BLOGS
On the surface, these two teen dramas created/produced by Kevin Williamson seem to have little in common. One is about a wholesome group of kids growing up in a harbor community in the Northeast and dealing with their normal, non-supernatural, everyday issues. The other is about a few blood-sucking vampires who have tormented a small Virginia town for centuries. However, when we put the two shows side by side, we quickly realized that they have a lot more in common than one might initially think.
Nice Guys
DC: Our titular hero is the kindly best friend to all, obsessed with movies and would give anyone the shirt of his back.
VD: The hero, who keeps the titular diary, is a vampire who likes old movies, doesn't kill people for blood and would sacrifice himself in order to keep his loved ones safe.
Bad Boys
DC: Pacey was the son of the chief of police, reveled in trouble-making behavior, slept with a teacher and often took off running whenever things got messy.
VD: Damon has the town sheriff after him, delights in all manner of bad behavior, killed a teacher and makes big bloody messes and then takes off running.
Dark-Haired Ingénue
DC: Joey was the sweet girl who was taken for granted by her male best friends until she finally hit puberty.
VD: Elena is the elegant sweet girl who has made her ancient vampire boyfriend feel like he was young and in love again.
Tempting Blondes
DC: Jen Lindley was the sexy girl who got sent to live with her prim and proper grandmother in Capeside because of a sex scandal.
VD: Caroline is not quite as overtly sexy as Jen, but she sure has no problem hooking up with a mysterious new guy in Mystic Falls in order to get attention. She lives at home with her rule-abiding mother, the town sheriff.
Hallucinating Girl
DC: Andie had a whole heap of mental problems that caused her to hallucinate her dead brother at one point.
VD: Bonnie doesn't have hallucinations so much as premonitions, but her friends think that instead of being psychic, she might be mentally unstable.
Townie Culture Clash
DC: There was much talk about Joey being from the poor side of town, and even Pacey ended up working as a hired hand for a while. Definitely a big rift between the classes in Capeside.
VD: Vicki constantly talks about being from the poor, dead-end part of Mystic Falls and worries that she's going to be stuck there forever.
Unfit Guardian
DC: Her mother was dead and her father was in jail, so Joey's upbringing was in the hands of her older sister, who had a baby of her own to cope with.
VD: Elena's parents died, so she's being raised by an aunt who is far more interested in her own social life than coping with her Elena and her brother. And Vicki also has an absentee mother, no father and seemingly no adult supervision at all.
Random Entrances
DC: Joey famously used a ladder to climb through Dawson's window for visits, and traveled by boat to get to his house.
VD: While they don't always enter through the window, Stefan and Damon easily arrive for (mostly unannounced, often unwanted) visits via any available opening.
Love Triangle
DC: Best friends Pacey and Dawson were often at each other's throats competing for Joey's affection.
VD: Brothers Stefan and Damon nearly resort to killing each other in order to win the affection of Elena (and before that her doppelganger Katherine).
Hip Lingo
DC: One of the trademarks of the show was that the teens were very verbose and used gigantic vocabularies in their highly-adult sounding conversations.
VD: Although Damon's actually older than any adult, he strives to stay relevant by using current LOLcat and text messaging slang in order to come off as younger.
Horror Themes
DC: In the first season, Dawson was obsessed with making a horror movie, and later in the series the teens spent time on a seemingly haunted island. Oh, and their ratings dropped, which was also terrifying.
VD: Instead of making a horror movie, the characters in this show are actually living in one, running for their lives from a deadly vampire. And I'm sure there's more than a few spirits haunting that creepy old graveyard.
Additionally, both series have a weird obsession with old things. On Vampire Diaries, it's all about the compasses, other heirlooms and the age-old vampires. On Dawson's Creek it was Grams.
OK. I'm probably going to hell for that one. Other similarities you've spotted? Share them below.
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I think you mean Damon as the VD bad boy.
Pacey was not the bad boy. Dawson was a self-obsessed prick and a terrible friend.
Hey...every generation needs their Dawson dramarama. Fangs or no fangs.
You mean the CW is recycling shows?..Wow
ALL of the CW shows are essentially the same catering to 8 year old girls with all of the same cliches. Another thing they have in common - absolute crap.
Joshua Jackson is a good actor though and I think he will have a great career in front of him on tv and in film. (He was my pick to be Anakin Skywalker)
I thought Stefan was the nice vampire?
I've actually been thinking along the same lines myself re: DC and VD.
@ AJ Simon - try Supernatural on the CW. NOT for 8-year-olds and very good...
I'm totally calling that Damon and Elena gets together by the end of the series. Characters like Stefan are better in short doses like movies, whereas Damon is made for TV style character growth.
Wasn't Dawson's Creek also set in Virginia?
DC was set in Capeside,Massachusetts. try googling something the next time.
I really dont think that these shows are much alike. Your comparisons are quite distant, and are trying to hard to make these shows similar.
I don't think these shows are similar at all. Sure they are all teenagers dealing with life as they know it (Human or vampire and your comparisons are bit stretched.
I am a late bloomer. I was not able to catch the series on TV. But purchased all the seasons after running into a few afternoon repeats. And I loved it so much I bought a set for my mom. We laughed and talked about the episode's after and we cried and remembered just how hard it was to be a kid and a parent back when I went threw some of that high school junk as a kid. Love the charecters. Can't say enough about the series.charecters
Vampire Diaries is actually based off a series of books written by L.J. Smith in the mid-90's. They're pretty good. If you enjoy reading you'll like them, however, there are a lot of discrepancies between the books and the show so . . . *shrugs*