I am a big believer in the tried and tested way of filtering sub par shows by asking my friends to recommend me their choices. The Vampire Diaries was recommended to me by no less than seven people and all of them were girls. When I googled the show's reviews, majority of them were female viewers. That for me was a bit strange. Don't get me wrong, I would definitely root for the elite love couple to get together like any typical drama fan.

The series started as you would guess, with the good looking mysterious guy arriving for his first day for high school. The portrayal of high school/college life is infinitesimally different than the reality but if you are looking for reality, why would you even watch a vampire fiction show. Personally, I would have liked the student life element to be infused a bit more in this series. What we do have in the show is not enough to call it a teen school drama at all.

The good thing however was that the vampire reveal came as early as the 6th episode and since then the universe has just kept expanding. Aside from the corny dialogues, the writers have done a really good job to portray the backstories of all characters. The past has shaped the personality of a lot of characters and their development does not seem sudden at all. It actually feels like the characters do face the consequences of their actions and the writers are not afraid to write off certain characters for the time being.

More on the Vampire Diaries in the following post...