Vampire Diaries

I remember tuning into the first episode of TVD and thinking that it was alright, though it took a few episodes before it really got going. However, once it did, it was quite surprising to me how quickly the pace picked up, with major things happening/plot development. I felt like the show included so much stuff in the first season alone that other shows would’ve dragged out over multiple seasons. I'd watched amny a vampire show, but TVD was the first one that really felt like it could fill the void left by BtVS.

I really enjoyed the first two seasons of TVD, but by Season 3 I wasn’t as into the show (which I know is an unpopular opinion, as that was the season that focused on the Originals - who most people seemed to love). I’ve had to wait for the DVDs to be released here to get to see each season from Season 3 onward (as it was unceremoniously yanked from the TV here in Australia after Season 2 – though, inexplicably, Seasons 1 and 2 of The Originals were later aired on that same channel...though it seems unlikely we’ll be getting Season 3 – I will have to wait for that on DVD).

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I really didn’t enjoy Season 7 at all. I’m someone who never hated Elena, so without her the show didn’t ‘feel’ like the show I’d been a fan of. It’s probably just as well it’s ending with Season 8, as I’m not sure I would’ve had the enthusiasm to watching another season after being so let down by Season 7.

I just looked it up. Midnight, Texas. I don't recognize any of the actors except one guy from Spartacus who was awesome.

Just checked it out and I see that I do know someone else on Midnight, Texas - François Arnaud. I LOVED him in The Borgias. Now I am excited.

It also apparently has Arielle Kebbel who played Lexi in TVD. I loved Lexi.

Fantastic ending...keeping in the mind the capabilities and limitations of the show.

I watched the first 5 seasons, largely skipped 6 and 7, returned for the full 8. Teenage girls angst is extremely not my demographic, yet I was a big fan of Ian, and of supernatural stories in general, so I suppose that kept me watching - for a while. A lot of the VD was just stuff I didn't like, but...when the show was good, when it focused on the themes and the its main characters, it was much, much better than a show of its caliber was supposed to be. At times, it was indeed pretty epic.

No problem.  I wasn't offended or anything.  I am looking forward to seeing more of her.

That's good to hear. Thank you. I'm still working on trying to convey 'tone' via text and wasn't sure how what I said came across. I'm looking forward to seeing more of Arielle Kebbel too.
I think Season 6 was the last season that I quite enjoyed (which is kind of surprising, given that the sixth season has a lot of the time been the 'weakest' season for shows that I've watched which have made it that far). Seasons 3, 4 and 5 were rather 'hit and miss' for me. There was stuff I liked...and stuff I didn't. Seasons 1 & 2 will forever remain my favourites. 

I'd wanted to discuss the show on IMDB too, but was never really interested in the actors' personal lives (also, things could gets quite heated when discussing the characters - though I guess that's true for most shows).

I will continue to watch The Originals (assuming it continues to get released on DVD here), though I too will be picking my 'vampire genre' shows very carefully when more inevitably emerge. Currently, I'm watching Season 2 The Strain on TV and that's it for me regarding 'vampire shows'.

Btw, as a fellow viewer of the series Chuck (and a fan of Sarah Walker/Yvonne Strahovski), I really like your avatar.

Well, I finally got to see Season 8 of TVD and watched the series final last night (after binge-watching my DVDs over the past six days).

**spoilers for Season 8 (including the series final) if you haven’t watched**

As season finals go...I thought it was pretty satisfying. Probably the best part was bringing back so many actors and the characters they’d played who’d been offed over the years. I liked that this season had that, as well as addressing stuff that had felt unfinished. There were many callbacks and tying up loose ends/dealing with unresolved things.

Although I knew about Lexi from this thread, it was still such a delight when she appeared sitting on the car with the music that played as Stefan and his best friend hugged (all that was missing was Bon Jovi). I loved that moment. I’m glad Stefan got to be reunited with his best friend. Lexi instantly became Lexi a favourite character of mine within her first episode (which was quite the feat, considering she only got that one episode and then was unceremoniously offed by Damon – which I never forgave him for, even though Stefan and apparently everyone else did…including Lexi herself it seemed). I was glad that they managed to keep featuring her even after her murder - they seemed to do this with a lot of characters.

The problem, though, was that over the years SO many characters got killed off...but then we constantly still saw them, so ‘death’ kind of lost its impact on the show. I didn’t feel anything when Tyler was killed by Damon this season (it was more a feeling of, “Tyler’s dead again?”), I certainly didn’t mourn Enzo (as I thought it was completely unfair that he got to return to the land of the living in the Season 5 final while Lexi – and other more deserving characters – didn’t), and Stefan had died SO many times previously that it somewhat lessened the effect of his sacrifice in the final (at least for me). Though the ‘twist’, with it seeming like it was going be Damon and then revealing it was Stefan, was quite good.

They even got me with the Katherine-as-Elena bit at the beginning (the show was always good at that in the first couple seasons). Nina Dobrev always impressed in the dual roles she played (and then playing Elena or Katherine *pretending* to be the other). I did appreciate that Stefan was the one to take Katherine out (after her being obsessed with him for so long). I thought that was a nice poetic way of ending her. I’m glad Elena got her happy ending (as I never hated her like it seemed a lot of people did) and got to live out a human life with Damon, and when she eventually passed on she had a happy reunion with her parents, Jenna and...Uncle John apparently.

For those who cared more about the brotherly relationship than whoever Elena ended up with, I’m sure they were happy to have the show end on the brothers embracing as they reunited in the afterlife. I take it what we were seeing with Elena and Damon reuniting with family members was what happened to them after they both died as old humans? Although…how did Damon become human if Bonnie had extracted the cure from Elena and injected it into Stefan and then he got burned up by hellfire along with Katherine? Is it to be assumed that Bonnie didn’t extract the entire cure from Elena and she still had enough in her for Damon to drink and become human? I was a bit unsure about that part. It did feel somewhat Lost-like with that afterlife meeting up stuff (though somewhat less confusing).

I think this show’s best seasons were the first two. It was at the beginning of Season 3 that I started being less ‘into’ the show. Seasons 4 and 5 were a bit rough, though Season 6 (the dreaded season for so many shows) surprisingly seemed better than the previous couple in a lot of ways. Season 7, though, really didn’t feel like the same show for me. If Season 8 hadn’t been the last one, I don’t know whether I would’ve made it through another Season 7-like season. Thankfully, though, Elena felt much more like a part of Season 8 due to the flashbacks. I really thought the show should’ve ended with Season 6 once ND left, but I guess Season 8’s ending made up for the lackluster seventh season.

As has previously been mentioned, when this show was good, it was *really* good, great even.

The show had many amusing moments, but the one which will always stick with me is when Stefan drop-kicked Miss Cuddles the bear.

Hi, izzybee3. Ever since I last posted in this thread, I’d anxiously been waiting to see the final season of TVD so that I could post my thoughts on it and discuss it with other fans of the show such as yourself.

**spoilers below if you haven't finished watching the series yet**

Sorry if I made it seem like I was hating on Enzo. I certainly don’t begrudge anyone liking him. I guess the reason he just never really ‘worked’ for me was that it seemed like they brought him into the show to be a new drinking buddy for Damon after Alaric was offed...except then they brought Alaric back and it seemed like they didn’t know what to do with Enzo. To me it felt like they he didn’t have any real ‘direction’ with where they were taking him and he just did stuff to serve plot points.

I will admit I thought he was better in the last two seasons. His demise at Stefan’s hands *was* surprising...except, as I mentioned previously, SO many characters had died and then come back from death on this show (including Enzo already), that I was just waiting for him to be brought back again. So the biggest surprise regarding his death was that it *stuck*/wasn’t undone. I think I liked him a bit more by the end of the show than I ever did when he was first introduced. Still, he wasn’t a favourite of mine (though I do sympathise with you in being saddened about a favourite character being offed – as I had plenty of those throughout the series).

The other thing regarding Enzo (and basically ALL the main vampire characters on the show) was that when someone would be broken up about them dying...I couldn’t help but think, “Yeah, but...they killed lots of innocent people!”. So when Bonnie was staying mad at Stefan for killing Enzo, all I could think was, “What about all the innocent people Enzo killed?”. The thing was, though, that it seemed to be established that vampires with their ‘humanity switch’ turned off weren’t the same as them with their humanity ‘on’, so Bonnie blaming Stefan-with-no-humanity felt like she was being a bit rough on Stefan-with-his-humanity. Then again, I think most of the characters changed their stance on killing and fluctuated with their moral codes when it affected them/characters they cared about – everyone was kind of guilty of that.

No, I haven't seen Midnight, Texas as yet. I do kind of want to check it out (mainly for Arielle Kebbel, though).

I think the fact that they could shut their humanity off and on was a somewhat clever way for them to be able to do bad things and still be loved.

Not sure if you ever watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer and/or Angel, but it seemed to me the ‘humanity switch’ in TVD served roughly the same purpose as restoring souls did in BtVS/AtS. It allowed them to have their ‘good’ vampires go ‘bad’ and then revert to being ‘good’ again and have much angst. 

It would have gotten boring if all they were were vampires with a heart.

Yeah, I definitely agree with that.

The girl you like was pretty good. She's a kick-ass type.

That’s good to hear. Shame the rest of the show doesn’t sound like it’s something you’re that into. I’ll probably still check it out when/if we ever get it here, give it a few episodes and see how I go. If the ‘good’ aspects of a show are outweighed by the ‘bad’ aspects for me, I usually give up watching.

I want to watch The Originals. You don't seem to care for it. Should I pass?

I actually quite liked it...the first two seasons I’ve gotten to *see* anyway. We’re SO far behind with the show where I am. The lousy channel that aired the first two seasons here seems to have given up on it (a lot like they did with TVD, which I think they only aired the first two seasons of as well, which led to me having to wait for every other season to be released on DVD – I’m in the same boat with Season 3 of The Originals and am waiting for it to be released on DVD here eventually).

No need to apologize for your opinions.

I tend to do this from time to time, as I know it's tricky to convey ‘tone of voice’ via text on a computer screen and sometimes the way you intended to say something can be misconstrued. I just don’t wish to give the wrong impression.

I watched the ‘Last Days as a Vampire’ featurette on my Season 8 DVDs...and I hadn’t known beforehand that Enzo’s accent wasn’t the actor’s natural accent, so that surprised me. Both he and Candice Accola/Candice King seemed to get really emotional in their goodbye speeches to the cast & crew (I mean, they all obviously were – and with good reason - but those two especially).