I am – Hercules!!
Even the “Twilight” fanatics will be leery of “The Vampire Diaries,” my pick for fall’s worst new series. A drama about a high school girl who falls for a handsome 200-year-old bloodsucker, “The Vampire Diaries” is adapted by screenwriter Kevin Williamson (who earlier created The WB’s “Dawson’s Creek” and “Glory Days,” ABC’s “Wasteland,” and The CW’s “Hidden Palms”) from the 1991 young adult novels by L.J. Smith. My suspicion is the CW execs know its snoozy, ridiculously predictable pilot is nigh unwatchable, just as they know their jobs may be forfeit if they don’t have a teen vampire series – any teen vampire series – on the air before “New Moon” hits cinemas. A sample of the Williamson “wit” that litters the pilot: “I couldn’t stand another day of the ’90s,” one 200-year-old vampire tells another 200-year-old vampire. “That horrible grunge look did not suit you.” A parting thought: The only vampire girl/human boy screen romance I can think of was in Kathryn Bigelow’s wonderful “Near Dark” (likely my favorite vampire movie ever), but even that may not count because I think the fellow was turned to vampire on the first date. You’d think just once someone might switch it up. USA Today says:

… The books Vampire is based on predate both True Blood and Twilight, but you can't watch tonight's premiere without feeling tonal reverb from both, with every CW soap from Dawson's to One Tree Hill thrown in for good measure. The pieces are amusingly rearranged, but even the teen girls for whom the show is designed will recognize them as old, maybe even as old as the show's dueling blood brothers. …

Entertainment Weekly says:

… Fun stuff mixing blood with soap, Diaries signals a welcome return to form for writer-producer Kevin Williamson … ''I promised you an eternity of misery,'' Damon tells Stefan. And Diaries promises us a season of sharp-tongued amusement.

The New York Times says:

… There’s an engrossing moodiness to Mr. Williamson’s latest venture, but one he conveys without annulling the pact he long ago made with himself never to let his cheekiness go undetected. …

The Los Angeles Times says:

… Let the other franchises sniff with disdain at moldy old genre conventions, "The Vampire Diaries" stacks them up like corpses in a mausoleum and dances howling on the roof. … It may not be art, but it's as much fun as an ice-cream social in a cemetery, complete with the rustling chill of crows' wings overhead and the eerie outline of the campus cutie with strange vermilion eyes emerging from a sudden swirling mist.

The Washington Post says:

… Anemic and wimpy when compared with HBO's bloodlusty "True Blood," or even network TV's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1997-2003), "The Vampire Diaries" doesn't even have a heart through which a stake could mercifully be driven. CW's version details the dull, dull doings of the world's clammiest vamps, who may flash fangs and skulk around in dark cemeteries (ever see a bright one?) but who come up fatally flat in terms of mayhem and menace. Naturally there's a youthful, teenage angle to the skulduggery -- a bid to cash in on the "Twilight" phenom -- but the pacing is arthritic …

The Toronto Globe and Mail says:

… sadly predictable. … when the show tries to make you gasp by hurling projectiles at cars' windscreens not once but twice in the space of its first few minutes, you have to wonder how it is going to produce any chills beyond Episode 2. … reeks of old folks sitting around the boardroom table looking to program something to draw young ones. Not hard to analyze why the eroticized vampire might appeal to youth – at that age, the notion that sexual attraction is potentially dangerous rings very true – but every demographic deserves something better than boilerplate horror.

The San Francisco Chronicle says:

… in a word, awful, no matter your age or gender. … "Melrose Place" looks like "I, Claudius" compared with "Vampire Diaries," which plays out like a viral marketing campaign from overly worried Midwestern mothers about the influence of vampires on youth culture. Even if you love HBO's "True Blood" and "Twilight" is calling the younger ones, you will never want anything to do with vampires again after this series. Wait - not true. You will want all the extras who played vamps on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (which was great, by the way, and not to be blamed for this lackluster cousin) to return en masse to eat the cast of "Vampire Diaries," plus any remaining scripts. …

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says:

… this is not smart teen TV along the lines of "My So-Called Life" or "Freaks and Geeks" -- but those satisfied by a supernatural soap should be sated. …

The Philadelphia Inquirer says:

… First with Melrose Place on Tuesday, now with The Vampire Diaries tonight at 8, the CW demonstrates a commitment to recycling that would be laudable if it were bagging bushels of bottles instead of inflicting warmed-over drivel on young TV viewers who deserve better. … Vampires are all the rage these days, but, on TV at least, HBO's True Blood has pretty much cornered the market on new-age, grown-up vamps. And nobody's ever going to match the youthful mythology and fun of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. …

The Boston Herald says:

… This is “True Blood” minus the gore, the suspense, memorable characters, dialogue and story. It just might be the show to bury the vampire craze. …

The Boston Globe says:

… definitely doesn’t have the script and style that made “Buffy the Vampire Slayer’’ stand above most supernatural series, nor does it have the cinematic vibrancy of “True Blood.’’ The pop allusions (to Carson Daly, Alfred Hitchcock) and the fog-machine-based production design are flat and unambitious. But “The Vampire Diaries’’ nonetheless satisfactorily opens up yet another TV world of heightened youth, where blood-sucking is a metaphor for a whole range of fears and desires. …

Variety says:

… slick but slight … unless you're a teenage girl, "Twilight" is vastly overrated, and based on that comparison, this series could honestly run on the slogan, "We suck less." …

The Hollywood Reporter says:

… Bottom Line: A little too much cheese for my blood. …

8 p.m. Thursday. The CW.

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