The most surprising new show of the fall television season is "The Vampire Diaries."

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying it's the best new show this fall. But it's the one that has exceeded expectations the most.

And that, no doubt, has something to do with how exceedingly low expectations were for "The Vampire Diaries."

OK, I was pretty much expecting that all of the sucking wouldn't be done by just the vampires on this show.

Much to my surprise, this teen soap opera has been pretty darn watchable. Oh, it certainly has its hokey, over-the-top moments. It's about vampires, after all.

Hey, it's about teenagers. And teenagers have more than their share of hokey, over-the-top moments.

I'll admit that I'm a fan of vampires. When I was a kid — many, many, years ago — I used to race home from school to watch "Dark Shadows." My favorite character? The vampire, Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid), of course.

And I was a fan of the 1991 prime-time "Dark Shadows" remake.

As far as I'm concerned, the original, 1979 "Salem's Lot" miniseries is still one of the best made-for-TV horror shows of all time. (The 2004 remake was terrible, however.)

I've read all of Anne Rice's vampire books. And, ahem, I've read all of Stephenie Meyer's vampire books, too.

I actually have some respect for the books. But the "Twilight" movie was pretty laughable.

Which is one of the reasons it was hard to take "The Vampire Diaries" seriously. Oh, executive producer Kevin Williamson went on and on about how it would be different from "Twilight." And "The Vampire Diaries" books predate the "Twilight" series by 14 years.

Clearly, the folks at The CW were hoping that the popularity of "Twilight" would be a boost for "The Vampire Diaries." So it was hard not to think that the show wouldn't end up looking a lot like that laughable movie.

But it doesn't.

Yes, "The Vampire Diaries" is about a teenage girl in love with a vampire. But it's also about two vampiric brothers continuing their century-and-a-half rivalry. It's about other teens in the town of Mystic Falls being turned into vampires. It's about a teen who inherited powers from her family of witches.

It's about townsfolk who know the vampires have returned and are determined to fight them.

And "The Vampire Diaries" TV show is already better than the books on which it is based. That's sort of faint praise, because those books weren't particularly good, but it is a good sign.

Williamson has turned those books into an entertaining teen soap that's reminiscent in many ways of his earlier teen soap — the very watchable "Dawson's Creek."

Only with vampires.

e-mail: pierce@desnews.com