Tomorrow Is Another Day

I actually had all my notes done Wednesday evening, but didn't get around to writing this up until tonight. I guess that's the upside to the only person who responds not being able to watch the show until the weekend, LOL!

( It's all about the Elijah! )

This all feels so far away and yet so familiar. Hmm… I'm not sure how many people will read this, but anyhoo, here I am once more.

( Why am I doing this? )

You guys... it has been only FIFTEEN DAYS! That's right it barely took me two weeks to get the next section up! Is that not amazing? I'm so proud of myself. (WHEE!) Now I know the next section will take a lot longer because it has a LOT of stuff in it as it is basically an overview of ALL of my favorite things about TVD, so yeah, that will take a while, but, you guys, FIFTEEN DAYS between sections! Part two of what I consider the best episodes of the series. (NOTE: Not my favorite episodes, but the best in terms of writing, direction, arcs, least amount of confuzzling moments, etc.) You'll find the last 25 here listed in chronological order. As in the first section, I have my description of each episode and why I consider them the best to a paragraph or two. Read on....

( O Come, All Ye Faithful )

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'THE VAMPIRE DIARIES' WRAP-UP THOUGHTS

- Major Unresolved Issues
- Minor Unresolved Issues
- Missed Opportunities
- THE Love Story
- Seasons 01-04 Favorite Scenes and Moments
- Seasons 05-08 Favorite Scenes and Moments
- 25 Favorite Characters
- 50 Favorite Episodes, Part 1/2 (25/50)

Note: Although I posted the Britney Spears ranking already, this is the first one I did.

So Demi Lovato's epic "Tell Me You Love Me" video got me thinking of other awesome videos out there and I randomly decided that I wanted to rank music videos of certain singers and the first one who came to mind was Taylor Swift because she's had some great ones that I've really enjoyed. So I sat down and watched them all and did my ranking. Firstly, I did not include the few videos that was just concert footage so "Fearless," "Sparks Fly," "Red," "The Last Time," and "New Romantics" are not included. Also, I am big on story over high-concept. Finally, this obviously was way subjective.

( Taylor can't come to the phone. )

Yeah, I know it's been like a century. Anyone who's reading these probably thought I had forgotten or was no longer doing them. Nope, just realllly taking my time. Phew! Anyhoo, here is the next section of my Vampire Diaries eight part wrap-up series. I was originally going to just have my 20 favorite characters, but eventually decided to expand it to 25. I'm not sure why, but, hey, it's my list, my series of posts, so why not? I was very good, kept all of this to roughly one paragraph except for the first two. These are in chronological order. I don't imagine there will be too many surprises. Enjoy! (Just a heads up... more comments does encourage me to write these faster!)

Alrighty then, let's get to it…

( Because )

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'THE VAMPIRE DIARIES' WRAP-UP THOUGHTS

- Major Unresolved Issues
- Minor Unresolved Issues
- Missed Opportunities
- THE Love Story
- Seasons 01-04 Favorite Scenes and Moments
- Seasons 05-08 Favorite Scenes and Moments

Continuing with my final Vampire Diaries series—and the good stuff—here are my favorite scenes or moments. (You may notice it now says /8 instead of /10. That's because I realized that I can get this done in eight and I'm glad because I like the symmetry of eight parts to go with eight seasons.) Some of these may surprise you and some scenes/moments *not* on here will likely be surprising as well. Firstly, I originally was only going to have only 25 scenes/moments but there were just way too many to cut down so I went up to 50 instead. And then I was ruthless; I took my couple-girl bias out of the equation and just tried to take the scene and/or moment on the basis of its own merit (with a bit of the overall narrative at play). (Spoiler alert: This means that certain dances and love scenes are not present!) Because I am wordy, I had to break this up into two different posts. Shocking, I know!

Here we go…

( Do You Remember the First Time? )

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'THE VAMPIRE DIARIES' WRAP-UP THOUGHTS

- Major Unresolved Issues
- Minor Unresolved Issues
- Missed Opportunities
- THE Love Story

Once more into the fray with my Final Vampire Diaries series. Here are my ten missed opportunities. Most of these truly are "missed opportunities" rather than "wishful thinking" or "fantasies" in most cases. These are stories or scenes that I genuinely feel could (and some *should*) have come out of the existing narrative, mythology and/or character arcs. (OK, fine, a few are pure wish fulfillment fantasies.) Each section is listed in order of the most glaring (in their yearning) in my opinion as a viewer. And because I am eternally this show's bitch, I also offered up a devil's advocate position on some (most) of these points—if possible (almost always so).

Here we go…

( Haunted )

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'THE VAMPIRE DIARIES' WRAP-UP THOUGHTS

- Major Unresolved Issues
- Minor Unresolved Issues

Anyone who reads my Vampire Diaries commentary is well aware of how much I love this show. It is officially my all-time favorite and I was very happy and quite satisfied with the finale. Overall, I think that for a series that ran for eight seasons with 161 episodes, executive producers Julie Plec (who alone helmed the show from day one), Kevin Williamson and Caroline Dries, did a marvelous job in maintaining a steady narrative, remaining true to that narrative, their core characters and the mythology. With that said… in what wound up being the mid-way point of the series—season 04—I decided that when The Vampire Diaries eventually came to an end, I would look back over the whole shebang and do an assessment of any unresolved issues I might have.

This idea was predicated on the premise that I wouldn't be disappointed by the overall outcome when that end arrived, but some things may not quite work for me when all was said and done. As expected, despite The Vampire Diaries living up to its overall awesome, there were indeed some issues left unresolved; I came up with 10 in total. There were five that I considered fairly major that I truly do wish had been resolved, and five minor ones that didn't affect the overall narrative. They matter enough though that they will probably always bother me just enough that I take note whenever I re-watch the series. Now, while thinking this through I realized that some of my issues weren't issues at all, but rather wish fulfillment fantasies that never came true so I decided to create a third category: Missed opportunities. And they really are "missed opportunities" rather than "wishful thinking" or "fantasies" in most cases. These are stories or scenes that I genuinely feel could (and some *should*) have come out of the existing narrative, mythology and/or character arcs. (OK, fine, a few are pure wish fulfillment fantasies. See: Numbers seven and eight.)

Each section is listed in order of the most glaring (either in their egregiousness or yearning) in my opinion as a viewer. And because I am eternally this show's bitch, I also offered up a devil's advocate position on some (most) of these points—if possible (almost always so). Being me, this wound up a lot longer than originally intended so I have separated each section into three parts. My major unresolved issues can be found in this post. (And an aside... once these are done, as promised, I will be working on a few more posts in a Vampire Diaries appreciation bonanza.)

Alrighty then, let's get to it…

( You're Undead To Me )

And here is the second part of my REALLY long post.

( Yes, there is more. )

ETA: Heads-up… because I totes could not love this show more if I tried, I plan on doing a slow rewatch in which I will jot down notes (as I have done for previous first-run watches) and write new posts. Some will borrow heavily from earlier done posts, others will have completely new, mostly positive (I'm sure) slants. I am partly doing this because after (finally) doing season 01, I found SO MUCH MORE to enjoy and savor in that season and subsequent seasons by delving deeper. I'm also doing it because in earlier seasons (02, 03 and even 04), I hadn't quite established a rhythm in how I was doing these. Another reason is because up through the end of season 03, I was not only following spoilers, but I was viewing the show pretty much only through a Damon/Elena lens and that was factoring into my enjoyment of the overall show and the story that was being being told. And then until midway through season 04, I was still kinda following spoilers enough that my enjoyment was impacted here and there. Yet another reason is that real life events in season 04 and season 06 affected my pleasure over the course of the last 3-4 episodes of those seasons. Finally, a dear friend of mine will hopefully start watching the show soon and I want her to be able to join in discussion with my updated posts. I am sharing all this to say that I invite any all of of you who are still sticking around with me to follow along with me, rewatching, commenting, etc. :)

So, I wanted to let peeps know that the post is coming. However, it probably won't be up until Saturday or Sunday at the earliest. This one? Is going to be looooong! My pre-post notes are over 2,000 words alone. I have already made 71 gifs and while organizing my pre-post notes, I realized that I have more I still have to make. So, yeah, this is going to take a bit more time. But it is coming, and it will not take months or weeks. I promise! I mean, I really, really don't think so. I totally hope to get this bad boy up by the end of next Sunday. :)

PS: I still intend to write a series overview post that talks about everything I love about the show, and post alongside it my few issues that were never resolved. But that may take a bit longer.

ETA: Yeah, I totes lied. *sigh* This bad boy is very likely NOT going to be done by tommorow. People, there are 100 gifs. I have not even finished the Damon/Elena section--which is at the start of the post--and I'm already near 1,700 words. In other words, this post is going to be ridiculously MASSIVE. But it's also going to take time.