TV Review: The Vampire Diaries Season One

So, I just marathoned the whole first season (22 episodes) in six days.  That's right, six days.  Wow.  I'm both proud and disturbed by myself.  It was a sort of last ditch effort to watch something new before everything starts up again and my friend convinced me to watch this show.  Why haven't I watched it before?  I don't really know.  But I've been sucked in (pun intended) for good.

I actually read the books (the original four) a while back.  I can't really recall much from them except that none of them would have gotten more then three stars.  I do know that this show is different- better then the books- and am glad because the books had so much potential.  That potential is certainly reached through this show.

I'd definitely say this was PG-13 because there are several sex scenes.  They actually made me a little uncomfortable to watch and I'm not that squeamish.  You don't see anything, really, but you get the idea.

This is not one of those shows you want to binge watch.  It's not bad, so much as the way it's set up makes it a little hard to stomach at times.  There are time lapses between episodes that can span a couple days and that makes you feel like you've missed something when you watch it in quick succession.  At the end of the series the pace picks up and it's OK, but I really think I would have liked it even more if I watched it when every episode came out.

There are so many characters on this show I'm not going to talk about every single one of them.  There's Elena, who I didn't like much until she got onto the vampire idea (she just seemed so clueless... which I suppose was the point) and was always jealous of her hair.  (actually, I started calling this show "The Perfect Hair Show" because everyone always had perfect hair.)  Stefan is pretty sweet and for a while I was wavering between him and his brother, but in the end, I have to say I'm team Damon.  Damon is probably the most complicated character on the show, and the most interesting.  Three other favorites (in order) are Alaric (who's just damn awesome), Jeremy, and Caroline (who's a bit of an airhead but actually a pretty nice person; I hope she has a happy ending).

For a while they would throw a plot line up and then end it an episode later which I found aggravating, but once they left some plot lines alone and then tied them up much later I thought they had some pretty ingenious stories.  There were several cliffhangers I didn't see coming (season finale!) and was always pleasantly surprised by them. 

My goal is to catch up on the next three seasons before the fifth (and spin-off The Originals) start October third.  Wish me luck!

Rating: ****4 out of 5 stars****