Vampire Diaries and the surprise plot revelation

Welcome to my ongoing fascination with the Vampire Diaries. It's pretty much the only show in the week that I watch in real time, and if I have to PVR it, I do a back up recording at another just in case my PVR screws up. Because you miss a show in this series and you miss a lot. They somehow manage to keep it moving at that pace, without losing the central relationships either.

And this week was no exception. They surprised me (pleasantly) twice with revelations I didn't see coming, but made absolute sense within the framework of the story and the plot, and more importantly the revelations made the external plot tighter and added some lovely character drama to all of it. Essentially, they kept it all within one family and did it brilliantly.

Lovely surprises happen when you write, really lovely twists and turns, but I'm still a big believer that the important twists, (like the big bad also being the big daddy) is usually something that takes some advance thought. I do some of this, but I never feel as though I do enough, and the Vampire Diaries, on a weekly basis, is convincing me to to do more advance plotting before I ever type a word.

Because it's not just the plot twists, it's the time they take with the central relationships. They seem to understand that because they have so much external plot keeping everything moving along, they can really take their time and develop relationships slowly, build to them and trust the viewer will follow along. And I'm in, and for the first time since the show began, they have two male leads that are fascinating.
Damon and Stefan, because one walks the edge of the line and the other has to be all or nothing, and the show is more about their relationship than it is about the romance between Elena and Stefan which was never that interesting to begin with and the writers seem to understand that as well.

And just finished the Night Circus and it's amazing... loved it, every page.