The problem in creating a vampire show post-True Blood is that vampires having to live their lives in secret is such a bore now. The vamps in Alan Ball’s series are out and proud; the vampire brothers on The CW’s The Vampire Diaries, adapted by Kevin Williamson from the young adult series by L.J. Smith, have to take precautions so that they won’t be found out. At least they have magic rings that allow them to appear in the daytime.

In a plot ripped directly from Dark Shadows, Stefan Salvatore (Paul Wesley) has returned to Mystic Falls because a high school student there named Elena (Nina Dobrev) bears an eerie resemblance to his long lost (as in 18th-century) love Catherine. And just to keep things interesting, Stefan’s older brother Damon (Ian Somerhalder, pictured left with Dobrev and Wesley) comes along for the ride, because he’s promised Stefan a “lifetime of misery.” Though it looks as if Somerhalder is the one in misery, since his icy good looks have disappeared under a head of fried hair and an ever-tightening face.

Unlike Twilight, The Vampire Diaries doesn’t just dwell on the budding romance between Elena and Stefan. We’re also subjected to an increasingly irritating subplot about Elena’s younger brother Jeremy (Steven R. McQueen), who is still reeling from the sudden deaths of their parents a few months before. We know he hasn’t come to terms with it because he gets high and peddles painkillers to the cooler kids at school. Plus there’s a mean teacher who snaps at his students and their guardians both, when he’s not being put in his place by Stefan. Apparently, the benefit to living for centuries is that you don’t have to study for history class.

Still, despite the clumsy teen plots and the sputtering chemistry between Dobrev and Wesley, there’s a darkness to The Vampire Diaries that’s a welcome change of pace from The CW’s usual fare. In the show’s most promising plot, Elena’s best friend Bonnie (Katerina Graham) sometimes suffers from frightening visions when she physically touches someone; Elena is often confronted with an angry black crow. And both the first two episodes have opened with elaborately designed cat-and-mouse vampire kills. These are hardly the class and social issues that plague the characters of Gossip Girl. If GG and The Beautiful Life: TBL are the 21st-century’s version of the champagne-and-caviar soap operas that make us feel better about not being rich or gorgeous or both, then The Vampire Diaries is the Brothers Grimm fairy tale that makes us glad to be safe at home, and not wondering what attacked a girl in the woods during a high school party.

The Vampire Diaries airs at 8pm on Thursdays.

Photo credit: Bob Mahoney / The CW