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The Vampire Diaries: The Complete First Season
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Warner Home Video Review written by and copyright: Jeremiah Chin (26th May 2011). |
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The Show
 The “post-“label often gets abused, mostly used to show some larger social project that has ended or in political speak to mark some event that has totally changed society. From “Post-Colonial” of Edward Said to the “Post-9/11” thinking that scatters neoconservative thought it’s a well repeated trend that I’m not particularly fond of. With that in mind, “The Vampire Diaries” (2009-Present) is the result of a Post-“Twilight” (2008) world. With Vampires adequately commodified into teen angst and drama, abusing sci-fi and fantasy precepts just to try and vary the repeating high school drama genre that hasn’t had many fresh ideas. The vampire trend is incredibly profitable, and instead of creating new looks on vampires (with the exception of the EXCELLENT “Daybreakers” (2010)) you have a new mashup genre, just throwing in vampires to add to the conceit of a television show. If you can’t tell I’m not a big fan. “Vampire Diaries” basically boils down to “Dawson’s Creek” (1998-2000) with Vampires, or “Twilight” (2008) with a long-term plot. In Mystic Falls, Virginia, Elena Gilbert (Nina Dobrev) is now living in angst with her aunt and younger brother after her parents died in a car crash. Nina spends her time brooding through a diary, hence the title, while going to school with her best friend Bonnie (Kat Graham). But of course one day a vampire walks into her life and the town of Mystic Falls. Stefan (Paul Wesley) and Damon (Ian Somerhalder) are a hundred and something year old vampires that have returned to Mystic Falls for… something, but realize that Elena looks exactly like their old flame Katherine, resurrecting a hundred year old love triangle. First off comes the characters, acting and casting, which are all composite actors for those who have played major characters in vampire roles before. Dobrev is a more conventionally attractive version of Kristen Stewart and Wesley is test tube baby of David Borneanaz and Robert Pattinson. Casting Ian Somerhalder is a nice touch; always good to see a “Lost” (2004-2010) alum getting work and Kat Graham is far and away the most attractive person in the cast of “Diaries” or any “Twilight” movie. But of course there’s not a lot of acting heavy lifting to go along with the good looking major cast, leaving a bunch of pretty faces gathered around the shell of a concept. Considering that I have enjoyed writer Kevin Williamson’s work elsewhere in “Scream” (1996), I feel like he has a Jekyl/Hyde Complex. There is the 90's to present horror writer Williamson that puts out enjoyable plots. Then there’s the Hyde, a teen television writer that puts out hit programs that just don’t appeal to me, from the corny “Dawson’s Creek” (1998-2003) and “Vampire Diaries”. While there are glimmers of some self-depraving, metahumor that drive the “Scream” films, talking down to “fads” and repetition while in the middle of a vampire show that obviously relies on its predecessors. But of course those few jabs aren’t enough to keep me interested. “Vampire Diaries” falls into the trap of modern vampire stories that are mired in gothic romance that endlessly plays off of young teen in love with old vampire tensions, rather than updating vampire storylines into a modern context that isn’t just knowledgeable about the old moves of vampires but playful and laced with joy. In other words it’s what separates a beautiful, Joss Whedon opus like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (1997-2003) or “Angel” (1999-2004) from a middling project like “Twilight” or “Vampire Diaries”. The soulless character of a vampire doesn’t have to mark the whole show, there can be enjoyment, but with nothing but angst splattering the screen it’s just another romp through vampires in a post-“Twilight” world. Episodes in the first season are: - “Pilot” - “Night of the Comet” - “Friday Night Bites” - “Family Ties” - “You’re Undead to Me” - “Lost Girls” - “Haunted” - “162 Candles” - “History Repeating” - “The Turning Point” - “Bloodlines” - “Unpleasantville” - “Children of the Damned” - “Fool Me Once” - “A Few Good Men” - “There Goes the Neighborhood” - “Let the Right One In” - “Under Control” - “Miss Mystic Falls” - “Blood Brothers” - “Isobel” - “Founders’ Day”
Video
For a vampire series, the presentation in 1.78:1 widescreen 1080p 24/fps with VC-1 encoding has some seriously inconsistent quality when it comes to the nighttime scenes. The frame can go from crisp to incomprehensibly grainy in the span of a shot within the same scene. The daytime scenes have a different color clarity and crispness to them, showing pretty brightly. For the clarity problems to be this severe in a show about vampires that should be taking place mostly in the dark scenes, it’s too much lit like twilight to be really excusable or the clarity problems in the night, dark scenes and occasional problems in the daytime.
Audio
More consistent than the visual presentation, the English Dolby Digital 5.1 surround track brings the sound across fairly well, but unfortunately the background music is so incredibly annoying that the clarity is a detriment. The incidental ambient noises and original soundtrack try too hard to be a strange mix of “Twilight” and “True Blood” to be original, making it even less original. Overall it’s a fair presentation of the audio with one of the most grating soundtracks outside of MTV’s original productions. Oddly the only other spoken language track is a Portuguese Dolby Digital 2.0 surround track, with English, French, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish subtitles.
Extras
Across the five discs there are featurettes, webisodes, a gag reel all stationed on the fourth and final disc, along with an audio commentary track on the pilot episode, as well as deleted scenes for select episodes on each disc. DISC ONE: The only audio commentary on the set is with director Marcos Siega as well as writers Kevin Williamson and Julie Plec, and they discuss the ins and outs of putting the show together, focusing specifically on establishing characters, comments on the different actors in the show and putting together the pilot. There’s a lot of praise for everyone involved, from the high school that they filmed in to the different actors and scripting at the show. There are some big gaps and pauses when they top to watch the show and listen to the terrible music in the show, popping in with a story, talking about elements that they cut like the fog or crows that have been cut out of the show since the pilot. It could be interesting if they went into the reasons why elements were cut or discussing from their perspective why it didn’t work, but it’s largely left out of the conversation while they praise the casting, the show’s chemistry and acting. There are also deleted scenes, organized by episode: - “He Clearly Cares About You” was cut from “Night of the Comet” and runs for 55 seconds. Vicky is having romantic issues and talks them over in a pool hall. - “Years Worth of Story” was cut from “You’re Undead to Me” and runs 37 seconds, Elena is in the woods with Stefan who reminds her how old he is. - The episode "Lost Girls” features two deleted scenes that play together for 3 minutes and 10 seconds. In the scene “Too Messed Up to be With” Elena warns Jeremy about going to see Vicky, while the scene “It’s Halloween” features Vicky dealing with some drama and her little brother. There’s also the Warner Bros. BD-Live feature on the disc, allowing you to connect into the WB online installment if you have an internet connected Blu-ray player. It’s mostly trailers and access to other advertisements for other Warner Brothers products, no additional featurettes for the disc itself. You can connect with a profile to keep track of your trailers, or link it to a Facebook account, or even just browse the WB Blu-ray's presently for sale. DISC TWO: This disc features deleted scenes on two episodes: - On “Haunted” is the scene “Damon, Bonnie and the Necklace” that runs for 48 seconds, Damon wants the necklace back from Bonnie, Bonnie channels her grandmother. - “The Turning Point” features three deleted scenes which run together for 2 minutes and 34 seconds. In “Action Back Your Way” Elena and Vicky do cheers, Damon dances with Bree, in “Something Up With Elena” Elena’s lie is revealed and in “What You are What I Am” Bonnie and Stefan talk. This disc also features Warner-Bros. BD-Live as well. DISC THREE: On this disc there are deleted scenes on four episodes: - Cut from “Fool Me Once” are “All I Have Left” and “Vicious Kiss” which run together for 2 minutes and 17 seconds. Matt and his mother have a serious conversation about Pete, while she delivers the kiss of death in the next scene. - Cut from “A Few Good Men” is “Empty Space, Kinda Depressing” which runs for 23 seconds, Elena talks about her Dad’s empty office space. - Cut from “There Goes the Neighborhood” are “Part of Our Nature” and “Sneak Attack” which run for 2 minutes and 23 seconds. Stefan talks about his strength and craving for human blood, someone gets tackled in the closet. - Cut from “Let the Right One In” is the scene “Can’t Find Stefan” which runs for 13 seconds, Elena can’t find Stephan. This disc also features Warner-Bros. BD-Live as well. DISC FOUR: On the fourth and final disc are the featurettes for the series, beginning with “Into Mystic Falls” which runs for 25 minutes and 3 seconds and talks with Executive Producers Kevin Williamson and Julie Plec talking about the inception and progress of “Vampire Diaries.” Plec talks about her love of vampires, the concern with riding on the coattails of other shows and Williamsons’ desire to do a “sexy” project. This works as a more general behind-the-scenes featurette, with some behind-the-scenes footage and long talking head interviews with Plec, Williamson and the many actors involved in the show. They all talk about building the show, the themes, and the origins of “Vampire Diaries.” “When Vampires Don’t Suck!” is labeled as a "mini-documentary" that runs for 18 minutes and 49 seconds, but is really a featurette of the book’s fanbase. Speaking with Plec, actors from the show and fans like Carina MacKenzie from the LA Times, this is the stab at legitimacy for “Vampire Diaries.” Here “Diaries” makes an attempt to embrace, yet distance, itself from the “Twilight” phenomenon, even talking with the internet fanbase from the Vampire Diaries books. There’s a bit of exaggeration in the critical embrace of “Vampire Diaries” considering they only show two reviews, but pull in a bunch of different film historians to speak of vampire lore. It’s not a bad featurette from the lore perspective, but the credit given to “Vampire Diaries” is a little much. “A Darker Truth” is actually a series of webisodes, played back to back for 7 minutes and 44 seconds. The webisodes are shot on a cheap budget featuring a Manhattan-ite coming to Mystic Falls to seek Stephen that likely killed his sister. Shot on a very cheap budget with some commercial-grade HD handi-cams, but on the set of “Vampire Diaries” the webisodes look, sound and feel absolutely terrible. The slow discoveries of journals, spliced in with some inverted color, grainy footage from the show. Even worse as the series moves on, instead of taking actual actors from the show it just splices in clips when they are supposed to be in a scene. A really cheap attempt at a web series; adds nothing, does nothing, “A Second Bite” runs for 3 minutes and 57 seconds is a gag reel. Everything you usually see in a gag reel, entertaining for fans only. “A New Breed of Vampires” runs for 12 minutes and 43 seconds. This featurette mostly looks into the casting for the show; Williamson calls it the best cast he’s ever had and compares it to “Dawson’s Creek,” but the real key is the random additions of audition tapes into the show. There are talking head interviews with all the actors, mixed in with how they feel about their casting into the show; it’s a nice addition, but runs fairly long. “Vampires 101” featurette runs for 6 minutes and 44 seconds and features Plec and some of the cast going into the “Vampire Diaries” lore that defines the rules of vampires. Add in some cheesy pencil and paper quiz transition graphics to add in the ‘vampire quiz motif’ showing what parts of the general vampire mythos that they have picked out, ignored and modified. Finally is “Vampire Diaries: The Awakening Audio Book” featurette which runs for 6 hours, 32 minutes and 12 seconds. In one of more intriguing special features moves I’ve ever seen is the entire first book of the "Vampire Diaries" read by Rebecca Mozo. A nice touch for true fans, but one of the most intimidating special features I’ve ever seen. And of course this disc also has the Warner-bros. BD-Live feature.
Packaging
The set comes in a 4 disc Blu-ray case with a cardboard sleeve.
Overall
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