Vampire Diaries

(S01E08) "It's not every day a guy turns 162 years old." - Lexi to Stefan on his birthday

What?! Nooooo! They keep bringing in these great characters and then killing them off! Hopefully, they're just stashing the bodies somewhere for a mass resurrection at some point. And, by the way, I totally did not see that coming.

The Vampire Diaries started out great and continues to get better each week. It's so beautifully dark and gloomy. I love the Salvatore's gothic digs, and Stefan is showing considerable restraint at not offing his bad, bad brother Damon.

(S01E07) "So she's a vampire with issues?" - Elena to Stefan about Vicki

Well! In case you haven't watched this week's episode yet, I'll save the big spoiler for after the jump. Suffice to say that things are jumping in The Vampire Diaries, and for some characters, that's not necessarily a good thing.

I continue to love the show and look forward to it every week (and was seriously bummed when it wasn't on last week!). In a sea of mediocre new shows (well, mediocre to me anyway), that IS a good thing.

This vampire thing could be getting to the point of oversaturation. Bram Stoker is to blame for inventing the concept. However, vampire fans and those that frequent Hot Topic can rejoice because the CW has ordered a full season of the freshman series The Vampire Diaries. This is opposed to the still-struggling revamp of Melrose Place which has only had five additional episodes requested of it.

Between True Blood, The Vampire Diaries and the ever-immortal Buffy the Vampire Slayer (which I still count despite being long off the air), you'd think television has had enough of our fanged friends. Perhaps other series should start involving vampires in order to boost ratings.

(S01E06) "Everything you know and every belief that you have is about to change. Are you ready for that?" - Stefan to Elena

And to finish that thought ... "I'm a vampire." So Elena knows now; no more speculating or wondering. My first thought was that Elena knows that Stefan is a good vampire. He even races to tell her: "I would never hurt you. You're safe with me." So why is she so freaked out? Because he's a vampire, of course, and who wouldn't be freaked out by that?

I'm loving The Vampire Diaries.

Vampires aren't scary anymore. They haven't been for a while.

Anne Rice saw to that while she was making her fortune turning vampires into the kind of delicate camp caricatures you see hosting cooking shows on Bravo. It's continued through Twilight and every Twilight clone coming down the pipe. Still, Twilight can build it's own Federal Reserve Bank now, and no one gives a cuss what I think.

Now, I've officially typed the word "Twilight" way more than I wanted to today, and I need to get to the point. So, vampires will be the cause celebre of Spike TV's 4th Annual "Scream.," Tuesday, October 27 at 10 PM ET/PT.

(S01E05) "I'm not going to be one of those pathetic girls whose world stops spinning because of some guy." - Elena to Jenna, about Stefan

Ok, well, we'll see about that. Something tells me that by the next episode or two, Elena's world will indeed stop spinning. And then start spinning wildly out of control. She already knows something's up. She already knows in the darkest part of her heart that Stefan is a vampire. She just needs him to confirm it.

(S01E04) "How do I fight the monster without becoming one myself?" - Stefan

I know The Vampire Diaries has been taking a beating from some TV reviewers, but I'm actually loving it so far. A lot of it has to do with bad-vamp Damon, played so deliciously evil by Ian Somerhalder. He's manipulative and just plain scuzzy, but he's also really cute. That's a bad combo for impressionable girls.

At this point, it's hard to imagine that Elena would fall for any of Damon's tricks. Then again, he did get her to believe that Stefan was actually the manipulative one, dating back to when the two brothers sparred over Katherine. Elena is either really, really stupid or she's being played by a master manipulator in Damon. Maybe a little of both.

(S01E03) Why does every high school show have to do the obligatory football episode? Is this something that's still big for kids? Seriously, does this hierarchy of popularity still exist? Or are the writers just too old to know any better?

Anyway, this week Stefan tries out for the football team in a desperate attempt to not be so weird and creepy, and Elena, in an effort to get back to her "normal" life, goes back to cheerleading. That works for a few days, until Damon shows up and kills the history teacher/football coach Mr. Tanner. Yay for Damon!

The cancel hammer fell faster this season than I expected. After only two episodes, even The CW's lower ratings expectations couldn't save The Beautiful Life. The real reason The CW canceled The Beautiful Life: TBL is right there in the title. How pretentious do you have to be to put your acronym in your title?

Acronyms are earned. Acronyms like OTH, VD and MP. Those stand for shows that are doing much better for The CW. The network has tossed a full season order to the veteran One Tree Hill. They came a little short of that with The Vampire Diaries, ordering nine more scripts, but a full-season pick-up can't be far behind. While TBL slipped to one million, VD achieved 3.8 million and growing.

As for Melrose Place, it's not doing nearly as well, but The CW is maybe hoping that Heather Locklear can save this iteration the way she did the original. I'm not so sure, but they've got six more scripts to prove their case.

(S01E02) Two episodes in and I'm totally on board with the bad-ass Damon love. People, he is so evil! And he looks like Rob Lowe. What is not to love? The second episode of Vampire Diaries was way more watchable than the pilot, mainly because we don't have to suffer through so much boring character exposition. This really freed up the writers to get creative with Damon and Stefan, which was a great boost. And aside from some scenery chewing at the end, a very well paced and exciting episode.

It has vampires at a time when vampires are cool. It has teen angst. It's on the network that has low ratings to begin with (although they did beat ABC and Fox for that night, but they had repeats). It should come as no surprise that The Vampire Diaries has set a ratings record for its premiere on The CW.

I didn't watch the premiere (our review of it is here). I'm at the age where I find the CW "teen angst" formula a bit painful to watch. For all that, the network can comfort itself with that fact that I am not the target market.

That formula is what made Smallville not live up to its potential (and makes that show even less likely to continue after this season. They're not teenagers anymore). It is interesting how The Vampire Diaries cast their leads from right out of Smallville.

From what I've read, advance reviews have been poor for the show. What do you think? Does The Vampire Diaries have some potential?

(S01E1) The Vampire Diaries has everything that a show on the CW should have: nubile young actors and actresses staring longingly at one another while delivering flippant dialogue, decent special effects and enough teen angst to choke a small town.

The Vampire Diaries stars Smallville alums Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley, both strong jawed and steely eyed, as Stefan and Damon, mysterious strangers who arrive in the town of Mystic Falls and fall into the company of a sweet straight-A student named Elena, played by the pretty Nina Dobrev, who's still mourning the loss of her parents. Both brothers, one good and one bad, seem to have eyes for Elena, we're just not yet sure why.