San Francisco Chronicle's Tim Goodman didn't have any love for CW's The Vampire Diaries, but USA Today's Robert Bianco has it listed as one of his top ten new shows of the fall (at #9):
The Vampire Diaries
CW, Thursdays, 8 ET/PT, Sept. 10Think of it as One Tree Hill with sharper teeth.
Chances are, your first inclination is to think of Vampire Diaries as a rip-off of True Blood and Twilight — even though the book it's based on predates both. But beneath the gothic trappings, Vampire (produced by Dawson's Creek's Kevin Williamson) is just CW doing what it does: building a teen soap around the complicated lives of impossibly pretty, alarmingly worldly young people who manage to seem prosperous even with no visible means of support.
Adults are likely to steer clear, but the show isn't made for them. It's made for young women and girls who have a current affection for vampires and a long-standing affection for the good boy/bad boy dynamic. That should be enough to draw them in.
And that's the only ratings hill CW has any interest in climbing.
it looks like she farted HA
Doesn’t sound exactly like Bianco likes his T10 all that much though.
Lots of agreement with TWoP’s top new shows: Glee, Beautiful Life, Community, (Bored to Death), Good Wife, Cougar Town, Modern Family, Flash Forward, V. The only one in USA Today’s T8 not in TwoP’s is “The Middle…just a Malcolm retread and we’ve already seen the original.”
The consensus seems to be that ABC has the best new shows of the season, gunning hard since Lost is ending, with 4 of USA Today’s T5.
I can’ believe that CW is only interest in white teenages as a demo! That is not going to provide long term profitable because interest change from year to year. CW continues to be the most undiversified channel on TV….next to maybe Spike.
Melrose Place is a show not really for teenage girls but im sure they will watch it. Its more for adults. I think and hope this show does better than 90210 has been doing.
If that’s praise I’d like to see what criticism looks like. But seriously i’ll admit I watched Dawson’s Creek in high school but I don’t want to see the show rehashed with fangs.
It will capitilize on the Vampire trend right now. Thanks to Twilight and ,although i havn’t seen the show, True Blood
CTV in Canada is promoting the hell out of it on both CTV and Muchmusic channels and I’m sure on other channels that CHUM owns. IT is expected to be a big hit for CTV in Canada. CTV doesn’t pick up many CW shows (I think the only ones are Gossip Girl and Smallville and now Vampire Diaries) so they fact that it took the show and is really pushing it tells me the expectations are high for it. That doesn’t mean it will be a good show but I doubt the target demo reads critic blogs.
She farted Twilight vampire skin sparkles in the sun. Another nail in the coffin (thank you I’m here all night) for network television, if you can consider the CW even a network.
madhatter24d,
You mean because CW canceled The Game and Everybody Hates Chris?
90210 has a black lead (Dixon) and…uhhh… oh yeah, Corbin Bleu is on TBL…and….alright, you got me!
Funny thing about CW’s black actors, almost all of them aren’t 100% african-american. They’re either half this or half that. 90210′s lead is half black, half dominican. Gossip Girl’s lead is African American and German. EHC had all black actors.
Deep down, I think the CW believes its a niche cable network…
How come VD is airing @ 8/7 c?
They could included some profane language and extremely violent scenes and ship it off to HBO, where it belongs- could be paired with that ‘True’ Blood. It would definitely get more viewers- and love from critics.
Shem, I think two vampire series are too many for one network.
i honestly cant wait 4 this show….THE VAMP DIARIES followed by SUPERNATURAL…holy crap!!!!!
I just cannot wait to see Damon Salvatore come to life. I love him in the novels!!
Hah, here I am just posting in the other thread about “bad boys” and here a critic explicitly makes the link!
With five hot babes in the show, I think it should do well, as long as they aren’t all complete idiots like most characters in teen shows.
In Twilight, the conflict was between the “good vampires” and the “bad vampires”, whereas in this show – and apparently the novel – the conflict is between two brothers, BUT also OTHER vampires that turn up trying to screw both of them over. That background might make the show work better than Twilight did for me.
Most of the vampire shows have that dynamic. It’s never just vampire against humans, it’s vampires against other vampires or as currently in True Blood vampires against other creatures. That harkens back to the old vampires vs werewolves movies of the 1930′s and ’40′s with Lon Chaney and Bela Lugosi.
The nice thing about True Blood is that it’s clearly mostly about sex. The problem with the CW is it’s likely to tone down the sex because it’s about teenagers, and everybody criticizes teenage sex. Which is why in Twilight, there was just about zip sex.
And no sex = mucho boring.
If I get the urge to see vampires and werewolves I’ll just wait until the second season of Being Human comes out.
zip? what does this refer to?
@Chrisjozo
Being Human sucked, the original pilot was much better. Getting rid of quirky northern bird ghost for whiney pain in the ar*e bird ghost killed it IMHO.
@ Craiguk
I saw the original pilot and I think the series is much better. I think the portrayal of the new Annie is much better than the dour portrayal in the pilot. I’m glad they recast the role. I also like the new Mitchell, the other guy seemed like he was constantly high. Overall its a very intriguing show and I can’t wait to see more of it.