Television Review | 'The Vampire Diaries'
When Stephenie Meyer emerged as a titanic cultural force with the first of her “Twilight” books a few years ago, L. J. Smith must have wanted to unleash a brigade of termites on her house and curse the day her laptop was wired. In 1991 Ms. Smith began a series of young-adult books, “The Vampire Diaries,” about a melancholy but benevolent teenage vampire and his obsession with a cute, suburban high school girl with an Italianate first name. This, in both broad terms and certain specifics, is the essence of the “Twilight” story, which has spawned movies, conventions and fan sites as it has cemented the author’s celebrity on a level with J. K. Rowling’s.
CW
Girl meets boy with a secret: Nina Dobrev and Paul Wesley in “The Vampire Diaries.”
And yet at the same time, if it weren’t for the recent success of “Twilight” and the seemingly unappeasable national interest in vampire arcana, “The Vampire Diaries” might not have found its way to television, where it begins on Thursday as another slickly produced series about teenage life in the CW stable. Developed by Kevin Williamson, of “Scream” and “Dawson’s Creek” fame, the show deploys the visual aesthetics of the “Twilight” movie, the heavy fog and brooding cinematography, dispensing with much of the moroseness. There’s an engrossing moodiness to Mr. Williamson’s latest venture, but one he conveys without annulling the pact he long ago made with himself never to let his cheekiness go undetected.
Mr. Williamson understands the modern American teenager more fully than Ms. Meyer, not only in the sharp grasp he maintains on adolescent idiom but also in his realization that young people feel as empowered in their roles as knowing cultural consumers as they can be by fulfilling their romantic longings. As the heroine’s best friend in “The Vampire Diaries,” Bonnie (Katerina Graham) makes claims for her abilities as a psychic early on by announcing: “I predicted Obama. I predicted Heath Ledger. And I still think Florida will break off and turn into little resort islands.”
The heroine is Elena Gilbert (Nina Dobrev), a pretty if not Serena van der Woodsen-gorgeous student starting a new year at Mystic Falls High. She has joined the vast population of fictional children who suddenly find themselves parentless: Elena’s mother and father were killed in an accident the previous spring, and she is now living with a distracted graduate-student aunt and a brother who struggles with drug problems and a bruising unrequited crush.
Elena submits to her grief by writing in her diary and compulsively visiting her parents’ grave site. As it happens, cemeteries are a good place to bump into guys who haven’t been recruited to play starting cornerback for the football team, and Elena quickly comes upon Stefan (Paul Wesley), who looks like a young Matt Dillon, possesses a “romance-novel stare” and in class displays an uncanny erudition about local history.
A closeted vampire, Stefan is operating from memory not book knowledge. In the 1860s he loved a woman named Katherine, of whom Elena is a replica. And while the two seem to have quite a mind meld going — Stefan is also an orphan and similarly in the habit of journaling — trouble comes in the form of his evil brother, Damon (Ian Somerhalder), who looks like the kind of person who would steal mittens from an 8-year-old and who clearly wants to have Elena for dinner rather than take her out for a nice meal at Tim Hortons.
Like Edward Cullen of “Twlight,” Stefan doesn’t feed on the human form, or at any rate works very hard to quell the urge. At first look “The Vampire Diaries” has the feel of something more permissive and less morally rigid than the “Twilight” franchise, which certain sophisticated 14-year-olds I’ve known will disparage as they march back to their rooms to read the Brontës or “The Bell Jar.” But the show subtly delivers its own lessons: that indiscriminate sex is emotionally destructive, that developing mechanisms of resistance builds character. As Elena tells her substance-abusing brother, “I’m going to be there to ruin your buzz every time.”
THE VAMPIRE DIARIES
CW, Thursday nights at 8, Eastern and Pacific times; 7, Central time.
Written by Kevin Williamson and Julie Plec, based on the book by L. J. Smith; Mr. Williamson, Leslie Morgenstein and Bob Levy, executive producers; Ms. Plec, co-executive producer; Pascal Verschooris, producer. Produced by Alloy Entertainment and Bonanza Productions Inc.
in association with Warner Brothers
Television and CBS Television Studios.
WITH: Nina Dobrev (Elena Gilbert), Paul Wesley (Stefan Salvatore), Ian Somerhalder (Damon Salvatore), Steven R. McQueen (Jeremy Gilbert), Sara Canning (Jenna Somers) and Katerina Graham (Bonnie Bennett).
Original article can be found at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/10/arts/television/10vampire.html?hpw
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