Posted by Vee | August 24, 2009, 19:48 (EST) | 5 Comments
Category: TV Series

The New York Times has a piece on the CW’s marketing strategy behind The Vampire Diaries television series:

CW begins an ambitious campaign this week to promote a new series for the 2009-10 TV season, “The Vampire Diaries.” The campaign includes offbeat elements intended to attract attention, which include a blood drive, giveaways of mock products like “fang floss” and online games.

We’ve already seen the The Vampire Diaries: Race Against the Dawn flash game around, and had hints of a wide-scale blood drive campaign, but this is the first we’re hearing of “sunscream” and “fang floss.”

Matt Diamond, chief executive at Alloy, which is a producer of “The Vampire Diaries,” said he was encouraged that CW executives were selling the series as “a good show that has vampires in it” rather than as a vampire-fest.

“We’re not naïve,” said Mr. Diamond, whose company publishes the “Vampire Diaries” books on which the series is based and is in business with CW on the “Gossip Girl” hit series. “If vampires become yesterday’s news, there will be an element of the show that will not be as popular.”

Read the entire article.

Update: We’ve got pictures of the Fang Floss and Sunscream in the gallery now.

  

Posted by Vee | August 2, 2009, 5:20 (EST) | 21 Comments
Category: TV Series

This isn’t going to be a typical pilot review. We’ve had plenty of those and, at this point, no one reading this is going to have their mind changed by what others have to say – you’re all “in” until you can judge for yourself. So consider this an in-depth collection of thoughts from one fan’s perspective – general observation to meta, what I liked, what I was “meh” on, and everything in-between. These opinions are mine, not Red’s.

I’m going to try and keep this as major book spoiler-free as possible – there will be allusions (mostly in regards to characters), but nothing detailed. There will, of course, be spoilers for the pilot. Also, it would be disingenuous of me not to admit upfront that my love for the books is going to color my perspective. I long ago accepted that this would be a different vision, but 17+ years of book fandom is ingrained in my noggin and not easily pushed aside. And why should it be? This show is called The Vampire Diaries, no?

I mentioned some time back that I was “over” the pilot already, even though I had yet to see it. A pilot is a pitch, it’s set-up – and this is a story I know inside and out. Assuming the basic framework of events remains intact, I know where this goes, and that’s what excites me (and other fans). My personal enjoyment is going to come from seeing the surprises that are tossed in to flesh out and tweak the plot for television, in seeing the characters I love come to life (in whatever capacity) onscreen, and to see those touch points from the books that matter most to me.

READ THE REST. WARNING: VERY. LONG.

Posted by Vee | July 29, 2009, 21:33 (EST) | 2 Comments
Category: TV Series

Courtesy of the lovely Sherry, some snapshots from The Vampire Diaries signing/panel at Comic Con International on Saturday, July 25th. (Contact her at her blog or @creativesherry on Twitter for permission to post elsewhere.)

Posted by Vee | July 28, 2009, 0:04 (EST) | 11 Comments
Category: TV Series

First off, let’s get something straight right now: this talk of The Vampire Diaries cast looking like they didn’t want to be there during the panel? Come on. After you film ’til 6 a.m., hop on a cross-country flight, endure a day of non-stop appearances and press (answering the same questions over and over), and there’s no sleep slotted in there anywhere, see how you feel. I’m impressed they were able to form coherent sentences, let alone smile and make a marathon run of it like they did.

And it was a marathon. My (nowhere-near-as-hectic) day started off at the Lost panel – I’m going to miss that show so hard, guys, I can’t even tell you – and while there was no appearance from Mr. Somerhalder (see above), he was there in spirit during a hilarious and poignant “In Memoriam” tribute video that highlighted the various character deaths on the show. But, as I’m sure you’ve heard by now, Boone fans will have something to look forward to in Lost’s final season – with the full cooperation of Vampire Diaries executive producers Kevin Williamson and Julie Plec. As they commented during the panel, they’re Lost fans too, and friends with showrunner Damon Lindelof.

My cell reception in Hall H was crap, but somehow I managed to catch KW’s tweet that the Vampire Diaries signing at the Warner Bros. booth was happening at 1:30 p.m., not 3 p.m. as had originally been listed. I don’t know if it was bumped up due to a scheduling conflict with press or the vocal concern from a lot of fans that it was too close to the actual panel (yes, three hours is too close, trust me), but it was welcome news.

By the way, Vampire Diaries bags were everywhere all weekend, and they’re starting to pop up on eBay. I never managed to snag one, alas. I’m also told there were buttons at the WB booth but never saw them myself. I did, however, see the giant “Trio in the Grass” (as we’ve dubbed it) banner hanging from the ceiling for all to see, and that same image adorned the posters used during the signing.

If you’ve never been to Comic Con, it’s difficult to describe the size and scope of the WB booth, but it’s one of the cornerstones of the Exhibit Hall floor, and the crowd that gathers around it – especially with the constant stream of signings going on – is often ten people deep around the perimeter. After attempting to find the line for the signing and giving up, I just tried to snap as many (crappy) cell phone pics as possible to get up on Twitter immediately. Paul, Ian, Nina, Julie, Kevin, and Bob arrived about 10 minutes before the signing, hanging out on the second story and snapping photos with their phones.

Ian Somerhalder and Kevin Williamson at the Warner Bros. booth.

READ MORE: PHOTOS, PANEL RUNDOWN, MORE!

Posted by Vee | July 23, 2009, 15:08 (EST) | 10 Comments
Category: TV Series

Because there will likely be an overwhelming amount of info coming out of San Diego (and elsewhere), we’ll be dropping links to Vampire Diaries photos, pilot reviews, and articles in this post. We’ll let you know when it’s updated via Twitter.

From Comic Con:
Vampire Diaries promo image of Ian, Nina, and Paul from the WB booth (via Kristin at E!)
Blast Magazine: Comic Con 2009: The CW takes on vampires, diaries
IGN: SDCC ‘09: The CW’s Vampire Diaries First Look
Guardian.co.uk: V is for vampires at Comic-Con 2009
Examiner.com: The Vampire Diaries sneeks at Comic-Con. Many sneak out
THR: ‘Vampire Diaries’ panel addresses the blood-thirsty elephants in the room
HitFix: Comic-Con First Look: The CW’s ‘Vampire Diaries’
io9: The CW Has Contracted A Terrible VD: Vampire Diaries
End of Show: Comic-Con : WB Pilots : Human Target, V, Vampire Diaries
Various cast pics from EW/SyFy
CW Source: No, really, The Vampire Diaries isn’t competing with Twilight
Digital Spy: Pilot Reviews: ‘Vampire Diaries’ (The CW)
new: ReelzChannel: The Vampire Diaries and Being Human offer vampires, and werewolves and ghosts…oh my!

Vee’s pics from the con (cellphone pics, so not fabulous quality)

Elsewhere:
InStyle: Move Over Bella and Sookie, Here Comes Elena (Nina Dobrev interview)
PEOPLE Poll: Which Hottie with Fangs Do You Favor?
Zap2it posts a Greystone Mansion photo: Paul, Nina and Ian

NOTE: Keep in mind that detailed fan reviews might not start rolling in until after the Con is over. If you know someone who was there, send ‘em our way to share their thoughts!

Posted by Vee | July 23, 2009, 11:47 (EST) | No Comments
Category: TV Series

ITV – “Britain’s most popular commercial network” – has acquired the broadcast rights for The Vampire Diaries in the UK. From the press release:

In the first post-LA Screenings acquisition of a new US television programme in the UK, ITV has secured the rights to the one-hour series The Vampire Diaries.

Based on the best-selling book series by L.J. Smith, The Vampires Diaries is a new romantic drama from Kevin Williamson (hit movies Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer, TV series Dawson’s Creek), in which two vampire brothers – one good, one evil – are at war for the soul of a high school girl and the souls of her friends and family. The series will be a focal point of ITV’s schedule in 2010.

The Vampire Diaries is set to air on ITV2.

Obviously this is all Red’s fault.

Posted by Vee | July 19, 2009, 15:30 (EST) | 5 Comments
Category: TV Series

So there’s this little event called Comic Con International happening in San Diego this week. The American half of Vampire-Diaries.net (that’s me!) will be there Friday afternoon through Sunday to stand in a lot of lines, stand in even more lines, and chug bottled water at every opportunity. It will be awesome.

Oh, and there’s Vampire Diaries stuff going on as well! Check out the full schedule. I’m sure there will be lots to say about the pilot screening, the Q&A, the laughter, the tears (guessing there will be screaming, too)… We’re rocking this trip in a completely last-minute, take-it-as-it-comes way and, hey, if we’re not having fun, we’re doing it wrong, right? This ain’t Vanity Fair.

Fair warning: If you follow us on Twitter (@tvdnews), please know that we’ll be very active on Friday and especially Saturday (the day of the Vampire Diaries panel). In addition to my tweets, Red will be up at some ridiculous UK hour to re-tweet others’ commentary and posting other interesting tidbits that come across the radar from San Diego. We’ll be making use of the #sdcc and #tvd hashtags if you want to follow the conversation that way. (Sorry, #vampirediaries eats up way too many characters.) We’ll also have a static blog post up that we’ll update throughout the weekend with news, links, etc.

Speaking of other interesting tidbits – that’s where YOU come in. If you’re going to the Con, we’d love for you to share your photos and video, your thoughts, and anything else you feel like tossing our way. You can @tvdnews on Twitter, drop us a line at cc [at] vampire-diaries [dot] net, or even leave comments here in the blog. This is TVDtv’s pop culture coming out party – they’ll be face to face with the fans (which is what Comic Con is all about) for the first time. It’s kind of a big deal, yeah? Let’s document it for posterity.

See you there!