The Vampires Diaries, styled as a Twilight-esque show about vampire brothers and the girl they love, debuted last night on the CW. Suprisingly, the marketing worked: the show had 4.9 million viewers, a record for the premiere of any show on that network. Beyond the show's apparent success, the show still has a lot of work to do. I know, I watched it last night. It, so far (and I'll be fair, it was only the first episode),  has yet to live up to its stunning promotion advertisements, one of seen left. I love looking at the ads shows put out; I think it's one of the most important things. Anyway, most of the promos focused on the love triangle that had yet to be: the main vampire's, Stefan's, more violent (and less of a wet blanket) brother Damon. But the fact remains that this show has a LOT of potential, especially given the recent success of other vampire-oriented things.

Speaking of those other things, specifically the similarly plotted True Blood and Twilight, is The Vampire Diaries just another Twilight rip-off? It is suspiciously timed, but the novels it is based off (and those of the True Blood series) were published long before Stephenie Meyer penned Twilight. So just how similar are these stories? I explain in the chart below: