Vamp Diaries fits nicely

CW's 'Vampire Diaries' lands in space between 'Twilight' and 'True Blood'

Read more: NYDailyNews.com
THE VAMPIRE DIARIES, Thursday night, CW

In its unending quest for new ways to dramatize the thrills and dangers of teen romance, the CW tonight poses this question: What happens if the really hot new guy in school turns out to be a vampire?

It's a situation where a simple "OMG!" might not seem sufficient.

For the network, though, the larger question may be whether young women, the target audience for the new "Vampire Diaries," like their romantic drama sprinkled with bloody corpses and near-corpses.

While the producers hope the female audience for the "Twilight" films suggests that's the case, tonight's opening "Vampire Diaries" feels more graphic and menacing than "Twilight."

It's not as graphic and menacing as HBO's "True Blood," a similar work, but the tension here is lethal, not just romantic.

It also would be a shame if the neck-biting part proves too discomforting because the core teen couple is a winner.

Elena Gilbert (Nina Dobrev) hasn't been looking forward to the new school year in Mystic Falls, Va. Her parents were killed in a car crash in May, leaving her and her brother in the care of a largely clueless aunt. Despite the pleas of her best friend, Bonnie (Katerina Graham), Elena really isn't ready to face the world again.

On the first day back, though, Bonnie spots that hot new guy, Stefan Salvatore (Paul Wesley). He has the dark, brooding, mysterious fascination that's been quickening teenage girls' pulses since Elvis Presley and James Dean, and he has eyes for Elena.

For reasons only he and the viewers know.

Seems that when he was 16, in 1864, he was bitten by, and thus turned into, a vampire. At that time, there was a girl named Kathleen who looked exactly like Elena. Now, Stefan is ready to get back in the game.

That's okay up front, since Stefan is a good vampire who means no harm. But he has a brother, Damon (Ian Somerhalder), who does, and since Damon has followed Stefan to Mystic Falls, Stefan's quest for love will create complications for some folks there.

In overall tone, "Diaries" tilts more toward menace than humor - which could create either fascinating romantic tension or the bad feeling that someone's neck is always about to get tapped like a maple tree in syrup season.

By staking turf between "True Blood" and "Twilight," "Vampire Diaries" hopes it has found the promised land. The danger is it could also be no man's land.

dhinckley@nydailynews.com

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Women hold the power

Women hold the power on ‘True Blood,’ ‘Hung’

By Matthew Gilbert Boston Globe Staff / Article Link

Summer TV has been quite the trip, largely thanks to a particular maenad and her shivery, incantatory fits. Featured in the second season of HBO’s “True Blood,’’ Maryann Forrester has brought all kinds of wicked primal energy to the screen. Her name may put you in mind of “Gilligan’s Island’’ and a pair of pigtails, but she is more of a maniacal Mary Poppins, dropped into the town of Bon Temps to make life a very jolly holiday indeed.

Played with awesome hauteur by Michelle Forbes, who deserves lots of awards love for this role, Maryann is the queen of every scene she’s in. Whether she’s feeding heart pot pie to her minions or casually shrugging off the death of her manservant, she is creepy, campy, forceful, and irresistible. Alongside the Michigan women of “Hung,’’ who have found liberation with a male escort named Ray, Maryann has helped create a group portrait of women accessing power by shredding inhibition. It’s HBO Animus.

As “True Blood’’ and “Hung’’ wrap for the season on Sunday night, at 9 and 10, respectively, they provide a provocative yin to the sexist yang that is “Entourage.’’

“Hung’’ has been only partially satisfying in its first season, losing direction and originality every time the writers veer into Ray’s family life. But the comedy-drama does consistently come alive with Tanya, a neurotic cosmic trooper played by Jane Adams. “Hung’’ is less far less effective dealing with Ray and his sexual endowment than it is with the women who use him. If you thought you were going to get an homage to male potency with this show, you were pushing your cart up the wrong aisle. As Ray’s pimp, Tanya is evolving beautifully into a poet warrior, gradually triumphing over maternal oppression, writer’s block, and professional stasis. Her development is the most coherent element of the series.

“True Blood,’’ on the other hand, has been thoroughly satisfying this season, and not only because Maryann has inspired ecstatic raves (in Bon Temps and from viewers). While “Hung’’ wandered among nonstarter plots - do we care about Ray’s kids’ romantic lives? - “True Blood’’ has expertly kept a number of rich, directed plotlines going at once. Even while a few different supernatural powers have come into play, including shape-shifting and brainwashing, the show has not succumbed to the glut of paranormal cross-purposes that helped make “Heroes’’ unwatchable.

Indeed, this season of “True Blood’’ has been a model of TV storytelling. As the volume on one theme lowered, with Sookie, Jason, and Bill escaping the clutches of the nefarious Fellowship of the Sun, it rose on another playing in the background: How to stop Maryann and save the town from devolving into pure, empty-eyed id? And like a backbeat, the Bill-Eric-Sookie triangle played throughout, with Sookie remaining one of TV’s most self-directed young heroines.

“True Blood’’ creator Alan Ball is taking full advantage of what has become a cable convention: season-long arcs. Because of cable’s shorter seasons and committed viewers, shows such as “Dexter’’ and “The Wire’’ have been able to give each batch of 12-or-so episodes a beginning and an end. While most network shows must plow endlessly forward, to fill 22 episodes per year for an indefinite number of years, the cable pace encourages more sculpted narratives. Each season can ultimately fold into a nice DVD set. The first season of “True Blood’’ revolved around Rene and his crimes; this season belongs primarily to Maryann. (No, I know nothing about what will happen Sunday night; Maryann may well survive to throw another wild party).

Within his tight structure this summer, Ball has given us countless small moments of grace, humor, and horror. The death of Godric on the roof at dawn was one of TV’s most dramatically evocative sequences of the year, with Sookie shedding tears for Godric, his ancient soul, and her own losses. The submissiveness of Eric (Alexander Skarsgard) toward the youthful-looking Godric, too, was powerful for being so unexpected. Anything having to do with the love affair between virgins Jessica and Hoyt was sweet; and anything having to do with Jason was funny.

“True Blood’’ is part of the vampire trend of late, with the “Twilight’’ movies and books, and with “The Vampire Diaries’’ on the CW. Why, there’s even a vampire pictorial in the new issue of Playboy. But, more than those other products, the HBO show has pushed vampire symbolism forward into new territory. I love the way “True Blood’’ portrays the unbreakable bond between a vampire and the one who made him or her, and the way the struggle for vampire rights raises internal conflicts in the vampire community. Those are the kinds of fresh twists that manage to keep the age-old vampire formula young.

Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com. For more on TV, visit www.boston.com/ae/tv/blog/.

Podcast: True Blood season 2 episode 11 - Frenzy

Tara and Eggs laid an egg and Bill’s faux sun bathing with the queen. YAHTZEE! Brandi and Luz catch up on episode 11 and anticipate the season finale.

Podcast feed: download

iTunes: download

Showin' some love for the Team Sam fans

For all the Team Sam fans:

Great Eric/Sookie video

The first 25 seconds is the creator's credit montage, but then it's awesome Sookie and Eric clip. Clever editing. The song is off Twilight's soundtrack, but it works great with True Blood images too.

Anna Camp (Sarah Newlin) makes an appearance on The Office

E! Online by Megan Masters

Mark Sullivan/Getty Images; Todd Williamson/Getty Images

Are those darned anti-vampire groups attempting to recruit our favorite Pennsylvania paper suppliers?

Not quite, but Anna Camp, the sexy and scandalous reverend's wife from True Blood is heading to Scranton to be a part of TV's most anticipated wedding in recent years.

What exactly brings anti-vamp Sarah Newlin out of Bon Temps and into our Thursday night lineup?

(Hint: She's part of Jenna Fischer's bridal party.)

A rep for The Office confirms to us that Anna will join the Dunder Mifflin Niagara Falls nuptials playing Pam's sister Penny. Over the past few seasons, we haven't heard much about the Beesly sibling, but we applaud the casting. There's a definite resemblance there, right?

Since the rushed I dos are an attempt to conceal the bride's budding baby bump from her family, we wonder if the sisters are close enough for Pam to let Penny in on the secret. Guess we'll have to wait and see!

The big Office wedding airs Oct. 8 at 9 p.m. on NBC.

Kwanten on being Jason Stackhouse

True Blood’s Ryan Kwanten On Playing Jason Stackhouse

People Magazine

From battling addiction to vampire blood to getting mixed up with a fanatical religious group and then sleeping with the preacher’s wife, Ryan Kwanten’s True Blood character, Jason Stackhouse, is always getting into trouble on HBO’s hit show. Luckily for the 32-year-old Australian actor, who has lived in Los Angeles for seven years, he’s nothing like his rural Louisianan alter ego. “We look the same to a certain degree,” he jokes. “But my jeans aren’t as tight.” Before True Blood’s finale on Sept. 13, which Kwanten calls “the amalgamation of pretty much the entire season,” the actor spoke with PEOPLE about his character, Louisiana cooking and how he stays so darn ripped! –Aaron Parsley

Congrats on the success of True Blood. How does it feel?
It’s is not something that you set out expecting [because of] the amount of factors that have to fall into place for a show to even be picked up … True Blood was already a pretty tasty cake before and then now it’s just a nice little cherry on top.

Do you notice a difference between when the first season aired and now?
I’ve really noticed a difference in how people are aware of the show and of me. It’s certainly a new thing to me.

Were you familiar with the Sookie Stackhouse books before you started playing her brother Jason?
It was only after I got the role that I started reading the books to catch up with it, but even then [creator] Alan Ball made us aware that it wouldn’t be following word-for-word, story-for story with the books.

How far into the books have you read?
Two-and-half books. To be perfectly honest, I don’t think I’m particularly the demographic. It’s just not my thing.

What do you like about Jason Stackhouse?
He’s taught me not to think so much and not over analyze because he’s the type of guy who just sort of jumps into things without really thinking about them and obviously that gets him into trouble.

How did you get the accent down?
I wish I could say it was a long process of learning and arduous kind of hours. I obviously do my research of where it’s shooting and the various types of accents within Louisiana and in discussions with the director and with Alan you hang on something. They seemed to like what I had in the beginning so I stuck with that and refined it if need be.

Most of the show is shot around Los Angeles but you do get down to Louisiana, right?
[We go there to] slide in a couple scenes or even shots here and there to make it look like it was all there, to add to the Louisiana. Hopefully, we can get the audience sweating while they watch it.

Do you like going there?
I actually have a soft spot for people from the South or even just from Louisiana just because they tend to tell it like it is and I think quite often in L.A., people are a little scared to do that … Also, I found it quite extraordinarily beautiful. People complain about the heat but I don’t mind the heat at all.

What about the food?
You just have to be prepared for a lot of fried food and the seafood’s really good. The crawfish are amazing.

We see a lot of Jason Stackhouse in this show. What do you do to stay in such great shape?
I don’t have trainers or anything like that. Whether it’s running on the beach or swimming in the ocean, yoga, tennis — I could go through a whole list of things — I just pretty much keep myself on my toes and try not to get bored. I probably do an hour every day.

Do you watch what you eat?
I’m never going to be one of those people at a restaurant looking at someone else’s meal and wishing they were eating it. I love my food too much to be doing that.

What do you hope for Jason next season? Would you like to see him in a relationship?
I don’t care what they do. I really just love receiving the script and seeing what happens. I don’t care if he’s in a relationship or not because either way he’s just fun to play and dive into his skin.

Speaking of relationships, are you in one?
I’m single. I’m not really looking right now. Unfortunately, I just can’t devote enormous amount of time to women right now. I’m concentrated right now on working but I like a woman who’s not afraid to be herself.

Are Australian audiences and American audiences different in how they receive a show like True Blood with all its sex and gore?
Australians are a little more open-minded when it comes to things like sex and body. But Americans, I feel, are probably more used to the violence and even the supernatural elements, so the great thing about this show is it doesn’t limit itself to one particular genre. It can go from comedy to supernatural to thriller to drama all in the space of an episode. Catering to not just different demographics but different cultures too.