Fall is Coming: Ready for The Vampire Diaries Season 4?

The Vampire Diaries’s Season 3 finale (in which *highlight for spoilers*Elena was turned*/spoilers*) was arguably the biggest game-changer in the show’s history, which is saying something, so I have to wonder...how can they possibly top that in Season 4?

Executive producer Julie Plec let some vague spoilers drop recently at San Diego Comic Con. She says Elena will have *spoilers*“hot vampire sex”*/spoilers* early in the season, though we don’t know whether it’ll be with Damon, Stefan, Klaus, Matt, or Elijah (shall we cast votes about who it’ll be?); Damon and Tyler will be drinking buddies (??!!); and Caroline and Tyler will have a “big” reunion scene (except, uh, we the audience all know that *spoilers*“Tyler” is in fact Klaus in Tyler’s body*/spoilers*, hmm...).

Who do you want to see Elena hook up with? Are you crossing your fingers for any other love connections? What are you hoping to see in general this year?

And on a semi-related note (related ’cause it’s vampires; just go with it!), as you may have heard (maybe even in our comments!) Jonathan Rhys-Meyers has been cast as Dracula for a new NBC show that has already been picked up for 10 episodes. Thoughts on this? Excited about another new vamp project or is TVD your exception?

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paranormal

1. clare2e

view all by clare2e | Wednesday August 01, 2012 02:11pm EDT

@redline_ Another epic TVD rant from me!

Of course, Elena is facing that, ahem, same doppelgangery pressure that originally put Katherine on the run, but I'd be more interested if every time someone died, there wasn't a new rule to bring them back. In a way, some of the "game-changers" introduced at the end of last season are kind of "game over" really for the central themes.

(And they did get somewhat addicted to knocking people off for temporary pathos just to pop them back up like toaster strudels. Are you surely sure sure Caro's dad can never, ever come back? Me neither. Not if they're desperate enough. New Rule! Hidden grimoire clause #435)

Another thing TVD doesn't have which can add purpose and tension is a genuine external, existential threat that gives all the characters a reason to strive and argue. I know they sort-of tried with Klaus' hybrids, but did you buy that there was really any larger world beyond Mystic Falls in danger? I'd say no, not like Sunnydale in BuffytVS was always the Hellmouth, evil's wingtip blocking the doorjamb of all that's good and Scoobylicious.

If TVD is still a show with high school context, you need being human to matter, to be prefereable or desirable in some way. (It isn't, unless you dig being preyed upon.) If being a human high-schooler's cool, you can get away with shallow self-absorption and lots of emo. But, if everyone's gone demigod, the conflicts and stakes need to be grander and all the town's sock hops start to seem too silly to bother about. TVD started leaning toward the latter "super" approach with most of the characters a couple of seasons ago, but their sets and dialog still lean toward the former. I'm not sure it's working.

Sure, I'll be watching to see how it unfolds, but if it becomes a boring TV-constrained bedhop among navel-gazing angsty superbeings ...yawn. Even an hour of it will feel like eternity.