Breaking up with Vampire Diaries is hard to do

Have you ever heard the term hate watching? I first heard it from my daughter Sarah. She was watching Restaurant Stakeout and Mystery Diners on Food Network, shows I cannot stand and which I know she doesn't like either. So why, I asked, are you watching them? "Hate watching", she said, and followed that up with, "Don't hate me, bro."

Hate watching. Finding yourself watching something because you can't help yourself not to do it, even though you ate it. What an excellent term, and how very descriptive of what I've been doing with Vampire Diaries for a while now.














When Vampire Diaries first began, I wasn't interested in watching, but a former friend convinced me

to give it a try, and there just happened to be a marathon going on, so I did just that - and immediately fell in love with Damon Salvatore.

















He's handsome and sexy, and he has the most incredible blue eyes. And he's a vampire! What's not to love! I had already started to read the books, which I liked, and I realized immediately that major changes had been mind. Why, I don't know. Because the writers could? I've never understood why you like something, but feel the need to change the source material to something unrecognizable. That generally doesn't end well. It might work for a while, but sooner or later it fails. Look at True Blood and Dexter.

Let me state categorically that I have never liked Nina Dobrev as Elena, and she is a far cry from what the character was meant to be. Having said that, I preferred her to be with Stefan, and far away from Damon. I was not pleased when she left Stefan for Damon. I liked the unencumbered, bad boy, not the love-struck idiot he sometimes was.

One of my favorite scenes shows Damon doing a solo dance which was incredibly sex - right before he killed Vicki. I didn't care for her. Her brother Matt was a better character.

Over the few years I've been watching Vampire Diaries, it has decidedly gone downhill. Elena morphs from dead to vampire to alive in the blink of an eye. Stefan's stint as a Ripper - their term for a homicidal vampire who lives to kill - was ridiculous. What they did with Alaric, and the arc with his wife, was horrible. And Jeremy - I just wanted to kill him most of the time, especially doing his poor poor pitiful me periods. Bonnie.... not the same lovely girl as in the book, and often she was too judgmental for my taste, and although I like Caroline better, she had her moments. I liked when she slept with Klaus, whom I used to hate, but he grew on me. In fact, I like The Originals better than I do Vampire Diaries now. How sad is that?

The whole story arc with that ridiculous Kai (sp?) made me want to throw things at the TV, him and his awful family. And Alaric lost another girlfriend, this one pregnant. Tyler became a hybrid, and then not. Asshole and then... still asshole. Matt the asshole. Jeremy the asshole...

Where will it stop? Good grief. One day, I came to the realization, with the help of Sarah, that my continued watching of this show is ridiculous. After the end of the last season, where Elena goes into a deep slumber for maybe 60 years (although we know that won't happen, somehow she'll be brought back from that), I realized the next season will be filled with self-pitying Damon, and other stupid stuff.

The thought of watching that... well, I just can't do it.

So, although I love you, I'm letting you go. Be happy, Damon. The rest of you, I don't care what happens to you....

Rest in peace, Damon.