The Vampire Diaries: 'Hot Vampires With A Conflicting Love Interest'

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The Core
The Vampire Diaries: ‘hot vampires with a conflicting love interest’ - based on the popular novel series written by L.J Smith (Williams). This hour-long, romance-fantasy-drama program would air on The CW network at 8:00 (ET) following the life of a pretty, popular teenage girl who is torn between the love of two handsome, mysterious, soul-thirsty vampires shortly after facing the death of her parents (Pilot; TVCalendar).
Summary
The Vampire Diaries takes place in the fictional small town of Mystic Falls, Virginia following the life of a 17-year-old high school student named Elena Gilbert, and her 15-year-old brother Jeremy as they struggle to emotionally deal with the recent car accident that killed their parents. Elena’s life will be forever changed after meeting and falling in love with a new handsome and mysterious but seemingly peculiar classmate, Stefan Salvatore. What she does not yet know about her new love interest is that he is actually a 161-year-old vampire who continuously craves blood (Pilot). Tension grows when Stefan begins falling in love with Elena and suddenly his twisted vampire brother, Damon appears and desperately desires Elena and her soul for himself. As Elena becomes increasingly …show more content…

Rebecca Williams, argues that the program provides no easy answer to determine if it can be considered ‘quality teen TV’, ‘teen/horror’, or ‘quality horror’ Williams finds that The Vampire Diaries may be somewhere in between Twilight and (a presumably better standard) HBO’s True Blood in terms of quality. This middle position is earned based on it being more “adult” than Twilight, and being a more authentic “vampire horror tale” (Williams). Finally, Williams concludes that The Vampire Diaries successfully draws upon and plays with existing tropes while adding its own unique selling points, and uses the supernatural as a backdrop for deeper stories of relationships, much like the successful Buffy the Vampire

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