Sink Your Teeth Into These Juicy "Diaries"

What I am about to tell you is confidential and deeply personal. It will take a lot of will power and a good deal of humility. I may never get over the shame. Here goes: I totally love a show on the CW. No, not Gossip Girl. No, not 90210. No, not Melrose Tree Place or whatever the heck the other shows are called. No, I love The Vampire Diaries.

Hey, stop snickering. Now I realize I am on the outer limits of the show’s demographics. I am neither in high school nor a member of the undead. But I haven’t been able to resist a good vampire story since my parents got me a Dracula graphic novel back way before they were even called graphic novels. What? I wasn’t much into princess stories.

For us fangs, er I mean, fans of the show, this weeks starts a long dry spell until fresh episodes begin flowing again Jan. 14. To stem our cravings (too much with the vampire puns? Never!) the show will marathon all 10 current episodes back-to-back from Dec. 14 to 18.

The series has been a break-out hit for the CW this season and I can tell you why. It’s just good fun. Not like puppies and rainbows and lollipops fun, but serious melodrama, ridiculously attractive people and zippy storylines fun. It’s like Dawson’s Creek with less angst and more biting. That comparison might sound silly unless you know that its creator, Kevin Williamson, also helmed the Creek.

Now, some may accuse me of just jumping on the vampire bandwagon. But I’ve studiously avoided everything to do with Twilight and haven’t had the time to watch True Blood. Plus, the source material for The Vampire Diaries precedes both those by at least a decade as it was first published in 1991. No, my affection started back with Bram Stoker and more recently was stoked by Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

So what does The Vampire Diaries have that makes it good TV? Vampires. Witches. Seances. Flashbacks. Love triangles. Feuding brothers. The best bad boy vamp since Spike in Damon (played with wicked charisma by Ian Somerhalder). A fresh-faced leading lady in Elena (played by Nina Dobrev). Brooding. Biting. Staking.

My one complaint? It needs more female vamps. Or, more precisely, female vamps who don’t get staked the minute we meet them. Oh, and one last complaint. What whipper-snapper decided to make Jasmine Guy play a grandmother? A grandmother!? She was Whitley! Well, like I said, I am on the outer limit of the show’s demographic, clinging by a fingernail.

So, are you with me? Have you sunk your teen (last one, I promise) into this delectable morsel of sudsy TV fun? And, if so, who the hell did Elena hit in the middle of the road last week? I can’t believe I have to wait until Jan. 14 to find out.