TVL: a reaction commentary
Regarding my thoughts and analysis on the tv show "The Vampire Lestat", being the 3rd season of another titled show "Interview with the Vampire"
Disclaimer: My opinions here are twofold: 1) they are rife with spoilers for the show and books-I will not be careful (you have been warned), and 2) to articulate the complex emotions which are currently living in my mind (and not paying any rent!).
I have waited 30+ years for this novel in Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles to see adaptation to the screen, large or small. My teenage self never doubted that it would happen.
I (attempted) to remain stoic and open-minded as the show loomed- despite listening to advance songs dropping and the INCESSANT social media clips of Sam Reid everywhere!-and prepared my wife for the journey ahead by talking about the book WAY TOO MUCH!
I failed. I was not objective. I was enthralled. Obsessed! And it was the high point of my summer off as an English Teacher.
Below I will attempt to explain my opinions, reasonings, and score the season through the following lens:
Artistic Entertainment (Was I entertained?)
Adaptive Excellence (Did I believe the material was treated well?)
Assessing Execution (How do I critique the show as a product?)
3 A’s. Well, we will see-won’t we?!?!?
The Past
It’s November 1994. My girlfriend (still in HS), her friend, and I stand in line at a Las Vegas Movie Theater that no longer exists. I have convinced them to come with me to the opening of the film to see it-in the afternoon. I might even have skipped a class as a freshman in college to see it (I was attending UNLV at the time).
I was rainy-or at least wet-and I was excited! They were too. My memory is that we all read the book over the summer (maybe I read it slightly before that), and we were dipping our toes into Vampire: The Masquerade (the TTRPG) at the time. We were full of neurosis, an enthralling gothic mindset, and the sexual heat of vigorous teenagers.
In short, we were ideal fodder for Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Kristen Dunst, and Anne’s incomparably dysfunctional exploration of sensuality, vampirism, and family dynamics.
I was not prepared.
The film was “perfect” to my then self. I liked Louis far more in the film than the book, and the movie-making magic of it even sold me on Tom’s Lestat. But I knew a secret: that the Lestat in that book was “not the real one” but a villain crafted by Louis’s interpretation of the past.
10 years after publishing Interview with a Vampire, Anne had released The Vampire Lestat. There was another version of the truth. And like every bickering couple: two sides to that truth.
My verdict: Louis was a Liar; and Lestat was a Living God.
After the viewing, I told people to only watch the movie. Forget that book! Start with the truth, START with The Vampire Lestat!
After all, those of us who know, know it is only part 1 of a duology that climaxes and delivers with The Queen of the Damned.
The Present
Fast forward to now, May 2026. I had imbibed two glorious seasons of Interview with a Vampire, and know that Tom Cruise is NOT Lestat.
Sam Reid has delivered two seasons of powerful performances, tapping into Lestat in ways that are, frankly, preternatural. The advanced promos for TVL are blowing my mind. He is going to be Lestat THE ROCK GOD!
Again, I was not prepared.
Week after week, episode after episode, I was drawn in, deeper and deeper.
Emotional Notes (by episode count):
DID I JUST MAINLINE ROCK n ROLL?!? Baby Jenks!-wait a minute…
Oh my, Wolfkiller and Gabrielle(a?). I am slightly confused.
Oh Trauma, WTF Magnus? Regina is who exactly…?
BIG BOSS! Yup, that’s peak Armand there.
MIND BLOWN! Stained Glass Eyes…on repeat for a week.
LOUSTAT for reals, right…guys?…guys!? MERRICK!
BRUTAL LOVE and the Long Table. WTF?
Ok, that is essentially the short version.
Each week AMC dropped an EP of the songs and I consumed them. I avoided Reddit (mostly) until later in the season, when I needed a place to compare notes. But I was worried, exhausted, fascinated, and obsessed in a constant rotation.
I also went back to the novel and was astounded by how much is buried in the show’s dialogue, song lyrics, and spirit. This show was made by people who love the material, have (massive) talent, and it shows.
But is it right?
The Critique
Ok, lets get down to business now:
Artistic Entertainment (Was I entertained?)
In a word: yes. That much should be obvious. The cast is great, Daniel Hart kills it with the songwriting, and I regretted nothing about the time spent at the TV or listening to the songs on Apple Music or thinking about the show.
But it was A LOT. It was over the top, and it took mad-mad-mad swings for a prestige TV show.
I can’t even really compare it to anything, which is exactly how I feel about the books…(next)
Adaptive Excellence (Did I believe the material was treated well?)
This is where I go in 7 different directions.
The spirit of the characters and plots are there. But the use of such a variety of sources is complex. I wanted a straight adaptation with “additions,” and that was not what we got.
IWTV did a better job at being straight, even with all the changes it still worked surprisingly well. I still like it better than the book.
TVL is NOT that. It’s a wholly other thing. I give them high marks for continuity of the plot, but low marks for actually adapting the damned book.
Is it all there? Wolfkiller-yes. Magnus’s toxic turning and its effects on Lestat-check. Gabrielle-a? Nope. Not really there. The flashbacks are mostly her, but modern Gabs is a whole other character with new plotlines. Marius and Akasha’s first rousing-yes-in effect its excellent! But short.
And this is where I get worried.
As the season continued, there was a merging of plots from Merrick, Tale of the Body Thief, and various aspects of Night Island. We saw some sprinkling of things in IWTV seasons 1&2, and I considered them smart. Now I think the approach is vastly becoming one of compression. And selective reasoning.
What will be cut from QotD? Clearly, we are going to get a new interpretation of that work. And I don’t know if I like that. The longer the season sits with me, the more bothered I am by Daniel, Armand, & Gabriella’s storyline shifts.
Louis’ changes and the twists around Regina are interesting and give us more of Delainey Hayes-which is great! But the other characters…we are getting onto a path where this is another story entirely.
Is that a bad thing?
Well, I-do. not. know. TotBT is a problematic book, and its were my love for Anne’s written story tapers off considerably. I am sincerely ok with Armand book (The Vampire Armand) being only used for inspiration; we don’t really need a page-to-screen version. We really do not.
Memnoch the Devil…yeah I don’t know I want this at all. Change the crap out of that.
But Queen of the Damned? Keep it tight folks, please.
Assessing Execution (How do I critique the show as a product?)
Ok, now we have the difficult one.
Is the show a successful product? Nope. I do not think that it is.
Who was this made for? It wasn’t people who haven’t read the book, cause they are LOST! My wife could barely follow this at all, and she kept up with GoT just fine, never having read a single page.
I used “confused” as a emotional descriptor, and I know this book!
I had to listen to “Your Biggest Fan” 3 times before I realized that it was a very accurate story of Magnus’ section of the book! And the Gabrielle storyline from the book is nested into “Hit the Lights” and “The Loneliness” and “Cabbage” AND “When I Call out Your Name.” Book fans are not going to look this hard at a TV Show! Hell, “Hit the Lights” is a powerful piece of lyric writing about that relationship, and it barely is featured in the show at all.
Now, IF you are a fan of the show, a fan of the books, and love some T.S. album analysis/digging…then you are at the apex of the venn diagram of person who will appreciate this show. And that assume you watch the After Dark episodes and obsess on the socials about all the little nuggets littering the ground around the show.
So this is where I slam you all. “The Failures” was a great theme, but it’s honestly where dropped the ball on execution. You ask too much of the fan to understand the show.
Please make 4 more seasons, though. ‘Cause I also believe in your talent and understand I have only seen part (maybe half) of what you wanted me to see.
Louis is not a liar. His story is his truth through his perspective, colored by grief and guilt and self loathing. Lestat's story is through his own eyes, colored by longing. We protect ourselves in our retellings. Exes are people too: complicated and messy and difficult to love and so easy to desire.
Brad Pitt was playing moody recluse. He does it well. Legends of the Fall? A River Runs Through It? Tom Cruise was actually playing AGAINST type. I gave up on Interview with the Vampire, the tv show, for exactly the reasons you identified regarding diverting from the plot. Granted, the New Orleans of the period in the novel was a more complex and gritty place than Louis' telling exposed. It is a story told through white eyes that downplays the complex racial, social, and economic realities of Spanish control of a previously French holding that was playing host to refugees fleeing the Haitian revoltuion. Moving the setting to 1910s Louisiana, presumably to incorporate better music, and infusing the story with the racial politics of the region and era distracted from the core purpose and message of the novel. Louis was a person trapped in an endless loop of grief, guilt, and self-pity. He is a self-destructive character who is denied his ability to self-destruct. He blames Lestat. He traps Claudia, who also blames Lestat. All Lestat wants is to be loved...forever. Is that so hard?