TV Eye
Still (Blood) Sucking
By Belinda Acosta, Fri., Nov. 6, 2009
Longtime "TV Eye" readers know that I love me a good vampire tale. I cut my teeth watching Dark Shadows back in the day, later graduating to the more lively and fun sensibility of Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, then obediently following Buffy's spin-off, Angel. I won't even get into the numerous lesser-known vampire series I've followed, such as Forever Knight (about an 800-year-old vampire-turned-police-detective who is trying to make it among the humans). And I'm sure to elicit groans when I admit that I'm a halfhearted True Blood fan. Love the premise, love the supporting players, not so fond of lead Anna Paquin and even less so of Stephen Moyer. So, when The Vampire Diaries premiered on the CW, I was game, but not impressed with the pilot episode and left it behind. But the series has gained in popularity, drawing larger audiences as the season continues, mostly among the coveted 18-to-24 age group, so I decided to give it another look. Did I miss something?
The premise is promising. A high school girl named Elena (the lovely Nina Dobrev) is torn between two potential suitors – brothers who happen to be vampires. So right away, The Vampire Diaries tells you that it's baldly reliant on the sexual metaphors that undergird many vampire stories. There's a lot of frank talk about sex and sexuality, but when it comes right down to it, the good girls don't and the bad girls are punished as in –SPOILER ALERT – the recent Halloween episode when party girl Vicki (Kayla Ewell) gets staked after her short afterlife as a vampire. In the aftermath of Vicki's death, Elena tries to do damage control ... in her Halloween costume of a skimpy nurse's uniform, cut down to her navel, tightly cinched at the waist. Okay, we get it. She's a caretaker.
I realize I'm far from the targeted age so group, but it irks me that there are few adults on the scene. Elena and her brother have lost both of their parents when the series begins. Did I miss the episode where they explain who cleans that enormous house they live in? Who pays the rent? Pays the bills? Clearly, this is a bothersome bit of information, not to mention going against every teen's dream: to have a world without adults getting in the way. The only adults present are law enforcement and other concerned citizens growing more and more curious about the mysterious deaths in (wait for it) Mystic Falls. There's also a new adult, Tituba, played by Jasmine Guy (A Different World), who's a witch as well as grandmother to the budding witch Bonnie (Katerina Graham).
But what really irks me about this popular series is that in Elena, we have the makings of a complicated, powerful young woman, but whose only real power is managing to wake up every morning unmussed. The tension in the series is not in how Elena claims her own sexuality but in which of the two vampire brothers will win her – the "good" vampire Stefan (Paul Wesley), who has sworn off feeding on humans, or his "evil," sexier, older brother Damon (Lost's Ian Somerhalder). Though Elena has already veered toward Stefan (they finally kissed an episode or two back), the attraction to Damon is present. And yet I can't help but want Elena to stake them both and buy a one-way ticket out of Mystic Falls to find a sex life somewhere, anywhere else. But I keep forgetting: Good girls don't need or want sex.
In the surprising episode when Vicki is killed, Damon tries to earn Elena's favor by wiping her brother's memory so he won't be in so much pain (he loved Vicki). She declines the same remedy for her because as tortured and confused as she feels about having the hots for Stefan, she doesn't want to forget how she feels about him. So she'll live with the pain. Cue the emo music, and get a close-up shot of Elena's tear-filled eyes. Sniff-sniff. Oh, being the alpha dame is so hard!
New viewers may be flocking to this soapy vampire drama, but I'm done.
As always, stay tuned.
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E-mail Belinda Acosta at [email protected].
