Vamp Diaries Season Premiere...or Stefan is alive and well and eating people in Graceland

Just finished watching the newest episode of Vamp Diaries and I must say after the season finale of True Blood, and Ringer, this felt like a breath of fresh air. Finally a writer who understands the soap thriller medium, how to do intriguing plot twists, campy angst, and yet write compelling characters who you actually do care about. I may make fun of Vamp Diaries - but the writing is actually pretty good - it doesn't try to be anything more than entertaining. Combines just the right level of thrills and romantic angst, with a touch of comedy. Plus unpredictable plot twists.

The trouble with Ringer - which isn't exactly in the same genre, is Gellar is not a compelling actress. ( Read more... )

Anyhow..watching Vamp Diaries after Ringer, makes Ringer look pretty bad in comparison. And True Blood for that matter.

There's this great sequence in Vamp Diaries that reminded me a little of what Williamson did in the first Scream flicks - he uses "spotlights" to build tension. And he sets it up well. You know who the villain is and what will happen, but you don't want it too...and you hope it won't.
You worry about the characters. It's a nice trick - often down in horror films - anticipation.
Makes the story even scarier. I actually think Kevin Williamson is fairly good at horror - or at the type of horror I tend to love, schlocky, scares me but makes me laugh at the same time, no nightmares or bad dreams. As opposed to X-Files and Fringe -which due to tend to lead to bad dreams.

( Spoilers for Vamp Diaries Season Premiere )

Non-spoilery review of The Secret Circle

Making my way through the season premieres and pilots...this morning? The Secret History Circle, which was oddly more compelling than Ringer. Neither were great pilots, but...here's the thing about pilots? Even if the pilot is brilliant, that is no guarantee the show will be. There are quite a few tv shows that had great pilots and went down-hill, due to changes in writers, networks, etc. While horrible pilots...can often just be the fault of network tampering, and five-six episodes in the show starts to actually get better. Examples include Vamp Diaries, Buffy, Gossip Girl, Fringe, etc. It's rare for a show to have a great pilot and be great from start to finish. (eg. The Wire). American TV shows tend to be a hit and miss bag.

Of the two? I think Secret Circle has a better chance right now of sticking around. The audience it is targeting is already there (being based on a best selling series of YA novels by LJ Smith who wrote the Vampire Diaries), and it has all the right elements to hold them, plus grab viewers who aren't targets. And as its lead, it has the very appealing young actress from Life Unexpected (and the best thing in Life Unexpected). It reminds me a little of Point Pleasant and that old Neve Cambell flick...The Craft - actually it is very similar to the set-up of The Craft. Add to this - it has a seasoned television and screenwriter/executive producer in Kevin Williamson. Williamson is the Joss Whedon of the teen horror soap...and had the hit Dawson's Creek on before or directly after Buffy. Dawson's actually started before Buffy and had similar number of seasons, also the leads of Dawson's have done better than the Buffy alums - Michelle Williams has gone on to be nominated for more than one Academy Award, Katie Holmes - multiple films, Joshua Jackson - Fringe and lots of films.

Secret Circle also has a good set-up. Sure it's been done a lot. But...it is compelling and popular. Teen recently loses parent, moves to new town, there's a secret about that town and all the people there, which no one wants her to know. And it has something to do with her own history and background. May even be connected to her father's death. The parent she never knew. It's not a good secret. And it turns her life and everything she knows upside down. Plus there's a mysterious boy, who turns her on but is unavailable for some reason. And either a bad boy or bad girl that could be her nemesis, and a nice new best friend who may not be all that she appears.

Magic is introduced as both a horror element and an element of romance and wonder - much like it was in Vamp Diaries and the flick The Craft. (Yes, everything's been done before, often more than once.)

The pilot was okay and I'll keep watching. Up next the sitcoms "Free Agents" where ASH is playing a smarmy boss and Hank Azaria is one of the leads, and Up All Night - with Christina Applegate, Will Arnett, and Maya Rudolph - about a new mother who goes back to work for a divish talk show host.

[ETA: I have no idea why I wrote the Secret History throughout - except that something about the show's set up reminded me of Donna Tartt's novel. ]

Doctor Who - The God Complex...

I quite liked that episode - "The God Complex". More so than well everything else I watched this week. It has to be the most creative and unpredictable thing I've seen. It looks like a Monster of the Week, but is everything but that. Also, it quite nicely, brings to a closure the arc.

During it, I thought why is it that most, if not all, science fiction tv shows and movies, along with fantasy, tend to slant towards "horror" eventually, if they don't go there directly? It's why I couldn't watch Doctor Who as a small child. Now, it doesn't bother me. I think the role of horror - novels, movies, tv shows is to throw our fears up there, so we can see them and laugh at them or scream at them, and then let them go. Somehow, after seeing the exaggeration of our fears...the reality becomes easier to handle? Or maybe it serves the same purpose as urban horror legends, campfire stories, and fairy tales - cautionary tales - this is what happens if you do this, this is how you handle it, and this is how you avoid it?

Much like the previous two episodes...the monster wasn't scary once we got to know it, so much as misunderstood...not a real monster at all. Also, this episode resolved the whole Amy as damsel bit quite nicely.

( spoilers )