Vampires have always had one thing in common, from their darkest days in Romania, to the Meyers chronicles of today: They are what we fear the most--us dead. You can coat them with glitter, you can make a soap opera out of them; but in the end they are us dead. That has to be the main conflict of the story. What makes the Vampire really interesting, to me, is not the Vampire themselves; but the living humans who are forced to deal with the consequences of the living dead among them. A story line, is just a story line after all: 'A police office and his family move into a gated community where many are denizens of the supernatural world'.What the writers do with plot and conflict will make the difference of whether this show is worth the investment of your time. Here Nick, a police officer --with a past-- is conflicted to begin with. Underneith the professional exterior he is driven to make up for sins of his past. It doesn't take long before he is confronted with the fact that he murdered a suspect in cold blood, and due to this, he is forced to make an allegiance with darkness. This, so far, is the main storyline.
There are werewolves teens (for the tween crowd) and there are other fringe supernatural characters (R.H. Macy's always said you must diversify if you are going to succeed at selling anything over a long period of time) even a succubus (perhaps she can eventually find a nice incubus, settle down, and buy a house in "The Gates"). They will, no doubt, be forced to jump the shark eventually, but for now it is great fun.
It is a beautiful cast and I have yet to see an unattractive person walking the streets of "The Gates". It is the Melrose Place of the supernatural. We carry a lot of baggage with us about Vampires and their kin the Werewolves. I like The Hammer Films of the 1950-1970's. I like the Werewolves of "The Howling" or even "American Werewolf in London" best. The egocentric evil of the Vampire or the Jekyll and Hyde conflict of the Werewolf is my genre home, but it is alright to leave the safety of your home and visit someone else's imagination for a spell. In the end, "The Gates" is summer fun and has something for every generation. A distraction from the heat of this summer. I plan to enjoy it for what it is.....
