What do you Want in a Vampire Series?

I'm a fan of vampire stories and series, so it is hardly surprising I have opinions of such. But what about you folks? Which vampire t.v. series do you most like--and why? More, what don't you like? What haven't you seen but very much want to? Or have seen too much of?

Consider the different examples...Dark Shadows, Forever Knight, Angel, Moonlight, The Vampire Diaries, True Blood, Young Dracula, Ultraviolet, Dracula: The Series, Vampire High, etc. Which ones worked? Which didn't?

Please share your opinions. I'd love to find out what you think...

Gotta point out--nowhere in folklore is there the slightest hint that vampires are hurt in any way by sunlight. Really. That was a show business invention, first used in the Balderson-Deane play version of Dracula then in the silent film Nosferatu.

There is a common (but by no means universal) tendency to see vampiric activities as nocturnal, but sunlight in and of itself is never mentioned as a means of hurting or destroying the creatures. Not in any myth or folklore I've ever encountered.

Myself, I prefer the way it was handled in the novel Dracula (carried over into the film Bram Stoker's Dracula) as well as the film Razor Blade Smile--namely, that night is the natural time for vampires and they find themselves weakened in some way by the sun (in the latter, it is that her eyes find sunlight blindingly painful).

Hmmm...gotta point out that Lestat lived by a code so that the only people he killed were unrepentant murderers. He wasn't nearly as nasty as Angelus or Dracula. Hell, he wasn't as ruthless as Harmony Kendall!

There are plenty of inconsistencies in Dracula, but nowhere is there a single instance of a vampire damaged in any way by sunlight. Carmilla, the classic that predated Stoker's novel by decades, has the vampire walk around in daylight easily (although she evidently doesn't like it much). While I personally prefer that vampires remain "creatures of darkness" I cannot justify the notion that they burst into flames or dissolve in sunlight.

I certainly agree about diversity--but that means virtuous as well as sociopathic undead, and everything in between. What I don't like are major characters who remain the literary equivalent of stick figures, whether they be vampires or not. And I want some kind of consistency. We the audience need not know all the rules, but the writers need a handle on them.

linfred4 said:

Well, I really like to good Vampire book if i can find one. I am into the action part of it. But I do love Buffy& Angel when it was out. I do catch the odd show. I am not into the New shows, i did take my god daughter to see Twilight and will take her to see the rest. I do also habe to say the story it self is good but the way they have the Vampire I was not inpressed.

I am finished my one story that has them in it long with others and making a series out of it. My mom and best friend read it and love it and keep asking when the next one will be done, i have sent it off to a contest with Bloody Words so lets cross our fingers

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I am absolutely crossing my fingers for you.

Kitty27 said:

I HATE human like vampires. For Goth's sake,let them kill people!

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Given how much of a history geek I really am, must point out that killing people is one of the most human-like behaviors imaginable.

I will opine here a bit.

I want a vampire series that surprises me. Re-using the same tropes is okay, so long as it is done in an interesting spin. I want complex, interesting characters with compelling stories.

I want the vampires to make sense. For example, if a vampire kills every time he feeds and he feeds twice a week, then that one vampire makes a significant change in the murder rate of even a major, crime-ridden city. Likewise if one bite transforms someone into a vampire, then we'd quickly be up to our eyebrows in the things. You also have to explain how vampires are made, what their weaknesses really are--and it helps a lot if the overall "picture" is consistent.

Blood Ties actually approached this quite well. Vampires did not have to kill to feed, and few did. But territorial instincts were so great it was impractical for two vampires to dwell in the same city. No shape-shifting or flying. It wasn't that hard to kill a vampire, so staying covert made perfect sense.

Some adore the vampire-as-monster motif but ultimately that seems kinda boring to me. One important question to me for any vampire tale is--What happens to the person who changes? For example both Buffy and Bram Stoker's Dracula more-or-less came out and called vampirism a kind of demonic possession. The series Forever Knight strongly hinted that to become a vampire was to gain a whole new set of very strong instincts. On the other hand, why did vampires in Blade change personality so much? No idea. In The Strain this is explained in (horrifying) detail, one of the few examples of totally monstrous vampires that worked for me (their entire biology is reworked, including the loss of higher brain functions).

Methinks True Blood is an excellent example of a vampire t.v. series--not least because the vampires in question make total sense. They are diverse, and respond in an understandable way to their condition.

Mind you, I would also point out that as premises for series The Vampire Diaries is far better suited that Twilight. The former has actual adversaries in one way or another that stay around and interact. The bite is not a death sentence, unlike the latter, and the use of a long-term background lends itself to complex story arcs. What I don't like about the series is the relative lack-of-depth in the main characters, and in the fact that this particular high school seems made up of nothing but pretty people. Where, I ask, are the Willows and Jonathans and Xanders? Why is everyone a Cordelia or a Harmony? How dull! Ms. Myers' work outstrips the t.v. series in that at least (haven't read the books, so cannot judge them).