Is part of your Vampire Diaries -- which I was about to abbreviate until I realized that would be VD, although it's kind of appropriate -- opinion missing there? :) I think it's not great. The books were also not great in an objective way, but they had everything you needed in a yearning/obsession-inducing YA vampire melodramatic love story. Angst and Mary Sues, but not a Mary Sue as irritating as Twilight's. In the show, Elena has personality. Everyone knows her and talks about her, but I think in a way that's consistent with attitudes toward popular people in high schools. Stefan (the vampire hero) is bland. Damon (the evil vampire brother) is weird-looking and not super-compelling so far. Some people are already into the slash there, but it's not my thing. There's a lot of diary-writing on the hero and heroine's part. I don't remember if that was in the book so much. Could go very wrong very fast.

My main problem is the show isn't doing anything new (yet?). It's postmodern like BtVS and Angel were postmodern, poking fun at vampire brooding and claiming some parts of the myth while sardonically discarding others, but that's been done a lot now. Time for innovation, and there hasn't been innovation so far. There's been Angel and Louis in Stefan, a Ring/Gem of Amarra, some Cordelia/Buffy/Angel love triangle stuff from the BtVS premiere with Elena's friend/Elena/Stefan, some Willowesque lines for Elena. A few surprisingly good lines.

Also, a lot of blatant underage drinking. Weird.

Uh. Sorry you asked?