Poor Telly

[caddyman]

We have just watched the pilot episode of Buffy the Vampire Diarist The Vampire Diaries. I now have an unaccountable craving for cheese.

I feel safe in assuming that I am not the target audience, being both male and at least thirty-five years too old. I imagine that my youngest niece, who is approaching thirteen, would sit there with a soggy hanky thinking that it's all too true and lifelike etc. Oh dear. Aren't vampires supposed to be nasty and evil? Didn't Buffy do the whole tormented vampire with a soul thing? Didn't Buffy do the whole "my best friend is a witch" thing? Didn't Buffy do it with humour and intelligence?

I miss Buffy.

I miss rock hard nasty vampires more. Ones that go on a rampage and end up getting a gruesome if open-ended demise at the hands of the good guys.

At one point after a particularly dramatic piece of emoting, the screen faded to black. We both expected the credits to roll as we had had our 44 minutes worth of teen angst, but no - we had had a mere 24 minutes of it. We were barely halfway through. Should I watch any more of them, which I fancy is an extremely remote happen stance, I think I would find myself cheering on the cross-eyed elder brother with the strangely pear-shaped head. At least he was tearing through the extras in a suitably gory and refreshingly uninhibited fashion.

Oh yes. Rings that protect the vampire wearer from the daylight. Didn't Buffy do that?

We also caught up on Supernatural. Much better. The evening's viewing wasn't a complete bust.

Comments

[furzepig.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen this. Will avoid, unless I want to watch for research purposes.

Have you seen Being Human or True Blood? Both have tormented vamps, but they also have plenty of the non-tormented sorts. Also moments of humour and lots of character development.

[jfs.livejournal.com]

I can heartily second the recommendation for both Being Human and True Blood.

[furzepig.livejournal.com]

Weirdly I didn't take to Being Human the first time I saw it. It took a second watching to see that the whole 'Look! Vampires! Etc! Are real!' being overdone (as I felt it was at first) was kind of needed to get everyone on board. It works like the 'Rose' episode works for the restart of Dr Who.

[jfs.livejournal.com]

Did you see the pilot, or just the first episode of Series 1?

The pilot was a little too much like a Vampire game for my liking, but the basic premise was good, and the interplay between the three main characters was good.

Weirdly, I was having dinner with someone who's best mates with the Being Human writer last week - that's a slightly tarnished claim to fame *grin*

[ed-fortune.livejournal.com]

I like Being Human, I enjoyed the pilot as well, but the essential thing is that it's about "Being Human", all the themes explored are ones of human weakness and triumph, with the supernatural elements being there to underline the drama.

In short, it works, and is sufficently scary.

Vampire Diaries is, sadly, from the Twilight school of vampire story: Sex/death romance-fantasies, designed to thrill rather than scare.

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

I've seen and enjoyed Being Human I haven't seen True Blood and am not sure I can be bothered, to be honest. I don't mind a bit of tormented emo, but when most of the cast is in that frame, well...

[mr-h-r-hughes.livejournal.com]

I have long wanted an end to emo vampires or vampires as metaphors for stuff and a return to nasty, sick predators who need a good staking/burning/beheading...sadly it doesn't seem will get that anytime soon.

I just find vampires *so* dull.

I won't be watching True Blood although i am happy for it to exist as I believe it's given a bit of extra work to the excellent Chris Bauer who played Frank Sobotka in The Wire and far too many of the actors in that series haven't got much in the way of work since it finished.

[velvet-the-cat.livejournal.com]

I made it to the first set of ads for The Vampire Diaries before going for the remote control. [yawn] I'm not even a Buffy fan though.

True Blood is probably worth checking out if you get a chance. It's definitely not squeeky clean vamps, the vast majority of them are just. not. nice. even with the concept of the synthetic blood. As the stories develop other aspects of the supernatural world are brought into play more too, which makes it more varied.

But hey, I'm a looney fan that's read all the books since September and has the next one on pre-order with Amazon! ;o)