Official Synopsis
This sexy and thrilling new series from The Vampire Diaries’ executive producer centers on the Original vampire family and the dangerous vampire/werewolf hybrid, Klaus (Joseph Morgan), who returns to the magical melting pot that is the French Quarter of New Orleans — a town he helped build centuries ago. Acting on a mysterious tip that a plot is brewing against him, Klaus’ questions lead him to his diabolical former protégé, Marcel (Charles Michael Davis), a charismatic vampire with total control over the human and supernatural inhabitants of the city. Determined to help his brother Klaus find redemption, Elijah (Daniel Gillies) follows Klaus and is soon forced to side with Marcel’s enemies. Meanwhile, Klaus and Elijah’s sister, Rebekah (Claire Holt), must decide if she’ll join her brothers in New Orleans and help them to reclaim their hometown and all its extraordinary offerings. Phoebe Tonkin also stars, among others.
This show is the tale of two halves; one is that of an episodic Buffy-like half, while the other half is a solid storyline that keeps things tightly knit. Let me break it down a bit.
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The first half of the first season of The Originals is one that doesn’t know what it wants to do. We are introduced to the Mikaelson siblings, spun-off from The Vampire Diaries, who have come back to New Orleans to reclaim the town they lost in 1919 due to an unfortunate run in with their crazed father. The trio (Klaus, Elijah and Rebekah) discover that their once lost protégé, Marcel, is running the town now and is keeping everyone in it very much in check, including witches, who don’t like being kept in check. The re-emergence of the original vampires causes a stir in the town, which leads Marcel to do incredibly ‘bad’ things to not only ensure the peace, but also ensure his reign of power is uninterrupted.
Honestly, it’s a helluva way to start a series. You’ve got three fantastic vampires coming back to reclaim what is rightfully theirs. One vampire, made by them, isn’t going to give it up. It’s a story that only good horror movies are made. A good start for a show is worth its weight in gold, but the trick here is to maintain that good start and don’t lose focus of what you’re trying to do with the story.
Sadly, the story does drift off onto different avenues. Marcel’s assurance of power is driven by a powerful witch named Davina, who can pretty much do what she wants, though controlled by Marcel, but is later killed — though only briefly. The extreme measures taken by Marcel to keep the Mikaelson’s out of commission at the very least should warrant death for him, though later in the first half of the season a truce is punched out between he and Elijah. Other things start playing into the story, such as witches taking control of the town, as well as a priest stepping into the mix. On top of that, there is a werewolf pregnancy (not as bad as you just read it) and human involvement. These are little pieces that continually get added on to the story, though by the end of the first season don’t seem to build up to what you’re left with in the show. At times, they seem like attempts of trying to get the story on track with something constant, as if the writers were searching for some sturdy tracks to latch onto.
If the first half of the season proves anything, it’s that the show simply cannot find firm ground to stand and walk on. Episodics are nice, but this type of show wasn’t built for an episodic flow. It doesn’t know what it wants to concentrate on. Should it concentrate on the Mikaelson’s trying to recapture New Orleans? Should it concentrate on Klaus’ future baby, which is in the future leader of the werewolves’ belly? Should it concentrate on Davina and what she means in the grand scheme of things? Should it focus on the witches and their involvement in the story? It has no idea what it wants to do and it goes about trying to figure that out as an episodic adventure, which is not what this show deserves. It all comes off as a messy beginning.
To be fair, most shows are like this in their first season.
At this point of the show, you really have no idea if the story is going to shave off some things and regroup to find some focus on what it wants to do. It doesn’t appear to have enough effort to push beyond its episodic constraints. Its writing seems to be all over the place and just can’t possibly find its way back to something coherent and meaningful.
And then it does.
The second half of The Originals finds what it needs — focus on the family. The outside elements of Marcel, the witches and Hayley (werewolf baby-momma) seem to play second fiddle to the internal destruction written for the Mikaelson’s. Their past deeds against each other start to come out, as its revealed that Rebekah, with the help of Marcel, called out to the trio’s evil father Mikael to chase out her brother Klaus from New Orleans, so she could find happiness with Marcel. This move was the catalyst for the trio to vacate New Orleans and adds more character and depth to their family.
This one simple plot point in the story gives birth to more depth of our main characters and even some depth to Marcel. It also gives complete focus on the family’s goals and what they want in the end. Elijah wants to keep his family, Klaus wants to reign over New Orleans and Rebekah simply wants to feel love and be loved. All of this happens and creates depth because the writing focused on specific characters/situations and stopped creating new ones.
Because of this focus, the show builds a motif about the need for family. It does a great job with showing the dysfunctional nature of the Mikaelson family that has lived together for centuries.This motif begins to find its way to Hayley and her need to get to know her werewolf heritage. It extends to the priest and his need to connect with his niece. It also finds its way to Marcel and his relationship with the Mikaelson’s, the family who created and nurtured him. It adds impactful meaning to the end of the show and the decisions the characters have to make to see their plans through. More importantly, you get something that you didn’t get with the first half of the season, you begin to give a damn about the characters. That is a sign of a show that has solid direction and good writing.
By the time you get to the end of the first season of The Originals, all of these deep characters and focused story pays off, as you get a season ender that leaves you wanting more.
I can’t say that The Originals gave me much hope with its shaky dialogue at the beginning and unfocused direction, but it certainly made up for it towards the end. The story gets on track and the characters begin to feel real towards the latter half of the first season. That is a good way to end it.
As for the Blu-ray portion of this release, damn it’s good. Another Warner Home Video Blu-ray transfer that proves that WHV cares about its shows and how they look in HD. It’s easy to see in The Originals how good the HD can shine through with nice locales set up for it, as well as plenty of gorgeous gothic characters, settings and moments to thrive on Blu-ray. Not to mention that there is a large amount of blood, which also looks spectacular in HD, though gross in general. Anyway, blues, browns, yellows, blacks, whites and reds shine through in this HD transfer in a crisp and clean fashion. You won’t see any artifacts or graininess in this transfer, nor will you see any signs of color banding — which is impressive considering how many night shots there are in the show. The only downer here is the effects, which tend to look goofy at times and take away from the beautiful scenery and shots. All in all, the Blu-ray HD transfer was fantastic. Another winning release for WHV’s trophy case.
On the features side of things, here’s what to expect:
– Commentary from creator Julie Plec and director Chris Grimmer
– 2013 Comic-Con Panel
– The Originals: Origins
– The Original Vampires: A Bite-Sized Backstory
– The Originals: Re-mixing History
– The Originals Panel at PaleyFest 2014
– Unaired Scenes
The commentary is solid, though I would have loved to get some of that on each episode. The featurettes are pretty darn good, as you get a bit more beef to your burrito in terms of origins and how things were created. The comic-con panel is good, as is the set of unaired scenes. While I won’t say this is the greatest set of features for a television show, I do commend it for being thorough and helping the show itself out in terms of adding depth and a bit more interest.
You won’t be disappointed with the value added here.