In Mystic Falls, Virginia, Elena Gilbert (Nina Dobrev) is dealing with the death of her parents as the new school year begins. The new guy in school, Stefan Salvatore (Paul Wesley), offers a bright spot, however. They are falling for each other, but he has a secret: he is a vampire. He only feeds on animals to stay alive, but his brother, Damon (Ian Somerhalder), is also a vampire and has no such scruples. Now that Stefan has returned to their old hometown to bond with the girl who is a dead ringer for the woman who turned both brothers into vampires over a century ago, Damon has also come back--to wreak havoc.

CRITIQUE

For young audiences today, it may seem as if Twilight has touched off the vampire craze for their age group. But young adult world of books did have examples of the undead before Stephenie Meyer’s series, and The Vampire Diaries quartet was one of the best selling ones. Now, it’s a television series.

Affecting relationship drama and effective frights balance out the melodrama and over-familiarity of the premise of The Vampire Diaries and allow the captivating actors and writers to bring out the best in L.J. Smith’s source material in its first season.

One of my earliest experiences with reading and loving a set of young adult books came with L.J. Smith’s The Secret Circle, about a coven of young witches. So many other books have come up since then to prevent my reading the author’s best known creation, The Vampire Diaries, but I was still pleasantly awaiting the adaptation of those four novels into a weekly series. (I will also admit: since I am brunette, finding out that blonde Elena was now brunette was an added perk!) The pilot episode is wonderful, though most reminiscent of Twilight.

Diaries does take time to set itself apart from the beginning and continues to do so throughout the season. The look of the show’s lighting is appropriately shadowy, while you’ll be surprised where the relationships go sometimes. The single most distinctive unique feature here, however, has a name: Damon. Anyone could argue that Elena and Stefan are too much like Bella and Edward, though that’s technically backwards because these books were published first, but Damon is a true original. The evil brother who reluctantly begins to let flashes of goodness show by the end of the season also gets some great lines, and Somerhalder takes advantage of it all.

Speaking of the cast, Dobrev is good, sometimes great, as the female lead, while Wesley actually does the brooding good guy thing with more emotion than Robert Pattinson. Sorry, girls--don’t hate me please! The rest of the cast all create interest as well. And they’re all amazingly attractive--WHERE does the CW find these people? Behind the cameras, it’s nice to have Williamson leading a series again, with all the clever dialogue and exciting plotting that goes with that.

The Vampire Diaries creates its own entity out of the source material of L.J. Smith’s books, and it’s a wonderfully entertaining one because of the writing and acting on display in season one.

THE VIDEO

The anamorphic widescreen transfer looks just fine for what it is, no problems. All episodes are presented in five discs.

THE AUDIO

Presented in English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, dialogue and music are clear and easy to understand. There are no other language tracks, and the only subtitle is English for the hearing impaired.

THE EXTRAS

Into Mystic Falls: This behind-the-scenes doc is typically filled with interviews and on-set footage, but the fun of the discussion here makes it worth the watch. The production’s transfer from Vancouver for the pilot to Atlanta for the rest of the season is commented on interestingly, while the storyline’s connections to the original series of books is touched on as well. I really like the praise for director of photography Paul Simmons, too.

When Vampire’s Don’t Suck!”: The fan base that sprung up around the books and then exploded around the series is detailed in this extra. The creators praise the operators of the fan site vampire-diaries.net, while the actors talk about what it was like to meet fans at a Hot Topic Mall Tour. A cool bonus feature that’s not too long.

The Vampire Diaries: A New Breed of Vampires: The cast is the focus of this doc, and the most interesting part here is the differences in characters from book to screen. Elena is not so likeable in the books, for instance, and the Jeremy character is actually a four-year-ld little sister in Smith’s series. The young cast clearly has a lot of affection for each other. You wonder, though, that when Somerhalder says it is the best cast and crew he’s worked with “EVER” if he’s including Lost in that statement.

Unaired Scenes: Nine episodes have additional scenes on this set, and they are good overall. Some of them seem to be shown with the wrong episode, though. I like the Matt and Vickie interaction from the second episode, for example, and more Stefan and Bonnie vampire/witch talk.

The Vampire Diaries: Vampires 101: This is a cute little featurette revealing the details of the vampire lore from the series in the form of a funny quiz. Answers are provided by cast members and writers Williamson and Plec. A fun filler piece.

Audio Commentary: The pilot features a lively track from creator/writer Williamson, co-writer Julie Plec, and director Marcus Siega. It’s so interesting to know things like how eager the writers were for Somerhalder to play Damon from the beginning and how divided the three are on the subject of including the actual diary entries. Enjoy this track.

The Vampire Diaries: A Darker Truth Webisodes: A young man searches for Stefan in this set of short webisodes. He mistakenly thinks Stefan is the vampire who murdered his sister, but of course, Damon is the culprit and clever use of footage from the series shows how Damon takes care of this little problem. These are actually a lot of fun to watch, especially as the guy is relying on the usual vampire lore that doesn’t always apply to the Salvtore brothers.

Second Bite: Gag Reel: This short but funny blooper reel really highlights how much the cast curses in real life. It is tickling how much they flub certain lines and a hoot to have Wesley apologize for drooling while filming a kissing scene! Watch and laugh.

FINAL THOUGHTS