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Released by: Warner Brothers
Released on: 8/31/2010
Director: Various
Cast: Various
Year: 2009
The Movie:
Developed by producer Kevin Williamson (the man who wrote Scream and the I Know What You Did Last Summer films before moving on to Dawson's Creek) and based off of the series if books by author L.J. Smith, The Vampire Diaries, a series that debuted on the CW channel in 2009, has proven popular enough with its intended audience of teenage viewers to have been renewed for a second season. Riding high on the cusp of post-Twilight vampire mania, it seems to have done fairly well for itself. Popular, however, doesn't always equal good. So is it good? No, not really.
The series follows the exploits of a teenage girl named Elena Gilbert (Nina Dobrev) who lives in the made up town of Mystic Falls, Virginia. Here she leads a fairly standard suburban life until she meets, and subsequently falls in love with, a mysterious guy named Stefan Salvatore (Paul Wesley). They hit it off remarkably well, but things get complicated when Elena finds out that he's a vampire. They get even more complicated when Stefan's older brother, Damon (Ian Somerhalder), shows up on the scene and makes some moves on Elena too. As the series progresses, Elena learns that they're hiding out in Mystic Falls to avoid a woman named Katherine Pierce (also played by Dobrev - tricky!), a woman from their collective past who wishes them ill will. On top of that, there's the town's bizarre supernatural history and the odd inclusion of Elena's brother, Jeremy (Steven R. McQueen). With vampires and witches and werewolves aplenty, much is afoot in the town of Mystic Falls and Elena is about to learn firsthand how much influence these assorted creatures of the night hold in the town she calls home.
With loads of similarities to both the Twilight films and HBO's True Blood, The Vampire Diaries isn't all that unique. It's basically a PG rated soap opera series intended for teenagers so it's pretty harmless in terms of how it portrays the vampires that make up many of its characters. Don't expect the bloodshed or smoldering sexuality that Sookie Stackhouse and Vampire Bill exude in their series, this show plays it way too safe for those kind of highjinks - this is a basic cable series after all. There are interesting moments in the series, in that it does a good job of getting you interested in the town's history and back story and how it all relates to Elena's plight, but there's so much forced melodrama here that it doesn't take much for those interesting moments to get buried in clichéd love triangles, meddling kids and corny dialogue.
The most interesting aspect to the characters is the relationship that exists between Stefan and Damon and the stark differences that set them apart. Damon is content to be a vampire and has no qualms about drinking blood while Stefan is a kinder, gentler type who would rather find an alternate way to quench his thirst. This idea, however, was also used in, you guessed it, True Blood. Here, however, Stefan and Damon can wander around out in the sun. How? With the aid of power rings. Just like the Wonder Twins in Superfriends. As the series fills in the various back stories of the more interesting members of its population, it does get better, but not better enough to make it more than just another dopey teen drama, albeit one dressed up in fangs and fur.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The VC-1 encoded 1.78.1 1080p anamorphic widescreen transfers given the episodes in this set do a really good job of showing off the series' intended look. Detail is very strong, better than the broadcast versions ever were. There are some minor problems with mpeg compression artifacts and aliasing but no heavy edge enhancement while black levels stay strong and shadow detail remains consistently impressive. Skin tones look nice and lifelike, never too pink or waxy, and never showing off any problems with the authoring or encoding. The discs have been encoded quite well, generally speaking, and the picture quality is strong enough.
The Vampire Diaries arrives on Blu-ray with a standard definition English language Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound mix, with optional Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo tracks provided in Spanish and French. Subtitles are offered up in English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Danish, Dutch, and Finnish. It would have been nice to see a lossless option provided here, but at least the 5.1 track has some good ambience. Channel separation isn't a constant but there's enough of it here to ensure that you'll notice it. Dialogue is clear enough and the levels are well balanced. There aren't any specific problems with the mix to note, but as you listen to it you'll notice instances where a lossless track probably could have offered up more punch.
Kevin Williamson, the head writer and executive producer of the series, offers up a commentary track for the pilot episode where he's joined by fellow co-writer/co-producer Julie Plec and director/co-producer Marcos Siega for a reasonably amicable discussion of the series and how it came to be. If you didn't appreciate the series without the commentary this won't change your mind but the show's fans are likely to appreciate hearing the behind the scenes details of putting it all together.
There are also a few featurettes here, the first of which is the twenty-five minute Into The Mystic Falls which joins Williamson and Plec up with a few of the cast members to talk about working on the series, the books that inspired it, and the various characters that populate its world. A New Breed Of Vampire is a thirteen minute featurette that explores how the actors that play the vampires in this series were cast with plenty of audition footage and input from Williamson, while Why Vampires Don't Suck is a nineteen minute piece that attempts to explain why vampires have made a comeback in today's popular culture.
Rounding out the extras is a collection of thirteen minutes worth of deleted scenes, some 'webisodes' made to promote the series, a Vampires 101 bit that explains the rules of the vampires in the series, a four minute gag reel, an audio book recording of the first book in the Vampire Diaries series, some Blu-ray live functionality, menus, and episode selection. All of the extras, save for the deleted scenes, are in high definition.
The Final Word:
Not falling into the target demographic to which this show is geared, it's hard to really appreciate this series but even trying to think like a young teenager, it isn't difficult to see this as the ropey soap opera it really is. Twilight fans and tween-friendly vampire buffs might dig this but outside of that group, I'm not so sure. Warner's Blu-ray collection of the first season looks okay and sounds alright and it contains a fair bit of extra content - established fans of the series will appreciate this. All others? Catch it on TV for free before plunking down your money for this one.