The Vampire Diaries
Episode 20: The
Originals
By: Carlos Uribe
The
Vampire Diaries is a show about Elena's love triangle with two
vampires.
Spoilers
Ahoy!
The
Originals is actually a backdoor pilot that follows Klaus to New
Orleans. As with any backdoor pilot, three questions must be
answered:
1)
How good is the backdoor pilot?
2)
Does the potential spin-off have any potential?
3)
How does this spin-off impact the actual series?
The
Originals is actually a pretty great backdoor pilot. It had been
introduced last week when Klaus gets a quest from Katherine to check
out some witches. She tells them that they're plotting against him
but it turns out they only want his help in order to take down
Marcel. Marcel is a vampire that Klaus sired and now controls the
city of New Orleans. He's gotten the locals to look the other way,
the witches under his thumb, and has driven away the werewolves.
Marcel makes a great character in his mixture between his good nature
and the ruthless monster inside. The witches do resent him so they
want to force Klaus to take him down. They do this because it turns
out that Hayley is pregnant with Klaus' kid! This comes as a huge
shock since vampires can't procreate but the series explains this
away because Klaus is half-werewolf. I'll buy it. This allows the
series to basically provide the Originals with a baby to keep them
together as a family. It's basically the premise of a lot of family
sit-coms but it works with the Originals because family has always
been an important aspect to them all. Only Klaus doesn't really care
much for being a father. The only reason he agrees is because he
wants to take over Marcel's spot. As for his child? He'll let it live
because he needs a heir or something. It's a pretty decent set-up at
a series that has a lot of interesting machinations at work: vampire
politics and a last attempt to have a happy family.
The
potential for the spin-off is mixed. The main plot of the series is
established. The Original Family goes back to New Orleans so that
they can start a new family while Klaus seeks to take over the
vampire culture that's been set up there. I can get behind this
premise but it does have a few problems. The first is that it doesn't
answer why Klaus doesn't kill Marcel in the first place. This is
frustrating on two levels. The first is that the character of Klaus
should have just killed him as soon as Marcel got in his way. There
is nothing stopping him and it's actually part of the reason why
Klaus has become an ineffective villain on this show: he holds back
too much. The second is that the plot demands it because there's a
plan. There's something to be said for keeping mystery alive so it
makes sense that the writers wouldn't reveal the whole plan but they
should have at least explained why Marcel has to be kept alive. It's
kind of a big deal since a huge element of this new series is going
to be Klaus infiltrating Marcel's little kingdom. The whole Marcel
staying alive bit can be remedied but there is one problem that the
spin-off series is going have to solve and that's how to create the
proper stakes. Klaus is able to flaunt his immortality to Marcel but
that reveals a weakness to the spin-off: Klaus is immortal. It's hard
to do life-and-death stakes when Klaus can't die. So why then is
Marcel such a threat? The spin-off can be a good show but it's going
to have to deal with the stakes issue and why Marcel has to live
pretty quickly. It's also going to have to have quite a lot more
Elijah because Klaus remains a rather unlikeable character to act as
a proper protagonist.
The
answer to the third question is actually a little bit more
complicated so I'm going to split it up into two answers. The first
is going to deal with how the spin-off affects this specific episode.
The second is how the spin-off affects the series as a whole. The
Originals can hardly be called an episode of the Vampire Diaires. The
only plot development relevant to this season is when Elena gets
hungry enough for Damon and Stefan start to torture her. They only
appear at the beginning and the end of the episode. Katherine makes a
few more appearances but she's largely in the background. The mass
majority of the episode is spent with the characters who are going to
be in the spin-off project. The plot is singularly about that as
well. This is a slight curse as it slightly breaks the narrative
momentum. It's been building up over the whole season but having an
episode basically take a complete detour to unrelated events in New
Orleans breaks that momentum. Granted, there was some plot movements
(Hayley's pregnancy) in this backdoor pilot that came to be because
of what happened this season but for the most part it was separated.
Having the backdoor pilot dominate the whole episode is one way to do
a pilot but the break in momentum is going to make the surrounding
episodes suffer a bit as a consequence. Which is okay as I'm sure
this series will be able to easily rebuild the momentum, even if this
season as a whole has had a problem with it.
So
how does this spin-off affect the series as a whole? It removes a
certain element that was great for a while but has overstayed it's
welcome. I'm talking about the Originals, with the possible exception
of Elijah. There might be opportunity for cross-over but separating
them from the narrative will finally allow the Vampire Diaires to
properly move on. The whole mythology with the Originals and their
continual threat worked until the point where Klaus stopped being
such a credible threat to the characters. They did try to kill him
like a hundred times with very little relative cost. So it's good in
that by branching the Originals out the series will have room to
breathe again but it's also a bit sad because the Originals were a
big presence for a reason. They're still relatively fun and they can
always make a plot, like the search for the cure, more complicated.
I, for one, approve of sending the Originals to New Orleans but it's
not without some sadness that their era on the Vampire Diaries is
finally drawing to a close.
Will
the Originals be a good series? It might be but it'll have some
difficulties. Klaus isn't the most likeable protagonist, his
immortality renders the stakes irrelevant, and the reason Marcel gets
to stay alive needs to be explained. On the other hand, the backdoor
pilot was actually pretty good on it's own and it'll be interesting
to see where the Vampire Diaries goes now that the Originals aren't
going to be tying the writers down. The spin-off has been picked up
to series and you can bet that I'll be covering the first season.
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