Episode 354: Vampires & Ghosts

Watched the pilot episode of The Vampire Diaries and was less impressed than I was with the Melrose Place pilot. The pacing was too slow for a premiere and things only got interesting when Ian Somerhalder's character showed up. He looked a bit weird though. Lighting? Makeup? Aging? Incidentally, does it say something about our collective psyche that vampires are almost always portrayed as attractive and/or seductive? I think the series will draw a moderate audience, given the current Twilight craze, but if it's going to last beyond one season, it needs to pick up the pace. Quickly. Especially since on the whole, its cast is less attractive than those of the other CW shows, so that's already one point against it. I am almost done with Joanne Harris's Sleep, Pale Sister, which is atmospheric, but also a tad overwrought, like its predecessor, The Evil Seed. There isn't the lightness that comes through in Chocolat, although admittedly, it's hard to imagine Gothic fiction being light. The very concept seems antithetical, in both literal and metaphorical senses. The tossing of the narrator's voice from one character to another is a nice touch though.