New Vampire Series?

[Zahir]

We've had plenty of vampire series. To mention just a few ...

Angel
Dark Shadows
Vampire Hight
Moonlight
Young Dracula
Kindred: The Embraced
The Vampire Diaries
Blood Ties
True Blood
Ultraviolet

No doubt there will be more. What I'm curious about is what folks would like to see in such a show? No less important--what don't you want to see?

[Fist and Faith]

I refuse to discuss this, because Buffy is not on your list.

[taraswizard]

Wrote a few days ago

I refuse to discuss this, because Buffy is not on your list.

WTH!! I know that Zahir (aka David) is a huge BtVS fan so that comment is sort of mean. And if you've got a contribution, let's hear it. What do I not want to see. BAD WRITING!! I'm not concerned if in some shmo's opinion this is just like (Angel, Forever Knight, Kindred, etc.) because I've come to find those opinions are usually very inaccurate and are more based on the commentors individual peculiarities or eccecentricities than in facts regarding the text; example, they did not really like AtS much so everything they don't like in the future is going to be compared to AtS. Consider that I know tons of people who will tell you Blood Ties as based on Tanya Huff's books is just like BtVS or Forever Knight, but NOT!! Tanya Huff started writing stories about Vickie Nelson and Henry FitzRoy years before BtVS premiered and she says FK was a minimal influence. I know IRL at least a dozen or so who will tell you that Moonlight, starring Alex O'Laughlin, was AtS on a major network, how could anyone hold such an insipid, vacous, vapid and thoughtless opinion if they ever watched the Moonlight. If Moonlight was similar to any previous TV series at all it was Rockford Files. I'm ranting, sorry.

[Cagliostro]

I think Fist may have been joking, and didn't really have anything to add.

[finn]

What I'd like to see is an end to the constant romance between Human and Vampire. The idea of it is that it is a plotline highlight because it is so rare but with so many series/films making it a theme it is now commonplace, what would be suprising is for a human to rejected for ........another vampire!

It reminds me of Kirk when he'd beam down and start shagging the aliens, it was a shock first time but then he'd beam down and shag anything that had breasts and it became the norm rather than the exception.....................never did figure out how he know they did not have teeth 'down there'!

[Zahir]

But isn't the tension between vampire and victim part of the allure of the genre?

My own complaint is when such is loaded with cliches or simply just isn't drawn well. For example, by my count True Blood has had at least five human/vampire couples, with more off-screen. Each has been fundamentally different.

[dANdeLION]

WTH!! I know that Zahir (aka David) is a huge BtVS fan so that comment is sort of mean.

Get over it.

[finn]

But isn't the tension between vampire and victim part of the allure of the genre?
.

Yes it is, but all the more reason to use it sparingly..... I think the human/vamp and for that matter the human/lycan-ww-shapeshifter, has to take care to maintain the focus, everyone doing it doesn't make it anything out of the ordinary and with so many series/movies/series-of-movies out there I think its going to become "ho-hum, yeah so what".

[Zahir]

Being a writer myself, I think it more a question of how a human/vampire romance is handled rather than whether one (or how many) exists. Audiences in our culture look for romantic couplings in fiction and a good storyteller needs to be aware of this fact. The potential for interesting tales involving romantic relationships between vampires and humans are at least as diverse as that between humans and humans, or so it seems to me.

Not all stories need a romance, to be sure. But an ongoing story, like a television series, hampers itself a lot if at the outset one bans a certain kind of relationship/conflict.

What really matters, IMHO, is how one tells the story. "Doctor diagnoses a patient's illness" sounds like one dull premise for a t.v. show, yet look at House. When you think about it, Lost has the same basic premise as Gilligan's Island. Execution is key.

I suppose my complaint is that too many critiques of different shows or movies or whatever are formulaic rather than touching upon what really does make a story work or not.

[finn]

Wouldn't disagree with that, but I do think that this might start to become more difficult to achieve against a growing background of white noise created by so many new shows. I think too that it can lead plot development to rely too heavily on romance as the core relationship without exploring other potential avenues of plot or relationship development. With each new story/movie/series having to incorporate a particular plotline to satisfy a perceived requirement for the genre I think that the theme can be stifled by typecasting the protagonists.

What I'm curious about is what folks would like to see in such a show? No less important--what don't you want to see?

I'd like to see more diversity in the plots and relationships and less reliance on the romance as the sole plot spine.

How about a "marvel" type vampire movie like Iron Man, Batman etc entirely from the Vampire's perspective starting from the ordinary guy and taking him/her through conversion and rejection and fear and loathing. How the characteristics of the human transfer and translate and come out in the new character. Development of powers and use and misuse of them, ethics vs. hunger, power within society bred from years of knowledge (highlander like) .... the whole immortality thing........

I think there's a lot could be done but with the packaged up offereing of a Hollywood type leading man and leading lady what gets left out?

Just ideas.....