The Vampire Diaries

Season 1 – 80% – Seeing nothing but the premise from Twilight in Mystic Falls is as naive as assuming Glee to be just a version of High School Musical (however fond I may be of both heavily reviled works). This vampire relationship show has reached a high level of appeal, thanks to the number of characters involved in the story and the brilliant performance of Ian Somerhalder, whose Damon Salvatore is probably the favorite character after only a few sentences. The criticism, therefore, falls to the script. Plot twists sometimes happen at an astonishing speed, and fitting three significant twists into half an episode can confuse viewers. This occasionally affects both the character motivations and the understanding of their emotions. On the other hand, it also means that it's practically impossible to find a weak or unnecessary episode. The finale left me hanging, and I still remember how eagerly I awaited the continuation. However, the mythology offered many undisclosed places, and it was clear that the creators would have to be very careful to fill them in the most logical way possible. Season 2 – 80% – The vampires are more imaginative, more nimble in their second chapter – but they repeat the same mistakes. The writers have to let go of the effective character arrivals. As soon as a new vampire/werewolf/wizard appears in town, it benefits the cause and the plot has somewhere to draw from again. The fact that they're mostly connected to trivial plot crutches that change the previously solid and seemingly unshakable rules from minute to minute, leading to a near apocalypse, is another matter. And it's a shame, because the relationships work and the twists usually do, too. The second season more or less decided that The Vampire Diaries will never be my favorite series, but ironically, despite a lot of unnecessary hesitations, I still can't get properly angry at it and will always try to root for it. Season 3 – 65% – Fluctuating pacing, weird twists and turns, and a definite loss of tension with the various deaths of the main characters. The vampire storyline has reached the stage where Alaric or Jeremy have died about ten times now, and when they cheerfully pop out of their coffins again after a twenty-minute tearful goodbye, I don't know whether to smile in relief or shake my head in annoyance. Julie Plec and her likeable band of writers are cutting themselves a new branch, because they can come up with cool characters like the bloated Rebekah while killing everything with all sorts of body swaps, accelerated transformations into all sorts of creatures, and a completely doomed storyline involving hybrids. At another time I'd certainly be more forgiving, but everything that bothered me in season two is multiplied in season three, the central love triangle is still afraid to make any really BIG moves, and most of all I can't quite get over the final episode, which demonstrates all the positives and negatives of the season as a whole. There's a lot of dying and a lot of poignant moments happening again – and they end up ringing punishingly hollow because of the overwrought script. Where are the days when all it took was a hint of werewolves and a few seconds of Katherine to make me declare the finale of the first year. With things this messed up, the beginning of the fourth season is going to be really hard to stick with. Season 4 – 60% – A resurrection – literally. After a dull denouement where the final twists of fate absolutely didn't work and the entire saga lost even its last certainty of being relatively well-paced, this small qualitative comeback is no small surprise. Exploring the possibilities of the undead and ripping off the last season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is downright annoying, but when things start to get a little rough in the search for Silas, we're suddenly (at least in terms of suspense) back in the era from a few seasons back. Much of the credit for this goes to Claire Holt, who literally manages to make even the obnoxiously whiny Rebekah seem like about the most understandable character to the viewer. Hopefully the next chapter of the diaries will go in a more modest direction. But I don't trust lead creator Julie Plec with anything at all after her constant denial of long-established rules, let alone a spin-off that was introduced in the worst episode of the show ever, and which I really never have any reason to commit to. So now I'm just holding my breath and waiting. Season 5 – 65% – One thing I have to give the creators credit for, even after the fifth year: they never let the series die miserably, and whenever it goes down an increasingly steep hill, they switch gears. So while the line with Silas, Tessa, and co. would earn a rating bordering on the worst, within a few dozen minutes it's no problem to change the mood entirely and have Katherine fighting for her life tooth and nail. And it's the efforts of my favorite woman in Mystic Falls that in some places bring The Vampire Diaries back to the level of the first two seasons. Of course, even this fierce fight doesn't last, and at the very end the whole gang has to duke it out with a perhaps undignified adversary. But even though I'm probably severely foolish, I've once again come to cautiously trust this bloody work, which perfectly fills the guilty pleasure box. Despite the denial of rules that, until recently, had seemed to be set in stone. Season 6 – 70% – What worked before, works now. That is: the relationships, Damon's charisma, the charms of girls everywhere, and the general human level that allows the viewer to take the central supernatural swarm seriously. What didn't work before doesn't work now. That is: the constant denial, alternating or adding to the rules of all the curses and counter-curses, and the moments when the big badguy finally needs to be dealt with once and for all. That's why I was thoroughly surprised when Season Six stayed on a decent plane for so long that I was beginning to believe it would stay there. Unfortunately, along came Kai and later that hated ploy of all clueless writers in the form of a long lost relative, and we were almost on familiar tracks heading towards Klaus. The impressions are elevated a notch by the grand finale, which brings the second era of the series to a close in a very sly (and, as a result, very successful) way, heading towards a definitive conclusion. Season 7 – 55% – If there's anything reliable in the writings of romantic bloodsuckers, it's the final episodes. Without them, I wouldn't have given them above average ratings for so many years and I would have given up on them long ago. It's just that even in the weakest of times, when I'm not even motivated to keep watching the series, the creators remember to add a heap of tension and a waterfall of tears to the final episodes, and I'm noticeably more conciliatory the next morning. It was no different this year, but this time it won't stop me from lowering my rating. After all, The Vampire Diaries has never offered so much nonsense and pointlessness in a single season, and as soon as the unexplained pregnancies and people getting together simply because they're spending time together started happening, I sensed betrayal. But I ultimately gave up on the series for good the moment the story settled a laboriously constructed flashforward in three minutes – and in the most banal way possible. A couple of good storylines for characters with at least a little bit to work with (Damon, Valerie, and occasionally Enzo) held my attention, but I can't shake the feeling that this particular season was meant to be the last one, lest the show feel even more drawn out than it already does.  Season 8 – 70% – The series is not easy for me to leave, having been through everything with it, from a packed pilot the day it aired to a packed finale the day it aired. And I really wanted it to return to a four-star rating, but it can't. Because as good as the ending was, and the last twenty minutes were almost completely to much for me, the action that came before it wasn't strong enough. The opening escapades with the sirens did work and were suspenseful, but as Cade began coming to the forefront, the plot almost stopped dead in its tracks in some episodes, not to mention that it didn't even look like the full end was in sight until a few episodes before the series ended. The (lack of) guilt of the characters for some comparably horrific acts is also a big crutch for me. So while Damon, under the influence of the Dark Ones, kills Tyler, a character who was one of the main protagonists for almost six seasons, and after the funeral not even those closest to him mention the event, Stefan, also under the influence of the Dark Ones, kills Enzo. However, he is in a loving relationship with Bonnie at this point, unlike the single Tyler, so Enzo's death is clearly something worse – and Stefan doesn't come out of his remorse until the end of the series. Not even the fact that Damon remained my favorite character until the very end will improve such an obvious nod towards the key twist of the last episode for me. I don't want to end on a pessimistic note, though, because despite the many missteps, I still cherish The Vampire Diaries as a small guilty pleasure that I won't give up easily. But no one is going to change my belief that, by and large, it should have ended (at least) two seasons earlier and we all would probably have walked away happier. (2010-05-16) (less) (more)