Season 1

Based on the popular book series, The Vampire Diaries delivers a strong and compelling first season. The story follows two feuding vampire brothers named Stefan and Damon Salvatore who return to their home town of Mystic Falls, and while Stefan has come to get to know a young girl named Elena Gilbert who resembles the vampire who sired them Damon has his own nefarious plans. The show gets off to a really rough start, trying to incorporate the diary theme with voice-over and playing up the teen angst and romance. But about a third of the way into the season the show changes course and the plot takes an interesting turn. Additionally, the writers do an impressive job at creating suspenseful cliffhangers and at keeping the season constantly moving with exciting plot twists and reveals. Leads Nina Dobrev, Paul Wesley, and Ian Somerhalder give incredibly strong performances and have tremendous on-screen chemistry. Also, several notable stars make guest and reoccurring appearances, including Jasmine Guy, David Anders, Gina Torres, and James Remar. Plus, the score and soundtrack are extraordinarily well-done and do a wonderful job at complimenting the scenes and sets the right tone for the show. Season 1 of The Vampire Diaries can be kind of a mess at time, but proves to be a captivating supernatural drama.

Let's just get this out of the way: this is not a good show...but I still love it. This is absolutely a guilty pleasure show for me.

By all accounts, it is pretty terrible. I mean, all of the tropes are here: love triangle between hot girl and two hot vampire guys, one broody semi-creepy stalker type and one seemingly carefree badass but actually emotionally deep type, a backseat poc friend, teenagers in high school portrayed by super attractive twenty-somethings with shredded hot bodies, even a girl narrating while writing in her diary.

The main character, Elena, is pretty annoying at times, probably because she was written as the helpless damsel in distress that needs her hot male vampire friends to save her all the time. Nevermind that she's continuously exploited by them and endures quite a bit of sexism from pretty much every guy she interacts with. Her lover, Stefan, is sometimes so cringe I have to look away or skip past his dialogue. Stefan's brother, Damon, is so over-the-top alpha male it makes me wanna throw up sometimes and he also does this weird facial thing that I think is supposed to be smoldering but definitely isn't.

Let me keep going. For a show that has a large portion take place in 1864, when some of the present day characters were alive, there is not a hint of slavery depicted or discussed that I can recall. One of the white character's "friends" at that time was a black woman who clearly had to have been a slave to her but this is never said. The setting is a small town that fought for the South in the Civil War so there's cute reenactments with highschoolers dressed up as Confederates that screams "heritage over hate" or some other Southern culture bs. Did I mention that two of the main characters were Southern sympathizers and one even fought for the Confederacy? Talk about room for exploration. But no, there's not even a whiff. Also, the show is really white. Like really white.

I think I've made my point: the show is terrible. Yet, here I am binging it. It's a guilty pleasure that I just can't look away from and I enjoy every second of cringe and melodrama. This is what I imagine daytime soap operas to be like. Maybe I should give them a shot too?

MY THOUGHTS ON SEASON 1:

-WARNING: Spoilers Below-

Boy oh boy... I LOVE this show! At the time of writing this, this is my third time watching the series. I don't know what it is about this show that grips me so much but I love it.

Season 1 was a great season, it was iconic, it had literally everything a Teen Drama needs. It has the action, the romance and need I say... VAMPIRES?!?!?! Anything with Vampires in it is an instant win for me, this show just seems to do Vampires better than any other show.

With Season 1 we're introduced to both of the Salvatore brothers: Damon & Stefan Salvatore. We're also introduced to the beautiful Elena Gilbert. I've always been a massive fan of team Delena so rewatching the show and ever so slowly seeing their romance blossom is always great. I love how from the very first episode you're basically forced to pick a side... Team Damon or Team Stefan, even though Damon is so blatant with his wickedness I much prefer him over Stefan, Damon seems more honest whereas Stefan just seems like this fake good boy that in reality is twice as bad as Damon.

One of my favourite things about this season is how it slowly opens up different story arcs that I never saw coming. For Instance the Tyler Lockwood being a Werewolf story arc or Caroline becoming a Vampire. I cant wait to see how they follow through with these stories in later seasons.

This season is one of my favourite opening seasons for any TV Show, I don't know what made it so great in my eyes but I love it. It never grows old no matter how many times I watch it and I'm always excited for the next episode/season. I loved the writing for this season, the characters & how it opened so many doors for the next season. I really can't wait to see what happens next. (Even though I've watched season 2 several times!!)