About a year ago I reviewed “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” — a show that began in 1997 and saw a teenage girl balancing vampire hunting with typical teen angst and other supernatural forces.

Well, I thought we’d dip into that genre once again with 2009’s “The Vampire Diaries” series.

In all fairness, this show isn’t exactly something I would have chosen on my own. However, a friend of mine is having me watch it… with plans to also watch other shows in the universe — “The Originals” and “Legacies.”

Although I’m not quite done with this series I’m well over halfway through so I feel I can give a good assessment. Plus, with the holidays, I didn’t get the chance to watch anything else.

Without further introduction, let’s get into it.

“The Vampire Diaries” is based on a book series of the same name by L.J. Smith and ran for seven seasons, from 2009 until 2017.

The bulk of the story centers around Elena Gilbert (Nina Dobrev), a recently orphaned teenager who falls in love with 161-year-old vampire Stefan Salvatore (Paul Wesley) in their hometown of Mystic Falls, Va. A town that has a very supernatural past that bled into the present, which is unknown to Elena.

The pair’s love faces many different tests in the series, particularly from Stefan’s brother Damon (Ian Somerhalder) — a, quite frankly, terrible and sadistic vampire. (Seriously, I can’t stand Damon even if his one liners are entertaining at times.)

So begins a love triangle that lasts a decent amount of time and is the least interesting part of the entire series in my eyes.

Elena, Stefan and Damon certainly anchor the entire storyline but are joined by a large cast throughout the series. My particular favorites are Elena’s friends Caroline Forbes (Candice King) and Bonnie Bennett (Kat Graham). Genuinely, Elena doesn’t deserve either of them and I will fight anyone over that.

The typical teen angst and extremely dramatic scenes cut to a popular song aside, the way the supernatural universe was built in this show is actually pretty interesting.

The vampires have their own lore that dates back thousands of years with an original family that were turned into vampires; werewolves are floating around with the two species being mixed to create hybrids; ghosts, of course, make an appearance; and witches are very prominent throughout the series and cause a lot of chaos, too. You’ve also got hunters and 2,000 year old witches from an ancient society that manage to complicate our main cast’s lives and a lot more.

With all this in mind, you will absolutely find holes to poke. My suggestion is don’t, unless you want to be entertained by just how absolutely insane the story gets from time to time… which it does.

Overall, “The Vampire Diaries” is certainly entertaining, not something I’d have picked out on my own but I’ve had fun watching it. The key is to not treat it like it’s a serious show with groundbreaking stories. At the end of the day it really is about a teenage girl who’s caught in a love triangle with two brother’s from the 1800s. (Just typical girly things, ya know?) My advice is focus on the side characters, they’re typically far more compelling.

Well, once I’ve hit the next show in this series, maybe I’ll be back to review it. It has some of my favorite characters from this show in it, so I’m sure I’ll like it more.

“The Vampire Diaries” is rated TV-14 and may be watched on Max, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, Vudu, Google Play, Apple TV.

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Laura Jameson is Managing Editor for The Express.