Started watching The Originals on a whim - and am glad I did! I haven't seen the latest ep yet, but I like it so far.
I binged on The Vampire Diaries a while ago, compelled more by amused disbelief and morbid curiosity than anything else. Unsurprisingly, I quickly stopped watching again. However, despite the over-the-top soapiness, the evidently unintentional yet unbelievably intense campness and... shall we say erratic storytelling and occasionally puzzling U-turns in characterization, I grew quite fond of several characters. As it happens, Klaus was not one of these characters.
Imagine my surprise that The Originals works far better for me than TVD - and that Klaus, in this new series, also works far better for me. So far, this is clearly Klaus' show, even though several other characters are beginning to step up. I'm very okay with Klaus being the central fixed point around which everything else revolves, though. His psychotic hyper-woobiness and murderous self esteem issues are actually beginning to work for me here - plus, I'm a sucker for tortured anti-heroes struggling towards redemption. This entire series seems set up to be just that. At least, I very much hope so. If Klaus refuses to budge at all on the character development front, The Originals will probably soon lose its shine for me.
I also like Marcel, Rebekah and Camille, although the half dozen near-identical dark-haired women are a little ridiculous. Someone in the casting department needs to branch out a little.
Some aspects of the show make me a bit wary. For one thing, I remain on the fence about the pregnancy thing. Generally speaking, magical miracle babies are a horrendously bad thing for any series. (Seriously. Has anyone in the history of fiction ever done a magical miracle baby well? Maybe it's time everyone just stopped trying, huh?)
Also, the witch storyline is beginning to skirt dangerously close to some of the more exasperating TVD plotlines... I'd be sorry to see this show going down the Vampire Diary road
Time will tell. Knock on wood!
Are any of you watching The Originals? What do you think?