The Vampire Diaries

First Impression: Oh this is just some Twilight rip off.

The Truth: Twilight is the one ripping off THIS series.

The Absolute Truth: The Vampire Diaries is infinitely better than Twilight, and no I am not exaggerating.

The plot is as you would have guessed. Elena (Nina Dobrev) is a high school girl who captures the heart of Stefan (Paul Wesley) who of course is a vampire (sounds familiar right?). Later on we get introduced to Stefan's troublesome vampire brother, Damon (Ian Somerhalder). Damon also happens to be attracted to Elena and this creates a love triangle that will follow for the remainder of the series.

Of course that's merely a sample of the entire story. There are werewolves, hunters, witches, and even stronger vampires waiting in future episodes to make this one nail biting show.

The acting is also definitely above average, however obviously not enough to make you believe the actors are high school "teenagers".

My advice: Give it a chance. The first few episodes are slow, but a lot of great TV series are. This show will have you on the edge of your seat each week as the plot thickens more and more.

Last Impression: This is one of my favorite shows on TV. 9/10

I thought The Vampire Diaries was going to be a show aimed for tweens but I was wrong. It started off that way for like the first half of Season 1 but around episode 10 or 11 it really picked up and just got better and better. I was ready to give up a few episodes in because it looked like the tv version of Twilight but I read in numerous reviews to get passed the first handful of episodes and I'm so glad I did. What happens after that is it turns into a really good supernatural show. Like any long running show this has better seasons than others but all are worth watching and most are just flat out great. This show is beloved by so many for a reason! If you like supernatural type shows then I highly recommend this for you, just get passed the first half of Season1 and enjoy the ride from there.

Television meet Twilight! "The Vampire Diaries" is Vampires meets a soap opera. I have watched a full 15 minutes of the show, and other bits and pieces here and there of "The Vampire Diaries", while my wife is glued to the show. Here are my deductions of "The Vampire Diaries" First deductions everyone is hot or good looking on the show. Too much eye candy! Second the Twilight recurring theme of rival vampires, witches, and who is going be turned into a vampire reminds me of some sort of high school click. Romance/drama forbidden love. One girl has the hots for the other's boyfriend. The show has the usual soap opera sub plots back stabbing, infighting, lies, secrets. I miss the entertainment value of the show but my wife loves it. I give the show a 2 and my wife give it a 9/10.

I really like the episodes, it is somehow fluent and has a taste of Twilight. Maybe it is weird but its shooting is better than Twilight because in watching Twilight you can feel the coldness, silence and a sort of pause which drift the interest of the spectacular away. But in Vampire Diaries, you can feel the hot impression of the characters, hot color of each frame of the movie. These series make you feel more connection to the reality than Twilight. The characters are involved in excellent combination with the setting and the plot. Stephen perfectly reflects his good mood through his face. Elena is another good chosen actress for the character. Because you easily see her bright intelligence and innocence on her face.Damon is just like his name demonic,attracting and tempting person. This good adaptation of the characters to the story makes the film more powerful and better than Hollywood production Twilight thought it is a TV series. I wish Twilight was shot by Vampire Diaries technical production team.

I read the books 15 years ago, and I was a bit excited and apprehensive about it being made into a TV series with all the liberties that are taken these days. Last night, I watched the pilot. I have a few beefs (missing character and particular character interactions), but mostly I think I was alright with it. It has been update to fit with the times a bit more.

It appears that they are loosely following the story, and that is fine if they are making it into a series. To follow the books, they would have just needed to make a mini-series and been done with it. For a full-on TV series they needed to make many adjustments. I'm a little sad that they are aiming so very hard for the Twilight crowd by throwing the romance factor in right away, but it has the potential to be pretty good.

The acting isn't the greatest, but I have definitely seen much worse. This felt to me like actors that had not yet fit themselves into their characters. It will smooth out with time and become more comfortable for them and it will show through in the series. They have managed to obtain a bit of balance between the almost care-free world of high school and the dark gritty nature of what they can't see and don't know about. That was actually what I was most worried about.

So, from a MAJOR fan of the books (I rejoiced when I realized they were with me instead of another state and started reading them for the umpteenth thousandth time) to the CW....So far, so good. Let's see where they take this and hope they keep true to the feel.