Vampire Diaries

[norwich36]

Sorry to be spammity, but I didn't want to contaminate my SPN squee with my Vampire Diaries snark. This is not really a full-fledged review, just a couple of observations.

I really like Elana. She seems sweet without being cloying; her grief is realistic and not overdone; and I like her relationship with her best friend and her brother and aunt. If she were in another show, I would totally watch it. I'm pretty sure she's not going to be enough to keep me watching this show, though, at least not when "Flash Forward" premieres, since that show is a lot more likely to hold my attention.

Because I didn't find the vampires attractive AT ALL. They don't seem alluring or dangerous or slashy to me; they just feel like a bunch of cliches that are badly stitched together. Let me put it this way: while Elana is about twenty-five more times interesting to me than Bella, Stefan and Damon taken together are about twenty-five times less interesting to me than Edward Cullen. (And Edward Cullen is already about as fascinating to me as watching golf on television, so....)

I was watching this mainly for the lulz, but it's not really bad enough to keep doing that--it's just boring, with lots of lame, overly-portentous voiceovers. (And yeah, I know the conceit is vampire DIARIES, but wow, that much monologue is just tedious if it's not being voiced by Veronica Mars or Michael Weston.)

Probably I'll watch next week's ep, but I doubt I'm going to get hooked enough to tape it, so unless Flash Forward turns out to really suck, that will be all for me.

Comments

[yaycoffee.livejournal.com]

I think I'm going to give the Vampire Diaries two more shows... just to see. Stefan seemed like a cross between Edward Cullen at his prissiest and Angel at his broodiest. In bad ways. He's too SENSITIVE... like, what's the mythology here? Why does he have all this humanity, while his brother acts like an actual Vampire?

I did like Elana... I thought she would be an annoying Bella-like character--and she could go that direction easily. But, she could just as easily be pretty cool.

Liked the brother, and felt bad for the ex bf.

Mostly the chick that got bitten? Bugged.

It was pretty boring, actually. I kept checking the DVR to see how much time was left. Not a good sign.

[norwich36.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the broody sensitive vampire is rather overdone. And wow, yes, about the boredom factor. If I wasn't cooking as I watched, I might not have finished it.

[annaalamode.livejournal.com]

You are nicer than I am. I bailed after 15 minutes. I was totally hoping for trashtastic entertainment a la the new Melrose Place (which I do rec in the "so wtf that it is good" way) but I was BORED. There was no flow, no I don't know, sparkle. The lead actress is good but the writing is blah.

[norwich36.livejournal.com]

Oh, definitely. If I hadn't been chopping an awful lot of vegetables for a work thing tomorrow, I probably would have bailed earlier.

[annaalamode.livejournal.com]

I bet if we could get your veggies a WGA card, they could do a better writing job.

[norwich36.livejournal.com]

Snerk!

[beck-liz.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I didn't even bother to set the DVR for this. What vampire series I'm following I already am, but I have not been interested in any more vampires. Overloaded on vampires. And the promos haven't been interesting me much. Eh.

(The only reason I'm even the slightest bit interested in Edward Cullen is due to the fact that I liked Robert Pattinson prior to ever hearing about Twilight. If he weren't involved, I'm not sure I'd've bothered. See also: overloaded on vampires. Especially the broody type that Edward is. Meh.)

[norwich36.livejournal.com]

Well, trust me, you didn't miss anything. This isn't even fun to mock like the Twilight movie, and neither of the actors playing the vamps are nearly as good as RPatz.

[miss-tress.livejournal.com]

*nods* Most of my amusement while watching came from picking out all the old SV shooting locations.

[norwich36.livejournal.com]

Hee! Well, that's a drinking game that should be invented.

[miss-tress.livejournal.com]

*ponders actually working on that* But then I would have to watch the eps more than once and I didn't like enough to do that.

[rsadelle]

I watched the rerun this evening, although I missed some of it because I was on the phone with a friend who we got to watch JONAS. I was not particularly impressed either. I did find the female characters more interesting than the male characters (except Jeremy [the brother] - I liked him). It did make me think it might be worth reading the books, though.

The actress who plays Elena totally reminds me of someone, but I can't think of who. Maybe Jordana Brewster?

[norwich36.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure who Jordana Brewster is, so I'm no help on that front, I'm afraid. But I agree with you that the books may well be better than the show.

[rsadelle]

She was Mia in the first and fourth Fast and the Furious movies and Lucy in D.E.B.S., which you absolutely have to see if you haven't already.

[bop-radar.livejournal.com]

I found it hideously boring too. But supacat is trying to persuade me there were LULZ I did not see. :/ I find your snark amusing! I'm just over dudes stalking chicks. TV can get back to me when it stops with that device. ;p

[norwich36.livejournal.com]

I suppose there could be LULZ in the future; my problem is that Thursday nights are too overscheduled for me, and I'm bad at watching tape-delayed TV. (I guess if *I* lived in Australia I'd never be able to get involved in live US fandoms for that reason). Because I really think Flash Forward looks like it's going to be excellent (since you don't get US previews, it's an upcoming scifi-ish show in which the whole world gets a 2 minute vision of their future six months away, and it has John Cho, who I love, in the cast), and it's going to be on at the same time as VD, so I doubt I'll be watching.

And wow, I am 1000% with you on stalking as a plot device.

[bop-radar.livejournal.com]

Oh! *clappy hands* That was so well explained for a non-US person! Thank you! :D I'll have to watch out for Flash Forward as well... I think I'd opt for something else if I had a choice over VD.

[norwich36.livejournal.com]

Here's a link to the trailer that ABC has pretty much been playing constantly all summer: http://abc.go.com/shows/flash-forward/

[bop-radar.livejournal.com]

Ohh, looks exciting! :) I'll keep my eyes peeled for a dl.

[shopgirl318.livejournal.com]

BEST POST EVER! I loved your comparison to the Twilight vampires as interesting as watching golf on television! lmao. I am not gonna lie, I enjoyed the pilot and it was one of the better ones on the CW! (not the best though!) I thought everything flowed smoothly and the chararcters had some connection to each other and wasn't randomly placed there or maybe my opinion is too nice. I just hope the lead girl isn't going to be made into one of those Joey Potter types, starts of cool then make her all whiny. I am going too keep watching it though for awhile. I agree with bop_radar on the whole dude stalking chicks things, it is getting out of control. I want to see a vampire being a vampire, cause he likes it and not because "I'm so tortured from my past!" aw boo!

[norwich36.livejournal.com]

No, I agree with you that the parts of it that were high-school centered, as opposed to broody-vampire-centered, were pretty engaging. And probably if I liked Ian Somerhalder or Paul Wesley more, I would be into it.

[shopgirl318.livejournal.com]

I actually do like Paul Wesley, not from Smallville but the Fallen series on ABC family.