Hellatus Easing…NOT

Not to rub salt in the wounds of us Supernatural fans but…remember this time last year?  I do.  Dean and Sam standing together as Lucifer was rising, Bobby possessed by a demon, Meg’s return, Castiel in his bada**ness had returned and told Zach off…Chuck and a toilet plunger, Dean coughing up blood, Sam dying…again – good times.

Hellatus Easing…NOT   by Elle2
  
Not to rub salt in the wounds of us Supernatural fans but…remember this time last year?  I do.  Dean and Sam standing together as Lucifer was rising, Bobby possessed by a demon, Meg’s return, Castiel in his bada**ness had returned and told Zach off…Chuck and a toilet plunger, Dean coughing up blood, Sam dying…again – good times.

This year…nothing, zilch, nada, zippo.  Well, not completely nothing.  We did get three promos, all quick, all delicious.  (Hey, it’s been 17 weeks since anything so you bet these little crumbs were scrumptious.

With Hellcats and Nikita set to repeat on Friday night (for me Saturday night as the local affiliate scrubbed the CW shows in favor of Philadelphia v New York Mets) I decided to take some time to jot a few thoughts out on The Vampire Diaries and Nikita.  Both were enjoyable, one I really liked and the other is a wait and see, although it started well enough. 

The Vampire Diaries

Mostly because I have too many TV shows in my life and I’m working on downsizing I didn’t watch this show last season.  Towards the end of the first season, however, I found myself watching it a bit and thought it’s not horrible.  So, with the bane of Hellatus looming large I made an appointment most Thursday nights to catch up on The Vampire Diaries.  I haven’t seen all the episodes so I notably missed how Damon became so integrated with the sheriff and the town council that he’s their sorta go-to guy.  I’m not criticizing the role, just wondering how it came to be.  So, if anyone could enlighten me, I’d appreciate the background.

I like the brother storyline the best.  There is definite love between the two that is certainly tempered with a lot of anger, betrayal and complex emotions.  Frankly it makes their storyline the most delicious to me.  I love ‘buddy’ type shows and no matter how hard Damon denies, I know he loves Stefan.  Stefan similarly is frustrated with Damon but no doubt blood is thicker than…well, in this case more blood.  I think I most fell in love with the character of Damon when he and Elena teamed up to capture Stefan and lock him in the room to help him get control.  Damon intended to go upstairs leaving his brother to detox, instead, upon seeing Elena resolutely sit down and begin her vigil for Stefan’s sake Damon showed his other side (at least the first time so pointedly for me…I’ve missed other episodes prior to this) and almost resignedly sat down to keep her, and Stefan by default, company.  Yeah, there’s more to this bad guy than those wonderfully sarcastic, biting and well-delivered zingers.

As for Stefan I like him as well.  The brooding isn’t that much fun and I wished he’d lighten up a bit and his constant goodness and light was a bit bland but still, I truly like a good guy I just need to see a bit of emotion every now and again.

As for Elena, she’s a nice girl.  Nina Dobrev brought Elena to life well enough but I often found her a bit simple in the character.  Still, better than a lot of things on TV so it was good enough. 

I don’t have much to say about the other characters mainly because I don’t know who many of them are and most of them don’t interest me enough to find out a lot about them.  Alaric is a good foil for the brothers and Bonnie has potential.  Most of the others just annoy me and I tend to clean the bathroom or dust when their scenes are on…or sort the mail.

Remember, all this so far is about Season 1.

Well, last night’s Season 2 opener was really quite good.  I’m definitely looking forward to next week’s episodes (and, yeah, the week after that and so on.)

Ian as Damon did not surprise me at all with how good he is in the role.  I expect good to great from him and he did not disappoint.  Paul as Stefan got some really good things to work with and I enjoyed his character a whole lot more.  I’ve read a spoiler or two for this season and what I saw of Stefan last night appears to be the order for the season; I say bring it!  Stefan was tender and gentle, concerned and caring, commanding and jealous and angry and violent, all in one episode.  When Stefan caught on to Katherine’s appearance so quickly I loved that turn.  Then when he threatened John in the hospital…and fed him his blood…oh, Stefan, you are a bad boy!  Paul definitely had a lot to work with in his character last night and he stepped up to the plate and delivered scene after scene.

Nina is the best part of last night.  I’ve read and heard interviews these last weeks’ of how good her turn is between Elena and Katherine and frankly I thought there was a lot of hype and I was bound to be disappointed.  Well, not a chance.  Nina is good as Elena but excellent as Katherine.  Frankly, the chance she has now in this dual role is elevating her performance as Elena so it’s a double win.  She has perfected the subtle and swift transition, one moment she’s Elena, another moment she’s Katherine and all she did was draw a breath.  Well done, Ms. Dobrev, your performance really made the episode for me.

As for the writing, thank goodness these writers have managed to avoid so many of the usual teenage show traps and pitfalls.  Damon not only knows he kissed Katherine (thinking it was Elena) but he admitted it to Stefan.  Wow, usually these types of reveals drag on forever but nope, these writers outed it within the first half hour.  Thank you very much.  Furthering up on that nice change of pace they made it so much more intriguing in that Elena made it absolutely clear that while she knew Damon had feelings for her she does not return them.  Not only did she say that once, but twice and in effect drove a stake into Damon’s non-beating heart.  And Ian has made the character so real and so, well, likeable, that I feel kinda bad for him, actually really bad for him.

I didn’t expect him to come up and ‘kill’ Jeremy – although the character does nothing for me – I did figure him to have had the ring on since the scene just before had him and John talking about that very item.  As John was leaving it seems he decided to protect Jeremy.  Good for him.  Perhaps Stefan really did scare him.

Perhaps I just don’t know enough about the other characters to care that much about them, perhaps I just enjoy the whole Elena/Kathering, Stefan and Damon storyline that I don’t have much to comment about the others.  Bonnie’s storyline looks interesting enough with her interactions with the brothers and Elena and with Tyler set to reveal his ‘heritage’ I’m thinking that will likely intertwine more to my liking.  Suffice it to say, I’m a fan of The Vampire Diaries and will be watching on Thursday nights.  

Nikita

Thank goodness this show has finally premiered.  Like Hellcats I’ve had the music and the promos for four months now, it’s time to get those scenes onto the screen so we can move past them.  Not that there aren’t good things there it’s simply that these pilots were shot back in the spring (or late winter) so this is all the CW has had to show us week after lengthy hellatus week…I’m tired of it already.

Well, Nikita has arrived, with a bang, a blast and a whole lot more.  It’s decent escapist fun that was enjoyable enough.  I think they’ve set themselves a pretty lofty task and time will tell if they’re able to deliver it week after week.  Maggie Q sells the role well.  As I said in a previous article I’m glad this isn’t some 20-something playing this role.  Well, turns out Nikita is 27, but thankfully she isn’t 22 – or as young as her mole is – and trying to convince me of her depth of experience and torment with life.  I believe Nikita lived a lot in the six or so years she’s been with Division and then on the run from Division.  27 year old Nikita works for me because Maggie is grounded in the role.

Is the storyline something that’s going to keep me coming back week after week?  I don’t know.  Each week, at least based upon what I saw in the Pilot, Nikita is going to have to disrupt and foil one of Division’s missions.  Hmm.  That’s a tall order.  Besides Alex on the inside who does she have to help her?  Hopefully someone is ‘backing’ her because otherwise it’s more than slightly farfetched.  

While I feel bad that her love was killed I don’t know how much I do sympathize with the character since she’s basically a killing machine out for revenge.  It’s slick, it’s fast, there’s plenty of action scenes and the dialogue isn’t terrible, the editing was quite good intercutting the young new recruit with Division between Nikita and the reveal at the end that this young new recruit isn’t so innocent but rather recruited and paired with Nikita herself was a nice surprise for me.  Perhaps others saw it coming, I didn’t so as a shocking reveal it worked.

As I’ve said before, time will tell if this can keep my attention as well as its own momentum going for 22 episodes, not to mention multiple seasons.  I’ll be watching it again next week and likely the following unless it really loses my attention.  There isn’t anything else on Thursday night at 9:00 that I watch anymore so it has no competition for my attention – however my sock drawer could compete if the premise doesn’t hold up.

Here we are a little over a week and a half until Supernatural premiers, the CW debuted its Wednesday and Thursday night lineups with Monday and Tuesday to come this week.  I won’t have anything to write on those because nothing on either night has caught my attention.  My Tuesdays are reserved solely for a double helping of NCIS goodness (hunks galore and decent writing and good acting).  I’m not surprised the CW chose to move 90210 to Monday; those shows are the least in this lineup and stand not a chance against the CBS juggernaut.  This way the spin will only have to be twice as spun for the Monday night ratings…they’d really have to break out the centrifuge if GG and 90210 were on Tuesdays trying to compete for any ratings.

We’re almost there.  This week there’s no more USA characters to enjoy but Hellcats, TVD and Nikita are all on my schedule for another go.  Next week I get to enjoy a double (actually triple) dose of NCIS as well as Criminal Minds (likely I’ll flip back and forth between Hellcats and Criminal Minds for the rest of the season.  With CBS firing one of the female leads and renegotiating the other female lead for a partial and final season I’m a bit peeved and not sure I’ll stay with the show, so somebody will have my viewing attention at 9:00 p.m. on Wednesdays (even if it’s the inside of my eyelids).  Then shortly thereafter we’ll be there…Supernatural premiers (yeah, after Smallville which I’ll watch ‘cause it’s the final season.)

So hang in there, Supernatural siblings, we’re almost there.

Thanks for reading, Elle2