The Vampire Diaries - The Pilot
One of the great concepts of philosophy is “Platonic Ddeals”, originate 2500 years ago by Plato. Contemplating t something being the perfect ideal of what something is, which best encapsulates something.- The platonic idea of “red””, of “hot”, The platonic “kangaroo”.
I bring this up in relation to “The Vampire Diaries” a new vampire themed teen drama on the CW network. Because if you where to imagine the platonic ideal of the concept of “a vampire themed teen drama on the CW network” this show wouldn't be far off.
Over the past couple of years ago CW has had made an art of taking the teen soap formula pioneered by Fox, and perfected by the WB, and remove the traces of wit and occasionally clunky social consciousness that made these shows fun to watch.. It replaced this with a tad more sex(but still pg-13), more bitchy evil, and more uniformly beautiful actors and actress, some so beautiful that they are sometimes hard to remember whose who.
To this mix Vampire Diaries adds well vampires. The kind of well mythologized vampires(they can go out in the sunlight certain times, they can turn into crows and fog) that seem to be created more to fill the need of specific scenes then breath as something supernatural. They are just well vampires.. They are admittedly beautiful vampires. They come conveniently in two types-the good brooding reluctant vampire(represented by Paul Wesley) , and the evil sarcastic vampire ( represented Ian Somerhalder) . They happen to brothers.
There eternal quest is over the soul of Elana(Nina Dobrev ) a high school Girl, tragically orphaned. Its a cliché in modern vampire movies why centuries old creatures decide to devote there lives to teen girls in small towns. Here Elana is written as beautiful, intelligent and soulful. Yet she comes across as more a beautiful young girl, trying her best to act intelligent and soulful, and mostly failing. This could be an interesting idea if that's was the idea-instead really it just comes as just bad teen acting. The fact that a few of the supporting characters especially her former boyfriend Matt (Zach Roerig) actually pull it off doesn't do the show any favors.
Shows like this sink or swim on the bad vampire-for if the hero lives in the end the Villian gets all the best line. We don't get a lot of good lines in the pilot. Ian Somerhalder(from tv's lost) at least seems to be having fun, if he doesn't have good material . He is not Javier from Nick at Night, or Spike from Buffy or any other of the many villains that make vampires shows fun. At least in the pilot Instead of witty dialogue, he uses an evil laugh and special effects, which make him seem fairly well..... just generic.
Yet according to plato, nothing can be a complete generic- nothing totally the idea we have in are minds-this is for the better, as reality intrudes. Actual life.
The shows best element is Paul Wesley as the good Damon . Though there's a bit of the brooding Robert Paterson or David Bordenez, he seems much less a goth then the jock who beats goths up in the locker room. The show is better for that choice. He doesn't come across as super smart, super smooth, or impossibly perfect. If the show does require him to brood, he mixes it in with a kind of awkward high schoolness-scenes where he fear of his fangs, or when he projects a kind of husky awkward demeanor despite his supernatural powers. He has a magnetism that feels less animal as lets go to the party and have some brewski.
Its a shame that he and Nina don't generate much chemistry. In the scenes where she just reacts and not acts smart they come across well-however the more dialogue, the more soul searching they have, the more the show starts to fall apart. The more the show goes to a forbidden love that will last for centuries or generic teen angst, the less the show has actual life.
Though the show is based on a series of vampire books that proceed it, the influence of twilight is all over the show. While twilight isn't universally popular the movies at least have a certain intelligence, mixed with some of the best cinematography I have seen in a long time.. This is not on display here. The show is set in Mystic Falls Virginia, trying for an upper south mysterious gothic look. Yet it fails to generate much visual interest. It looks as if one has taken to mix the southern heat of true blood with the trees and forest of twilight... and then bleached all the fun out of it. Flat and boring in a low budget TV kind of way, the show manages to make some of its many fog scenes look as if they where done by a party de humidifier.
The show was created Kevin Williamson, whose previous did the scream movies and the show Dawson's Creek, which where all about taking teen genres and adding intelligence and wit. If the show made some changes and had a little bit of fun with the cast there's a chance here that this could be a very good show. A small part of me thinks that somewhere that show exists; it could exist- a platonic ideal of this show but well good. If a couple of seasons down the line someone where tells me “check out vampire diaries its great”, I would smile. T as for now, the idea just seems to be frustrating just out of reach.
Scott Hillman
Writter & Directer A reading of Tristan & Isolde
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kd8Yvznkt20&feature=channel_page
