My Vampire (Diaries) Weekend

Guess what I saw last weekend? Vampires--in the flesh! It was so surreal and weird to see my favorite vampire brothers sitting not 30 feet away from me that at one point when I got back to reality and I was in the office I thought, Did that really happen? Was I actually in California the other day? Wasn't this all just my imagination?

No, it wasn't a dream.


I was there, and I ended up with some fantastic seats, sixth row and dead center! I debated on whether I'd be reporting about my trip because maybe no one cares about The Vampire Diaries here. But let me tell you, it all comes back to Twilight, so keep reading.


If you aren't familiar with the set up of Paley panels, basically it's like an annual film festival, but for television shows. I went to the Buffy one two years ago, and was so excited for this one. Although the line and crowd wasn't even nearly as insane as it was for Buffy, I noticed a lot of Vampire Diaries fans were also "other vampire" fans. I saw one woman wear the And then Buffy staked Edward. The End. t-shirt, and more people wearing Edward and New Moon gear than for The Vampire Diaries.

That's great, but it's things like this that perpetuate people who aren't into the whole vampire pop culture thing to think that all fans of any one of True Blood, Twilight, The Vampire Diaries, and Buffy--are inclusive of each other. Like we're not discerning fans. Me, I'm personally not into True Blood. (Although, when the panel started and the "specially selected" clip turned out to be a segment of Sarah Michelle Gellar in Buffy, there WAS quite a cheer.)


Mini rant aside, after the clip we got to watch the full upcoming episode "A Few Good Men" (where--attention Team Damon fans--someone finally gets shirtless) and then the cast and writers came out to take their seats.

Can I just reiterate again that seeing Damon and Stefan and Elena glowing on stage was most surreal. It's exactly like seeing them every week on television, only you're not looking at a flatscreen, you're looking at their actual faces--all gorgeous by the way, if you even have to ask.

The panel was very entertaining, very funny. It was like sitting in a living room talking with people you know. Ian Somerhalder is one Chatty Cathy dishing out the gossip and most of the funny business was his doing.


Lots and lots of cute moments between himself and Nina Dobrev and Paul Wesley, and the writers, Kevin Williamson and Julie Plec.


Speaking of which, Julie Plec (she's in the middle) is maybe my new hero of the moment and this is where I bring it back to Twilight. I was a little bit perturbed when the panel began with a discussion about the Twilight comparison. Please. Literally at one point it was just Kevin Williamson throwing his palms in the air going, "This is so Twilight, we can't do this. It's Twilight! It's SOOO Twilight!"

They were talking about how he and Julie Plec had opposing views on whether a television adaption of L.J. Smith's books would work, so they read the book to see what they could do. Kevin Williamson's opinion was the above, while Julie Plec, bless her, was basically like, Wow, who wouldn't want to do Twilight for TV? She explained how she had also just seen it and all she could talk about at their meetings were "Edward and Bella AND ROBERT PATTINSON!" Yep, she went there.

I wanted to have coffee with her right then and there to talk vampires--cause you know when you find someone else that actually gets visibily excited and turns into a 14-year-old when they talk about Edward and Bella, I'm drawn and I want to sit down and have a one-on-one. What did you love, what do you think?! Book versus movie? (P.S. I just came from lunch with an old friend and she requested I bring her New Moon--another converted, I can't wait!)

Julie Plec seemed like a sassy lady, in her black dress and funky merlot-colored patent leather wedges. I mean, she gets to do things like eat pancakes at IHOP while writing sexy lines for Damon to say and making executive decisions on whether Stefan should be with or without shirt in each episode (she actually does this, I didn't just make this up). How's that for a day's work?

There was another Twilight moment when Ian mentioned he's never seen Twilight (he says), but Nina has. Nina talked about this one instance where she had to tell Julie to change one of the lines she had to deliver as Elena. If you watch the show, you can recall the episode where Elena finds out that Stefan is a vampire. Apparently, the original line was for Elena say to Stefan, "Say it," and Nina recalled she said, "I cannot say this!" because she recognized it was exactly in Twilight! She asked the audience to remind her of what Bella said and someone shouted out, "Say it out loud!" Nina was like, "Oh yeah," and then even did her imitation of that Bella and Edward exchange. Julie Plec laughed and explained that she probably unintentially wrote it from her subconcious. In the end, the line that was delivered was, "What are you?"

At the end of the panel discussion the floor was open to audience questions. A girl in the back somewhere prefaced her question with a declaration for Nina, and then added something like, "...you're a way better actress than other vampire girlfriends" which was well received in the audience, but I immediated turned to Bestie to say, "Oh no she did NOT just diss Kristen Stewart!" Let's be real, I love Nina Dobrev in The Vampire Diaries too, but no need for that! Bestie even brought up the point of whether she was including Sarah Michelle Gellar into that comment--because that would have been as offensive to us (we heart SMG). Nina just laughed, I know it was all in good fun.



If you haven't watched The Vampire Diaries, you should give it a shot. It might not be your thing, but at least you know that one of its writers is one of us!

On a different note: ECLIPSE TRAILER. No words, but here's a 1280 x 700 screen cap:


I had to wait until I got home from work yesterday to watch the trailer, but I was on EW.com reading about it at my desk and I nearly gave myself away when I burst out laughing at one of the comments left:

Once again, Robert Pattinson looks like a powdered doughnut.

The comparison is so absurd I died!