The CW’s small-screen answer to the Twilight phenomena, The Vampire Diaries, has been on the air for three weeks. So, will the vampire series have a long life or will its life be cut short, staked to the heart like The Beautiful Life?
The Vampire Diaries story begins with teens Elena (Nina Dobrev) and Jeremy (Steven R. McQueen) adjusting to life after the sudden death of their parents. Elena manages to find some comfort with friends like Bonnie (Katerina Graham), Caroline (Candice Accola), and former boyfriend Matt (Zach Roerig). Jeremy is on a more dangerous path, hanging out with stoners and using drugs.
As the new school year begins, Elena becomes drawn to a handsome and mysterious new student, Stefan Salvatore (Paul Wesley), who is secretly a vampire. Later, Elena almost dies from a savage bite to the neck. It comes courtesy of Stefan’s evil and estranged brother, Damon (Ian Somerhalder), who’s also in love with the mortal girl.
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The supernatural drama debuted on September 10th to 4.91 million viewers and a 2.1/7 rating/share among adults 18-49. What’s more, viewership grew between the first and second half hours, a good indication that people liked what they saw and would return the following week.
Though those numbers still put the show in third place for its timeslot, Vampire Diaries outperformed Smallville’s season opener a year earlier. For the struggling CW network, the premiere looked very good.
Unfortunately, a week later, the news wasn’t as rosy. With tougher competition from other networks, Vampire Diaries fell to fifth place in the ratings. Viewership dropped to 3.76 million and a 1.6/5 in the key demo. That’s a drop of 23% from the prior week’s audience. Still, considering the numbers from other CW shows, they’re considered respectable.
Last week, the numbers seemed to level off and even grow a little. An average of 3.81 million watched with a 1.7/5. The show was in fifth place in the timeslot and fourth place in the demo, tied with NBC’s struggling SNL Weekend Update Thursday and Parks and Recreation.
While the series isn’t a failure for the struggling CW network, it’s surely not as big a hit as they were hoping for, especially considering the popularity of the Twilight movie and books. The network’s already given the show a full season order and will certainly stick with it in hopes of growing its audience even further.
What do you think? Considering the subject matter, why aren’t more people tuning in? Is the show worth watching or would you cancel it?
Show is horrible. I agree
I’m a teenaged girl who is in love with a secret vampire…he loves me in return,and we will be together forever…BAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRFFFF!!!!!
I never like the Buffy series,and this one is even more dismal than that one was. Forever Night was a damned good vampire series. I say,move Vampire Diaries to Friday and Smallville back to Thursdays.
I can enjoy teenaged angsty stuff,like Smallville,even tho I am outta demographics;but this show,blows DONKEY KONG KINK SIZED CHEDDAR CHEESE CHUNX!!!!
I love this show. It’s different than Twilight it has it’s own edge. I am a fan of Trueblood and Twilight and I think theres room for this show. I watched the first episode and then watched the 2nd and 3rd on line last night and had to watch last nights show on a different tv sinc ethe time conflicts with my Tivo, I can’t tivo it like I do everything else. I used to watch Buffy until the Angel spin off and watched Angel beginning until the end.
Cancel it or move it to another night. It sucks (no-pun intended). Vampires are suppose to be killed, not date! Move it to another night and put Smallville back as the Supernatural lead in..The only 2 shining stars on this network.
I hope that they keep the show. It is juvenile in comparison to “True Blood” but I still find that I enjoy it. I think, however, in order to keep viewership, they may need to move it along a little bit more. The full plot is still obscured by the underlying drama. Once the secrets of the town start to come out, the pace ought to pick up enough to draw people in.
This show is so horrid it makes me think I should go into TV script writing… I think VAPID would be a good word here. No depth, no future. I would say kill it, but then again it is already undead…
On a personal level… It is so hopelessly lacking on every level that I feel almost compelled to watch it next week and see if it somehow gets better… It certainly can’t get worse!
I really think they should keep this show. Even though the brother is actually over 30 years old..trying to protray someone alot younger, I still love this show. I do have to admit it is alot like Twilight..but thats why I like it. I used to watch “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and all the shows with vampires have seemed to not last. I really hope they keep this show, I am sure that with coming episodes that this series will surprise many.
I love the show – they moved the show from 8:00 to 7:00 so if not for a friend I wouldn’t have been able to find it the second week. It also doesn’t seem to be getting alot of promotion by the networks. I hope it lasts – I’ll be watching when and if I can continue to find it.
I agree that this show is very cheesy, I keep waiting for it to get better but it hasn’t so far. The acting is horrible, the plot is just horrific. I don’t see any chemistry what so ever with any of the characters. I also agree about the whole Angel vs Spike thing. This show deserves to be cancelled, bring a show with actors that actually have talent. Twilight itself has bad enough actors and then to compare a horrible show to a horrible movie it just goes to show that this show is not worth it to watch.
It’s cheesy. It’s Angel vs Spike all over again, but I like it anyway. Why get rid of it? It makes a great pairing with Supernatural.
Being over 24 I’m really not the demo for this show, but the writing is weak, the acting is horrible, and the plot is barely believable.
All in all, it sounds like a hit for today’s teenage audience. 😛
I live in Australia and it only premiered here last Monday. So far I’m impressed and we’ll be tuning next week, so I hope they don’t can it!
I have totally loved this series. I have loved the plot, the music, the chemistry with the actors, the special effects, and mostly… every guy in this show is worth staring at for an hour.
Though the show differs from the books quiet drastically, it’s still a good show. I’ve read both the Vampire Diaries and Twilight books, I didn’t like the Twilight movie compaired to the books. But the Vampires Diaries stands a chance, I do like the show and the books and the show differs enough to keep you watching and keep you reading.
I think that they should keep this show because it is a very good show. There has been some misses that CW has had in the past but this is a worthwild show.