The beginning of Peacock's Vampire Academy seems familiar to fans of The Vampire Diaries. But do the similarities between the vampire shows end there?
Vampire Academy's opening features a voiceover by Rose- Hathaway and Lissa Dragomir that leads viewers into the show's world with critical information, including definitions of supernatural beings like the Moroi, Strigoi and Dhampir. This voiceover positions the best friends as the series' protagonists. Their speech and some of its visual context have similar beats to Stefan Salvatore's voiceover that plays in variations at the beginning of most episodes of The Vampire Diaries. However, the voiceovers' contrasts draw a bold line between the series.
Vampire media is likely to have similar broad strokes because it all comes from the same supernatural source. More often than not, a vampire television show's success depends on what it can add to the genre. The Vampire Diaries became one of the most entertaining supernatural teen dramas on TV because it established a compelling love triangle, engaging mythology and a narrative that wasn't afraid to take many twists and turns. Now SyFy's Reginald the Vampire is trying to poke fun at vampire tropes and Peacock's Vampire Academy wants to build an entire world for its vampires.
When The Vampire Diaries premiered in 2009, Stefan was established as the show's narrator. He even specifically said "And this is my story." That framing device became extremely relevant when Nina Dobrev left the show after its sixth season. Dobrev's departure dismantled the central love triangle and refocused the narrative on Stefan's relationship with his older brother Damon Salvatore. Before that, Stefan's voiceover had confirmed how significant romance was to the story.
Over an ominous scene in the episode's teaser, Stefan shared, "I shouldn't have come home. I know the risk, but I had no choice. I have to know her." The "her" in question was Elena, who was eventually revealed to be a doppelganger of Stefan's ex-girlfriend Katherine Pierce. It was the possibility of knowing someone on a deeper level that pulled Stefan home and back into a situation that proved to be dangerous. After the teaser, Stefan's voiceover concluded with the admission that he's lived in secret for over a century, "alone in the world. Until now."
0 Comments