The Vampire Diaries TV series, masterminded by Kevin Williamson (known to us from the making of cheap teenage slashers like The Faculty or Scream), is one little gem that is very easy to misjudge. This is not hard to see, after all mr Williamson’s reputation is based on heavily comercialized cheap thrills. Then, the promotion campaign of the movie seems to target the Twilight frenzy with posters and trailers that will make one immediately consider Stephanie Meyer’s work behind this. And on top of everything we have the pilot episode that feels a big salad of teenage melodrama, vampire stereotypes and a lot of issues resulting in some incredible plot holes that will have you either stop asking why and how questions or you will need to switch away from this.

To start with the bad, The Vampire Diaries opens much like Lost Girl. A lot of background information is simply blurted out, the connections between various characters are moving ahead at the speed of light. Sure, since the surface of the story resembles something you’ve seen over and over again (human girl falls for immortal vampire then worlds collide, human Juliette, vampire Romeo, forbidden love, etc) the relation speed up may just be the producer’s way of getting over the obvious. Still, the unnatural pacing can leave a trail of frustration.

Then we have the stereotypical main characters. Elena is the human girl whose life is about to change. What’s wrong with her, you ask? Not much, except from the fact that she definitely hasn’t seen many vampire movies (definitely not Twilight). The moment of the revelation is so badly acted on both sides and it goes by so quickly that the bitter taste it left almost made me stop watching. I guess we won’t have a vampire flick ever portraying a moment like this in a plausible manner any time soon. Aside from this, the actress portraying Elena has the emotional range of a wood plank. Basically she has three or four looks, out of which her favorite is something that conveys a weird kind of disgust … something that makes is extremely hard to empatize with her. When she switches to Katherine, she plays it much better – but then again the part is somewhat easier.

Stefan is a nearly 200 years old vampire. His fault (like so many other vampires in movies) is that he doesn’t act his age. I’m not talking about the circulating idea of mandatory cynicism but my own minimal standard is an udnerstanding of human nature. In spite of this, Stefan doesn’t seem to have accumulated any in his nearly two centuries spent on Earth. Instead, he acts like a teenager, like a real teenager with a blunt disregard not only for human nature but also for common sense and basic logic. This lack of understanding is particularly unnerving because of his implied claim to keep close to humanity through his initial refusal of drinking human blood (a big why? his brother does it very well without killing). The actor is also quite limited in skill in the same manner as his on-screen female partner.

Damon is the anti-hero. The fault put in the character is that in the beginning he gratuituously annoys everyone. Given that he’s portrayed with a much greater level of understanding and intelligence than his brother, this behavior makes absolutely no sense and … predictably … eventually proves to be counterproductive to Damon’s plans. The actor does a farly good job and is one of the show’s pluses.

Despite the initial letdowns, the show picks up fairly quickly and the biggest plus on its side is the story. Indeed, despite the mix and the flood of free background points, the writers skillfuly deviate from the source in order to produce a plot that becomes captivating. And yet even better is that, unlike Lost Girl, they blend one plot with another very naturally, almost in spite of the induced character and actor flaws.

The biggest story plus is Elena’s brother, Jeremy, who benefits from the actor whose skill I place at number 2 (after Ian Somerhalder playing Damon). He passes from unwitting to knowledgeable about vampire much more seamlessly than his sister and is close to what I would imagine from a contemporary teen. I only wish the series would have spent a little more time over his dabbling in the dark side.

Another plus is Jeremy’s female partner, the vampire Anna. Ironically, she plays a believable part both as vampire and as a human and her death was probably the most senseless in the show.

The gradual increasing intensity of the show culminates at the end of the first season with an outstanding finale which then treads on to a much better season two. Predictably, the show audience decreased, since due to the very poorly targeted marketing, the Twilight fans noticed this is not a copy and quit the show while the pickup of fans outside the crazed teen pool was (predictably) not very good.

The worthwhile show does leave me with some questions:

• why does Damon kill Alex? Sure, he had to prove himself trustworthy to the Council but why couldn’t he just charm the two witnesses into thinking they saw the killing without actually doing it? Or better yet, why didn’t he kill someone else (they were suspecting another vampire anyway)?
• why doesn’t Stefan drink blook? He claims he’s afraid of killing but as Damon proves, it is possible to drink without killing. Add to this a little vampire charm to make the victim not struggle and one doesn’t even need to leave bruises. Also, a blood pouch contains a person’s blood donation. This means that it contains blood whose loss doesn’t not endanger a human. Since up to three pouches seem to satisfy Damon (Stefan has about 10 on him during his thirst time) a day, it seems drinking blood without harm is possible.
• why does John Gilbert kill Pearl? And how come he manages to easily overpower the old vampires? Pearl’s reflexes allow her to break up Damon’s vampiric speed (shall we call it Celerity skill, for WoD’s sake?) but not catch a wooden projectile or block a stab attempt by a human?
• why doesn’t Damon kill John anyway (hold him, tear the ring off and kill him)? Ok, he eventually finds he’s Elena’s dad but what about before that? Right after he failed to kill him the first time he learns about the ring so why didn’t he do it like Katherine eventually does it? Pearl and Isobel threaten him too (and Isobel is a less powerful vampire than Damon).
• people keep mistaking Elena for Katherine. Given that they all try to appear intelligent, haven’t they figured out by now that Elena is the one with straight hair?