The Vampire Diaries: Season 1 Episode 1

So, what are you, Team Edward or Team Jacob? How about Team Stefan? ITV2's latest US import The Vampire Diaries follows familiar ground right off the bat as mournful brunette bumps into pretty boy who’s - gosh - just too beautiful to be human.

So far, so Twilight, but the characters here are a little less passive than the inhabitants of Forks, and so this comes across more like Buffy by way of Gilmore Girls.

It starts with a bang - a vamp trying a new twist on that old Pretending To Be Dead On The Highway trick (one of the twists presumably being that he actually is dead), and there’s a neat gag where a young woman, convinced that she might be able to see into the future, doesn’t see what’s about to hit her. It’s certainly a bit more grown up than Twilight - loaded with discussions about sex and drugs, it’s unfortunate that the show’s title can easily be shortened to VD.

The show’s main vamp (because there’s more than one) looks like a young Matt Dillon blended in with – yes! – Robert Pattinson, while borrowing David Boreanaz’s frown, which does have the effect of making him look like a thirty year old in a class full of teens. Elsewhere, there’s Hammer Horror fog rolling in, and a brotherly dispute between two scowling siblings which does bring in to mind Supernatural. ‘It was all very Hitchcock for a second’, we’re told, but such blatant pilfering from every other genre programme and movie from the past decade robs us of such suspense.

While it’s difficult to shake the feeling that we’ve been here before, there are some lovely things going on here: the central conceit of the two main characters both keeping a journal (what, aren’t these kids on Bebo?) and a bloody bruise looking like a arrow striking a heart. There might be déjà vu going on, but at least the characters are allowed to wit to realise it. One youngster dismisses her visions of the future, remarking that they’re impossible, and 'good vampire' Stefan (Paul Wesley) scoffs at the possibility that his new girlfriend is a reincarnation of his lost love (‘let’s hope not .. we know how that story ends ..’).

Refreshingly, this is a drama that knows its limitations, but might just know how to break them. Just when the pop culture references (Heath Ledger, Obama) and soundtrack convince us that this is essentially Dawson’s Creek with fangs, it comes as little surprise to see Kevin Williamson’s name on the credits. Not too demanding, not too dumb, this might just be your guilty pleasure of the cold winter months. Disagree? Bite me.



Airs at 9pm on Tuesday 2nd February 2010 on ITV2.

Written by Andrew Allen.