you don't see where this is heading, I'll fess up: for all that I expected to dislike The Vampire Diaries, I was bitten, turned and addicted within a few episodes. Not only does the show look great (especially on Blu-ray), the writing, after a few stumbles in the first episodes, is generally excellent with compelling story-telling and, as it turns out, some outstanding dialogue, which is often (intentionally) hilarious and sometimes shocking. When a show exhibits such qualities of writing and production, it transcends target demographics and warrants a far wider audience. Ratings for The Vampire Diaries suggest that it has indeed found such an audience.

I've not read the young adult novels by L.C. Smith on which the series is based, but by all accounts the adaptation is quite loose, a fact that doesn't appear to have upset the novels' passionate fans who have embraced the TV series whole-heartedly. On the other hand, the critical response in the early days of Season One was fairly cool. That's not unusual of course for fantasy, horror and SF series (whatever the medium), but I suspect many critics felt the same lack of enthusiasm that Kevin Williamson himself felt when approached to develop the series for TV: conceptually the show reeks of Twilight and who needs another Twilight?

Given Williamson's background, any reluctance to take on the project was always going to be short lived however. Consistent throughout his writing career has been an interest in horror and teen characters: he's responsible for Scream and I know what you did last summer, but is perhaps best known on TV for the highly successful teen drama, Dawson’s Creek. The Vampire Diaries presented him with an opportunity to bring these elements together in a hybrid form that proves, in the end, to be greater than the sum of its parts.

Set in the fictional town of Mystic Falls, Virginia, the story centres on teenage beauty Elena Gilbert (Nina Dobrev). It's her first day back at Mystic Falls High School since the tragic death of her parents and already the day is shaping up to be a struggle until she meets the mysterious new kid at school, Stefan. Elena is touched that he can relate to what she's going through and a bond quickly forms. As their undeniable connection grows deeper, complications arise with the return to Mystic Falls of Stefan’s dangerous older brother Damon (Ian Somerhalder) and the shocking revelation that the brothers are at least 160 year old vampires. Damon has returned to wreak havoc on the town and to pursue his death’s purpose of tormenting Stefan for eternity.

At first glance the brothers appear to be in some kind of simplistic (and frankly two dimensional) opposition: one good, the other bad. But their relationship and history are far more complex and interesting and as we come to understand their past, each brother is cast in an entirely new light so that behaviour we took to be uncomplicated - simply good or bad - assumes far more fascinating dimensions. In the end, there is little that is black and white and much that is grey in the world of Mystic Falls.

There is a crucial difference between the brothers however: where Stefan is driven to control his vampiric nature out of guilt and a damning sense of responsibility for the part he played in the Salvatore history, Damon has embraced his nature and has given in to the hunger. Ironically it is Damon who is unfailingly, though often monstrously, honest both with himself and others, and there's no doubt that actor Ian Somerhalder revels in the role of charming monster.

Like many other critics I was underwhelmed by the first episodes, hampered as they were by some terribly predictable dialogue and drama, and the failure of the story to emerge from the shadow of Twilight. But as the show progressed and the writers found their groove, the story-telling went from strength to strength. Not only does the dialogue and drama become more convincing as the story shifts away from the high school, but the story becomes increasingly unpredictable with genuine twists and surprises that take the story in unexpected but almost entirely plausible directions. It's little surprise that a far more positive critical response followed as the season progressed.

Season One is now available on DVD and Blu-ray (31 August) and Season Two premiered on the CW Television Network on 9 September. Highly recommended.

You can find more information on the official site.

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